I'm like Matt. Prefer neither one.

Although it is nice to see artists draw characters they never get the chance to do in their career.

For all that the OHOTMU codified powers and provided often ridiculous depths to justify them, my impression is that the stat mongering mainly ended up being a fan enticement, while writer continued to simply write the power levels their stories called for.

At least that was my impression as a reader.

Was there editorial pressure behind the scenes for writers to get more in line with OHOTMU stats?

As a kid, I greatly enjoyed OHOTMU.  Sure, it's preferable to read about the characters in an actual comic book, but as a 10 year old, I didn't have much access to comic books published decades earlier.  These handbooks gave me a more in-depth understanding of these characters in ways I would otherwise not have had access to. 

WHO'S WHO I did not care for, even as a kid.  I found them -- and I'm not sure I would have been able to verbalize it -- as sloppy, inconsistent and unprofessional looking.  I much preferred the more uniform, encyclopedic approach taken by OHOTMU.

Today, I would probably favor something at about the halfway point between the two -- not as "exhaustive" as OHOTMU, but not as vague as WHO'S WHO.

Joe Hollon wrote: OHOTMU, in addition to sounding like the name of a pre-heroes Marvel Monster, is a huge reason why I'm here!

Makes me think...

I was a lurker here before posting recently. While lurking I noticed Mr. Byrne was never a fan of these kinds of guidebooks and he's made some persuasive arguments that I think have won over many. They definitely led me to think I little more about the merits of such books.

What I'm wondering is, did those who have some misgivings now have those same misgivings when originally introduced to the OHOTMU or Who's Who? I definitely loved them and felt they opened the doors to these big fictional universes for me. I became a serious DC fan after Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Who's Who books were like beloved guides. That was in my early teens and what I remember is that they only encouraged me to read more and more.

That's my fan perspective, anyway. I realize it's a whole 'nother story for creators.

I liked them both but for different reasons.

When I found OHOTMU, I was already somewhat familiar with the Marvel Universe of the 80s. Seeing all those little panels from older comics made me want to go back and read the stories they came from. I believe OHOTMU was the first time I saw small bits of JB's X-Men art. I remember, in one of the entries, though now I forget which one, there were panels that I now know were from Uncanny X-Men 137.

Who's Who was a little different. At the time, I knew next to nothing about DC. I think I might have read one issue of Batman, one All-Star Squadron, and that was about it, so I had no idea who most of DC's characters were except the ones who had appeared in cartoon's etc. If I recall correctly, the first Who's Who i saw was the Q-R volume and I think the only characters in it that I'd ever heard of before were Robin and the Riddler. Seeing all the others made the DC Universe seem like a fascinating and mysterious place that I wanted to learn more about. I don't remember now exactly what characters I saw for the first time in that issue, but I do remember Ra's Al Ghul, Ragman, and the Rose and the Thorn.  

The other great "reference" series at the time was Marvel Saga. Seeing those issues, with their bits and pieces of Kirby and Ditko and Heck art from stories by Stan Lee just completely blew my 8 year old mind!

In retrospect, the handbooks did go overboard with the
descriptions, but the craft behind some of those diagrams
still impresses me. Who's Who went overboard by NOT going
into the details at all.

   I was a Marvel zombie and an X-books fanatic in my day, so OHOTMU was what caught my fancy.  People may look down on the quantifying of powers these days, but in those days it seemed like a logical fit to MU "physics" as they were being written then.  For instance, Wolverine could not regenerate lost limbs or survive having half his vitals vaporized by a death ray, unlike today when you have him practically regenerating after being reduced to a red-hot adamantium coated skeleton by a supervillain.  If they stuck with that, half the crazy (censored) that you see today wouldn't have happened.