Summary[]
Guidebooks are official sources created by creators of a particular series to explain things about their series or to elaborate on already existing information. These sources can often be used to gauge the power of characters or to explain the nature of a complex ability that exists within the series.
However, for every reliable source, there’s always a guidebook that is unreliable or in some cases, outright contradictory to the feats presented within an official work. As such, this page will exist to give a rundown of traits a reliable guidebook has when it comes to evaluating whether the statements written on it are considered acceptable.
Standards[]
Consistency[]
When looking at the reliability of guidebooks, consistency will always be the number one priority, as if it goes along with the presented statements and feats within the work, then more changes than not it is reliable for use and the information in it is eligible for use when gauging feats and statements. This can also apply to cosmological guides such as official maps and the likes, which are only applicable when it fits the statements regarding a verse cosmology.
Evidence For Statement[]
When a guide aligns with the feats or statements present within the work, then it can be considered reliable as the statements have some degree of substance that applies within the work itself and isn‘t just a misunderstanding of their own work. The same also applies to statistical guides that revolve around stats and other in-universe systems that gauge out powers.
Time of Creation[]
The period in which it was written also has a play in whether a guide is reliable. Guides can only be applicable to a certain cosmology or for a certain era at the time (I.E guide made during Pre-Crisis DC applying specifically to that era). A guide made at a certain time can also affect the reliability of a statement in the sense that it contradicts information that either was later retcon or changed through authors.