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Marvel Comics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the comic book company using this name beginning mid-1961. For the earlier comic book series, see Marvel Mystery Comics.
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| Parent company | Marvel Entertainment, LLC (The Walt Disney Company) |
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| Founded | 1939 (as Timely Comics) |
| Founder | Martin Goodman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | 135 W. 50th Street, New York City |
| Key people |
Axel Alonso, EIC Dan Buckley, publisher, COO Stan Lee, former EIC, publisher |
| Publication types | Comics/See List of Marvel Comics publications |
| Fiction genres | Crime, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, superhero, war, Western |
| Imprints | imprint list |
| Revenue |  US$125.7 million (2007) |
| Official website | www.marvel.com |
Marvel started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the early 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvel's modern incarnation dates from 1961, the year that the company launched Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and many others.
Marvel counts among its characters such well-known properties as Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Silver Surfer, and popular antagonists such as the Green Goblin, Magneto, Doctor Doom, Loki, the Abomination and the Red Skull. Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe, also known as Earth-616, with locations that mirror real-life cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.[2]
Marvel Comics and its major, longtime competitor DC Comics shared over 80% of the American comic-book market in 2008.
Contents
History
Timely Publications
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Main article: Timely Comics
Timely's first publication, Marvel Comics #1 (cover dated Oct. 1939), included the first appearance of Carl Burgos' android superhero the Human Torch, and the first generally available appearance of Bill Everett's anti-hero Namor the Sub-Mariner, among other features. The issue was a great success, with it and a second printing the following month selling, combined, nearly 900,000 copies.[5] While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc., Timely by the following year had its own staff in place.
The company's first true editor, writer-artist Joe Simon, teamed with eminent industry legend Jack Kirby to create one of the first[citation needed] patriotically themed superheroes, Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1. (March 1941) It, too, proved a major sales hit, with sales of nearly one million.[5]
While no other Timely character would achieve the success of these "big three", some notable heroes—many of which continue to appear in modern-day retcon appearances and flashbacks—include the Whizzer, Miss America, the Destroyer, the original Vision, and the Angel. Timely also published one of humor cartoonist Basil Wolverton's best-known features, "Powerhouse Pepper",[6][7] as well as a line of children's funny-animal comics featuring popular characters like Super Rabbit and the duo Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal.
Goodman hired his wife's cousin,[8] Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939.[9] When editor Simon left the company in late 1941,[10] Goodman made Lieber—by then writing pseudonymously as "Stan Lee"—interim editor of the comics line, a position Lee kept for decades except for three years during his military service in World War II. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles.
Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff.[4] One of these shell companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (May 1944). As well, some comics' covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12 (Winter 1946–47), were labeled "A Marvel Magazine" many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961.[11]
Atlas Comics
Main article: Atlas Comics (1950s)
The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion.[12]
Goodman's comic book line dropped them for the most part and expanded
into a wider variety of genres than even Timely had published, featuring
horror, Westerns, humor, funny animal, men's adventure-drama, giant monster, crime, and war comics, and later adding jungle books, romance titles, espionage, and even medieval adventure, Bible stories and sports.Goodman began using the globe logo of the Atlas News Company, the newsstand-distribution company he owned,[13] on comics cover-dated November 1951 even though another company, Kable News, continued to distribute his comics through the August 1952 issues.[14] This globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications.[15]
Atlas, rather than innovate, took a proven route of following popular trends in television and movies—Westerns and war dramas prevailing for a time, drive-in movie monsters another time—and even other comic books, particularly the EC horror line.[16] Atlas also published a plethora of children's and teen humor titles, including Dan DeCarlo's Homer the Happy Ghost (à la Casper the Friendly Ghost) and Homer Hooper (à la Archie Andrews). Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch (art by Syd Shores and Dick Ayers, variously), the Sub-Mariner (drawn and most stories written by Bill Everett), and Captain America (writer Stan Lee, artist John Romita Sr.).
1960s
The first modern comic books under the Marvel Comics brand were the science-fiction anthology Journey into Mystery #69 and the teen-humor title Patsy Walker #95 (both cover dated June 1961), which each displayed an "MC" box on its cover.[17] Then, in the wake of DC Comics' success in reviving superheroes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly with the Flash, Green Lantern, and other members of the team the Justice League of America, Marvel followed suit.[18] The introduction of modern Marvel's first superhero team, in The Fantastic Four #1, (Nov. 1961),[19] began establishing the company's reputation. The majority of its superhero stories were written by editor-in-chief Stan Lee. The company continued to publish a smattering of Western comics such as Rawhide Kid, humor comics such as Millie the Model, and romance comics such as Love Romances, and added the war comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.Editor-writer Lee and freelance artist Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four, reminiscent of the non-superpowered adventuring quartet the Challengers of the Unknown that Kirby had created for DC in 1957, originated in a Cold War culture that led their creators to revise the superhero conventions of previous eras to better reflect the psychological spirit of their age.[20] Eschewing such comic book tropes as secret identities and even costumes at first, having a monster as one of the heroes, and having its characters bicker and complain in what was later called a "superheroes in the real world" approach, the series represented a change that proved to be a great success.[21] Marvel began publishing further superhero titles featuring such heroes and antiheroes as the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, and Daredevil, and such memorable antagonists as Doctor Doom, Magneto, Galactus, Loki, the Abomination, the Green Goblin, and Doctor Octopus. Lee and Steve Ditko generated the most successful new series in The Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel even lampooned itself and other comics companies in a parody comic, Not Brand Echh (a play on Marvel's dubbing of other companies as "Brand Echh", à la the then-common phrase "Brand X").[22]
Marvel's comics had a reputation for focusing on characterization to a greater extent than most superhero comics before them.[23] This applied to The Amazing Spider-Man in particular. Its young hero suffered from self-doubt and mundane problems like any other teenager. Marvel often presents flawed superheroes, freaks, and misfits—unlike the perfect, handsome, athletic heroes found in previous traditional comic books. Some Marvel heroes looked like villains and monsters. In time, this non-traditional approach would revolutionize comic books. This naturalistic approach even extended into topical politics. Wrote comics historian Mike Benton,
Writer Geoff Boucher in 2009 reflected that, "Superman and DC Comics instantly seemed like boring old Pat Boone; Marvel felt like The Beatles and the British Invasion. It was Kirby's artwork with its tension and psychedelia that made it perfect for the times—or was it Lee's bravado and melodrama, which was somehow insecure and brash at the same time?"[26]In the world of [rival DC Comics'] Superman comic books, communism did not exist. Superman rarely crossed national borders or involved himself in political disputes.[24] ... From 1962 to 1965, there were more communists [in Marvel Comics] than on the subscription list of Pravda. Communist agents attack Ant-Man in his laboratory, red henchmen jump the Fantastic Four on the moon, and Viet Cong guerrillas take potshots at Iron Man.[25]
1970s
In 1971, the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare approached Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Stan Lee to do a comic book story about drug abuse. Lee agreed and wrote a three-part Spider-Man story portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. However, the industry's self-censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, refused to approve the story because of the presence of narcotics, deeming the context of the story irrelevant. Lee, with Goodman's approval, published the story regardless in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971), without the Comics Code seal. The market reacted well to the storyline, and the CCA subsequently revised the Code the same year.[28]
A series of new editors-in-chief oversaw the company during another slow time for the industry. Once again, Marvel attempted to diversify, and with the updating of the Comics Code achieved moderate to strong success with titles themed to horror (The Tomb of Dracula), martial arts, (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu), sword-and-sorcery (Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja), satire (Howard the Duck) and science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey, "Killraven" in Amazing Adventures, Star Trek, and, late in the decade, the long-running Star Wars series). Some of these were published in larger-format black and white magazines, under its Curtis Magazines imprint. Marvel was able to capitalize on its successful superhero comics of the previous decade by acquiring a new newsstand distributor and greatly expanding its comics line. Marvel pulled ahead of rival DC Comics in 1972, during a time when the price and format of the standard newsstand comic were in flux.[31] Goodman increased the price and size of Marvel's November 1971 cover-dated comics from 15 cents for 36 pages total to 25 cents for 52 pages. DC followed suit, but Marvel the following month dropped its comics to 20 cents for 36 pages, offering a lower-priced product with a higher distributor discount.[32]
Goodman, now disconnected from Marvel, set up a new company called Seaboard Periodicals in 1974, reviving Marvel's old Atlas name for a new Atlas Comics line, but this lasted only a year-and-a-half.[33] In the mid-1970s a decline of the newsstand distribution network affected Marvel. Cult hits such as Howard the Duck fell victim to the distribution problems, with some titles reporting low sales when in fact the first specialty comic book stores resold them at a later date.[citation needed] But by the end of the decade, Marvel's fortunes were reviving, thanks to the rise of direct market distribution—selling through those same comics-specialty stores instead of newsstands.
Marvel held its own comic book convention, Marvelcon '75, in spring 1975, and promised a Marvelcon '76. At the 1975 event, Stan Lee used a Fantastic Four panel discussion to announce that Jack Kirby, the artist co-creator of most of Marvel's signature characters, was returning to Marvel after having left in 1970 to work for rival DC Comics.[34] In October 1976, Marvel, which already licensed reprints in different countries, including the UK, created a superhero specifically for the British market. Captain Britain debuted exclusively in the UK, and later appeared in American comics.[35]
1980s
Despite Marvel's successes in the early 1980s, it lost ground to rival DC in the latter half of the decade as many former Marvel stars defected to the competitor. DC scored critical and sales victories[38] with titles and limited series such as Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Byrne's revamp of Superman, and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
In 1986, Marvel's parent, Marvel Entertainment Group, was sold to New World Entertainment, which within three years sold it to MacAndrews and Forbes, owned by Revlon executive Ronald Perelman.
1990s
Another common practice of this period was company-wide crossovers that affected the overall continuity of the fictional Marvel Universe. In 1996, Marvel had almost all its titles participate in the "Onslaught Saga", a crossover that allowed Marvel to relaunch some of its flagship, albeit flagging, characters such as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and outsource them to the studios of former Marvel artists turned Image Comics founders, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. After an initial sales bump, sales quickly declined below expected levels,[citation needed] and Marvel discontinued the experiment after a one-year run; the characters soon returned to the Marvel Universe proper. In 1998, the company launched the imprint Marvel Knights, taking place within Marvel continuity; helmed by soon-to-become editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, it featured tough, gritty stories showcasing such characters as the Inhumans, Black Panther and Daredevil.
Marvel suffered a major blow in early 1992, when seven of its most prized artists—Todd McFarlane (known for his work on Spider-Man), Jim Lee (X-Men), Rob Liefeld (X-Force), Marc Silvestri (Wolverine), Erik Larsen (The Amazing Spider-Man), Jim Valentino (Guardians of the Galaxy), and Whilce Portacio—left to form the successful company Image Comics.[41]
In 1991 Ronald Perelman, whose company, Andrews Group, had purchased Marvel Comic's Parent corporation, Marvel Entertainment Group (MEG) in 1989, took the company public. Following the rapid rise of this stock, Perelman issued a series of junk bonds that he used to acquire other entertainment companies, secured by MEG stock. Then, by the middle of the decade, the industry had slumped, and in December 1996 Marvel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[47] In 1997, Toy Biz and MEG merged to end the bankruptcy, forming a new corporation, Marvel Enterprises.[47] With his business partner Avi Arad, publisher Bill Jemas, and editor-in-chief Bob Harras, Toy Biz co-owner Isaac Perlmutter helped stabilize the comics line.[48]
2000s
With the new millennium, Marvel Comics escaped from bankruptcy and again began diversifying its offerings. In 2001, Marvel withdrew from the Comics Code Authority and established its own Marvel Rating System for comics. The first title from this era to not have the code was X-Force #119 (October 2001). Marvel also created new imprints, such as MAX (an explicit-content line) and Marvel Adventures (developed for child audiences). In addition, the company created an alternate universe imprint, Ultimate Marvel, that allowed the company to reboot its major titles by revising and updating its characters to introduce to a new generation.Some of its characters have been turned into successful film franchises, such as the X-Men movie series, starting in 2000, and the highest grossing series Spider-Man, beginning in 2002.[49]
In a cross-promotion, the November 1, 2006, episode of the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light, titled "She's a Marvel", featured the character Harley Davidson Cooper (played by Beth Ehlers) as a superheroine named the Guiding Light.[50] The character's story continued in an eight-page backup feature, "A New Light", that appeared in several Marvel titles published November 1 and 8.[51] Also that year, Marvel created a wiki on its Web site.[52]
In late 2007 the company launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a digital archive of over 2,500 back issues available for viewing, for a monthly or annual subscription fee.[53]
In 2009 Marvel Comics closed its Open Submissions Policy, in which the company had accepted unsolicited samples from aspiring comic book artists, saying the time-consuming review process had produced no suitably professional work.[54] The same year, the company commemorated its 70th anniversary, dating to its inception as Timely Comics, by issuing the one-shot Marvel Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 and a variety of other special issues.[55][56]
On August 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Marvel Comics' parent corporation, Marvel Entertainment, for $4 billion, with Marvel shareholders to receive $30 and 0.745 Disney shares for each share of Marvel they own.[57] As of 2008, Marvel and its major, longtime competitor DC Comics shared over 80% of the American comic-book market.[58]
2010s
Marvel discontinued its Marvel Adventures imprint in March 2012,[61] and replaced them with a line of two titles connected to the Marvel Universe TV block.[62] Also in March 2012, Marvel announced its Marvel ReEvoultion initiative that included Infinite Comics,[63] a line of digital comics, Marvel AR, an application software that provides an augmented reality experience to readers and Marvel NOW!, a relaunch of most of the company's major titles with different creative teams.[64][65] Marvel NOW! also saw the debut of new flagship titles including Uncanny Avengers and All-New X-Men.[66]
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