You can find tons of funny stuff in the Marvel Universe Handbook. Did you, for instance, know the following?

  1. Matt is not only blind, he apparently doesn’t actually hear all that well either.

    According to the MUH, his hearing threshhold is 7 dB. That of the average human is 0 dB in the most sensitive frequencies (though the MUH says it’s 20 dB, so go figure). Why this has gone uncorrected for three editions of the MUH is beyond me. Maybe they got confused by the human hearing range being 20-20 000 Hz…

  2. Milla has white eyes?!

    Now that’s just gross. I know they’ve been drawn like that a couple of times (ewww), but I’ve never actually heard of anyone being born without pupils or irises. And I’ve seen some pretty freaky things in my day (I used to have a human genetics textbook with enough disturbing images of things gone wrong to almost scare you away from having kids).

  3. Bullseye’s occupation: “Assassin, professional thief; former baseball pitcher, mercenary, extortionist.”

    Question: do you become a professional thief when you can actually make a living “thieving” or when you join the Professional Thieves’ Union? Either way, wouldn’t you just (literally) kill to have his resumé? I wonder what his old guidance counselor would say. 

  4. Distinguishing features.

    This is one of my favorite sections as far as the character profiles go, because they’re quite funny. The Kingpin’s distinguishing feature is given as “bald.” Yeah, that’s it. Is that really the first thing you’d notice about him? Considering he’s 6’7″ (2.0 m) and weighs 450 lbs (200 kg) of solid muscle, his size strikes me as much more of a distinguishing feature, but now I’m just nitpicking. Though body and facial hair appears to be quite common in this category as Melvin Potter is described as “wears a mustache.”

  5. Marital status

    All of the (four) Mr. Fear are single. Who would have guessed? I mean, that mask is such a turn-on. And I love that Starr Saxon’s occupation is listed as “robotocist.” I know that’s sort of a real word and everything ( = someone specializing in robotics), but it still sounds kind of funny. I bet he had a better guidance counselor than Bullseye.

  6. “Zoltan Drago ran a wax museum…

    …and dreamed of creating an army of slaves by causing his sculptures to come to life. While developing a chemical process he thought would make this happen, his thoughts were tainted by the demonic Fear Lord known as the Dweller-in-Darkness, causing him instead to create a gas that induced fear when inhaled.” 

    When you take the origin of Mr. Fear and squeeze it into one paragraph like this, it reminds us all of why we love this kind of stuff. Only in comics I tell you, only in comics…

  7. Foggys full name is Franklin P. Nelson.

    Now what does the P stand for?! Does anybody know? Gloria are you out there? Ah, the frustration! And, in case there was ever any doubt, Foggy’s intelligence rating is the same as Matt’s. But we all knew that already, right?

  8. Here’s the reason the Owl is still single.

    “Distinguishing features: The Owl has occasionally taken on more owl-like characteristics, including eyes able to move independently of each other, a neck able to rotate 180 degrees and the consumption of live rodents.” Damn it, he totally had me up until the part about the rodents…

  9. Karen Page’s resume

    “Radio talk show host; former legal secretary, actress, prostitute, crisis/legal counselor, activist.” She sure had a busy life while it lasted. Too bad heroin addict isn’t an actual job or she could have listed that too. 

  10. The curse of Baby Karen.

    I feel bad for Stick, I really do. He used to be a cool mysterious dude with freaky abilities, now he’s a reincarnated infant (thank you Daredevil: Ninja!). Though you can’t beat his list of occupations: “Leader of the Chaste, sensei, pool hustler.” Sadly, I suspect being a pool hustler pays more money than being leader of the Chaste, though the latter might have a better retirement plan.

  11. So how tall are Stilt-Man’s stilts anyway?

    I bet you really want to know. Well, fret not, the MUH has the answer. “Height: 5’6″; (with battlesuit) maximum of 292′.” For those of you who, like me, use the perfectly logical metric system, that’s 89 m. Hmm, that’s actually pretty high. I’d hate to fall from that height. I also love this paragraph

    “In addition to his armor, the Stilt-Man has used various other weapons during his career, including gas grenades, charged-particle beam blasters, a vacuum device to pull money and jewelry from victims, and a “Z-ray” weapon that could teleport people to another planet and possibly perform other functions.”

    Wait a second here. He had a weapon that could teleport people to other planets and he still kept working the stilts as his unique selling point as a villain. How stupid can you get? He should have gotten an agent.

  12. Turk

    “Education: high school drop-out.” Now that’s a shocker. Stay in school kids!

  13. Twisted childhoods, the case of Typhoid Mary.

    Wow, I suddenly feel so normal:

    “The exact history of Mary remains uncertain. By some accounts she has possessed two personalities since infancy, and has claimed to remember hearing the screaming of her parents in utero.”

  14. Ben Urich.

    “Superhuman powers: None. Ben Urich is an experienced reporter and writer. He is in reasonably fit physical condition for a chain smoker of his age.” I wonder what that means exactly. I mean, just how bad is his emphysema at this point?

Well, that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this little tour through the MUH with me! :)