marvel comics superheroes

Overview

Marvel Publishing, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media. Marvel Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, owns Marvel Publishing.[2]

The comic book arm of the company 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, with the company later that year launching Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others.

Marvel counts among its characters such well-known properties as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Daredevil, Thor, the Punisher, Doctor Strange, and the Silver Surfer; antagonists such as Doctor Doom, the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom, Magneto, Galactus, and the Red Skull; and others. Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe, with locales set in real-life cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.



1960's

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.[13] 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.[14] The introduction of modern Marvel's first superhero team, in The Fantastic Four #1, cover-dated November 1961,[15] began establishing the company's reputation. From then until the end of 1969, Marvel published a total of 831 comic books with at least one new superhero story,[16] the majority of them written by editor-in-chief Stan Lee, in addition to a smattering of Western (such as Rawhide Kid), humor (such as Millie the Model), romance (such as Love Romances), and war comics like Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.