Book Review: DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book

reviewed by Gene Kannenberg, Jr.
[Full disclosure: I am the paper engineer of Here Comes Charlie Brown! A Peanuts Pop-Up published by Abrams ComicArts, which is affiliated with Abrams Books for Young Readers.]

Matthew Reinhart (paper engineering); Brad Walker, Marco Santucci, and Tom Derenick (pencils and inks); and Paul Mounts (colors). DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2024. USD$49.99. ISBN 9781419769450. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/dc-super-heroes-the-ultimate-pop-up-book  

 

Prolific master paper engineer Matthew Reinhart’s DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-up Book stands as a companion to his 2022 book Marvel Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book (also from Abrams Books for Young Readers). However, it’s impossible not to compare it to Reinhart’s identically titled DC book published by Little, Brown in 2010. In both cases and in many respects, unfortunately, the newer book, while certainly an impressive achievement, comes up lacking.   

 

First off, let us look at the book on its own terms. The wrap-around cover art by Dan Mora contains a baker’s dozen of DC characters, with the front cover prominently featuring DC’s “Trinity” -- Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the first two in the “trunks-less” mode they no longer sport in the current comic books (no doubt owing to the long lead-time books like these need for production purposes). The back cover lists the book’s credits and publication information, including, admirably, DC’s standard creator credits for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

 

That Trinity corresponds to the first three openings (double-page spreads) in the book, each devoted to one of the characters and their respective casts and milieux. As with nearly all of Reinhart’s pop-up books, it pays to open each spread slowly, paying careful attention to how each element unfolds and resolves into its final form. The Wonder Woman opening is the only one not previewed on the book’s Amazon.com page or provided as a promotional image, perhaps because it’s the most impressive of the three; Diana Prince is posed dynamically, her lasso extending above and behind the top edge of the pages, while her left leg extends far beyond the bottom page edge. In contrast, Superman is overly barrel-chested and blocky; Clark Kent’s upper body does break the top edge, although—at least in my copy—his right arm remained trapped when unfolding and needed to be oh-so-gently teased out and into place, repeatedly.  

 

The Batman spread includes Robin (Damian Wayne) and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) as well as Bruce Wayne, with the architecture of Gotham city (and Batman’s fan-folded cape) somewhat overpowering the characters. And, similarly to my copy’s Superman figure, Batman's left arm arrived mis-folded, resolving into a backwards-facing, shoulder-out-of-joint position. Again, I was able to coax it into a semblance of normality, but two mis-aligned elements in a book of this price is not a sign of excellent quality control (although I have not seen other copies for comparison). 

 

However, the impressiveness of the Wonder Woman figure comes with emblematic lost opportunities.  Surrounding the figure is a field of clouds, parts of which are covered with two text blocks, one of which conceals an additional pop-up opening flap. The clouds represent empty visual real estate which begs for more supplemental information or action. The additional pop-up reveals a ritual battle between Diana and Nubia, with Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) in the background. However, the accompanying text only gives a brief description of the island of Themyscira. Neither Nubia nor Donna Troy is named or even referred to. 

 

We see this lack of reference more drastically on the spread devoted to super-villains. The pop-ups depict five characters—Black Manta, Sinestro, Darkseid, Ares, and Lex Luthor—metaphorically standing above and around the Earth (which Sinestro is bathing in his ring’s yellow beam). The Earth presents a nice use of paper globe construction on a small scale. However, the accompanying text is terribly sparse, with neither Luthor or Ares being discussed at all. (As an only occasional reader of current DC comics, I had to do a little research to verify that one character was, in fact, Ares.)   

 

An additional opening on this spread reveals an intricate pop-up Joker face (complete with impressively animated eyebrows); the brief text discusses the Joker but ignores the five other Batman villains featured prominently in the background.  

 

Another spread focuses on Green Lantern (John Stewart), The Flash (Wally West), and Aquaman. Green Lantern’s figure is suitably architectural in its construction, while Aquaman dives below the bottom edge of the page, his glutes prominent. The Flash’s running figure is a marvel to watch unfold; I found myself repeatedly returning to this spread just to admire the ingenious mechanisms at play. Two additional openings reveal Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) and Hawkman & Hawkgirl. 

 

The final spread presents a surprisingly impressive, multi-tiered battle royale between dozens of heroes and villains, utilizing an x-shaped extension at the midpoint for additional support, and with two smaller V-shaped pops to the front. You will want to turn the book around to view the back of the structure to see more characters and situations. Here the additional unillustrated text block tells the story of the Justice League’s first battle, with Starro the Conqueror. Upon opening the flap, we see the JLA pop up around their round table. The text highlights the Trinity of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, but in the pop-up, the three center figures are Superman, Batman, and Black Canary – a strange choice given the text’s focus.     

 

All in all, DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book offers approximately sixteen pop-ups (depending on how you count/separate them) over its six openings. In contrast, the 2022 Marvel book has only ten—but nearly all of these ten are augmented by pull-tabs to create secondary pops, transformations, or other motions. These secondary motions all move beyond what you might expect from a traditional pop-up book. For example, in the Avengers tableau, Tony Stark stands in front of two suits of Iron Man armor; pull a tab, and suddenly he is covered in a third suit which rises from the floor. Bruce Banner is trapped in a radiation chamber; once you find and pull the hidden tab, the Hulk bursts open the chamber. Similarly, each member of the Fantastic Four is initially depicted by a pre-rocket-flight headshot; a subsequent tab pull reveals each character in powered pose. In short, the Marvel book’s secondary motions highlight action and transformation through user interaction in a way that the DC book does not. 

 

The Marvel book also uses a smaller typeface for its text (perhaps two points shorter), allowing for a much denser, description- and fact-filled reading experience. We do not experience the descriptive gaps in it which we do in the DC book. In fact, the X-Men spread includes not just a two-page pop-up, but also eleven small doors with character portraits; opening the doors reveal names and powers (the latter in an even smaller typeface). However, unlike the DC book, the Marvel book includes no creator credits for any of its characters. 

 

While the 2024 DC book is not as sophisticated or as fact-filled as its 2022 Marvel counterpart, its contents also fall short of 2010’s identically titled DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book, also by Matthew Reinhart (and which, one imagines, served as an inspiration for these newer volumes). A side-by-side comparison reveals that the 2024 book is in large part a re-working of the 2010 book. While all of the art is new and by different artists, many of the paper engineering elements are substantially similar, particularly Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the final battle. The 2024 versions do contain some structural advances—although, as noted above, a couple of these enhancements led to difficulties in execution when mass-produced. 

 

While still consisting of six primary openings, the 2010 version contains thirteen additional openings, seven of which are two or more layers deep, compared to seven single-layer additional openings overall in the new edition. It also uses a smaller typeface and has more text boxes, here reaching out closer to the margins than in the new version, leading to more text overall. There are no unidentified characters. Indeed, even the final battle is accompanied by a numbered legend which names every character in the enormous construct. Granted, the 2024 final battle’s art is more detailed and contains more characters, but the point still stands. More layers and more text contribute to a greater sense of history and scope for the DC Universe. 

The 2010 book also contains special enhancements beyond paper engineering: In the Batman spread, the Bat signal lights up, thanks to an embedded battery. Wonder Woman’s lasso is made of string, and part of it twirls as you open the page. Further, in one of the additional openings, her invisible jet (not included in the present volume) has clear plastic parts, ironically adding further dimensionality to the cockpit.

 

Two images from the 2010 book

 

On its own, 2024’s DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book by Matthew Reinhart et al. represents a solid example of paper engineering, visually featuring a broad array of DC heroes and villains, with the text (admittedly, something that often gets glossed over in pop-up books) leaving something to be desired. When compared to its much more intricate precursor from 2010, or even to the similarly themed but mechanically more complex Marvel book from just two years ago, it seems like a lost opportunity from the otherwise reliable Reinhart.