Marvel Comics was started by pulp publisher Martin Goodman in 1939 with the anthology comic book title Marvel Comics (which was changed to Marvel Mystery Comics with issue #2). During the golden age of comics, the publisher developed a popular core of characters including Captain America, Bucky, Human Torch, Submariner, Miss America, Golden Girl, Red Skull, and many others by creators such as Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Bill Everett, Stan Lee, and others.
Goodman used a number of corporate brands for Marvel throughout his tenure, including Timely Publications, Atlas Comics.
During the years following World War II, like many comic book publishers, the company transitioned to horror, crime, romance, and western titles among others. Marvel titles from this era include Journey into Mystery, Marvel Tales, Strange Tales, Venus, and countless others.
But the 1961 debut of The Fantastic Four signalled the start of the Marvel Universe we're familiar with today. Characters and teams such as Hulk, Ant Man, Wasp, Avengers, X-Men and more by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, and others became the foundational characters which Marvel has expanded upon since that time.
In 1968, a company called Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation acquired Marvel from founder Martin Goodman. Marvel was acquired by film and media company New World Entertainment in 1986. New World sold the publisher to Ronald Perelman in 1989, who took the company public.
After riding high on a booming comics market and trading cards and other merchandise through the next few years, but its fortunes quickly turned with a slumping industry and other factors, and Marvel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 1996.
Toy Biz, headed by Avi Arad and Isaac Perlmutter, acquired Marvel the next year, ending the bankruptcy. In 2004, Marvel Studios' acquired funding from Merrill Lynch to self-finance its own films, and with the 2008 debut of Iron Man, the company's rise to prominence in both the American and global film industry began. The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment on December 31, 2009, for $4 Billion.
Welcome to X-ual Healing, the column where Bleeding Cool reads all the X-books every week and tell you what happened in them so you don't have to. I'm your host, Jude Terror, a man who once wrote about comics all the time, but then, when there was just a tiny sliver of my soul left, […]
A lot of times, comic book publishers go through the motions of pretending that a crossover isn't essential reading to understand your favorite ongoing titles that are crossing over with it and that it's totally optional for you to buy every book to understand what's going on. Yeah, you can trust their word on that […]
This week sees the publication of Immortal She-Hulk, a one-shot by Al Ewing and Jon Davis-Hunt that follows the Empyre event, and the resurrection and change that She-Hulk underwent, in the context of Al Ewing and Joe Bennett's storylines in Immortal Hulk. Which has seen many gamma-radiated beings return from the dead in a way […]
Marvel Unlimited normally releases Marvel Comics titles six months (apart from Conan) after they were published in print and digitally, as part of their all-you-can-eat streaming service. It's a pretty good deal and one that DC Comics is doing it best to catch up and copy. But starting next week, that's a bit of a […]
It's almost all Marvel in this week's advance reorders with a smidgen of We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Walking Dead and Getting it Together. A lot of Donny Cates of course, but there's a push for Black Widow, Champions, Wolverine and Miles Morales too. Greetings from the coal face of the direct comics […]
In the Web Of Venom: Wraith one shot, it was revealed to Eddie Brock, Venom, that there was an equal and opposite to the great symbiote god Knull, described as a God Of Light – and equally as dangerous. The identity of this has led to much speculation – including that this may be Franklin […]
There are comic book series almost every comic fan knows, there are comic book characters that most everyone knows, there are specific comic books most every comic reader knows, and then there are the more obscure issues that slip through the cracks. What makes obscure comics so interesting and vital is discovering those books that […]
Marvel Comics has revealed the "trade dress" cover of comic books being published this week, with cover banners in tribute to Chadwick Boseman, the actor who played T'Challa, the Black Panther, in the Captain America, Avengers and Black Panther movies. The banner, reading "Rest In Power. Chadwick Boseman. 1976-2020" is running on the covers of […]
A bunch of second printings announced this week, including the new Chip Zdarsky/Ramon K Perez Image Comics series Stillwater, as well as second printings for Thor, Miles Morales, Spider-Man, Excalibur, Cable, Wolverine, X-Men, Thor and Marauders. STILLWATER BY ZDARSKY & PEREZ #1 2ND PTG (MR) IMAGE COMICS AUG208252 (W) Chip Zdarsky (A) Mike Spicer (A/CA) […]
Paul Grist may (again) be writing new superhero team comic The Union from Marvel Comics, but he's not stopping what he's best known for. Indeed, he's starting again, posting that he is working on new Kane comic books, the police detective crime noir set in New Eden series that takes somewhere between Mike Mignola, Frank […]
With the AI-related crossover involving his brother Arno finally, finally, over, this issue seeks to retool, rebrand and reload who Tony Stark is. That means stepping away from the company (with dozens of billions of dollars to burn), a renewed interest in flashy, gas-guzzling cars, and introspection. Writer Christopher Cantwell has a decent ability […]
Yesterday, Bleeding Cool ran the Full Marvel Comics December 2020 solicitations. Except, we were wrong, There is another Marvel Comics title launching on December 9th, currently dubbed only as a "Classified X-Men Title". No details – not its name, the creators involved or the concept. Nothing more, other than its publication date, that it will […]
Every week your Local Comic Book Shop, hopefully, gets in a weekly assortment of comics, trades, posters, action figures, and other goodies from Diamond. Now some of these goodies sell out fast from your LCBS, so Tuesday and Wednesday LCBS retailers get on the phone (more often the computer) and let Diamond know they need more. […]
It's not just The Union #1 that Marvel has decided to reschedule for December, but we are also getting the Missing In Action W.E.B. Of Spider-Man #1 and the Ghost Rider Annual #2 – though that has now been renamed as Ghost Rider: Return Of Vengeance. Here are the solicitations below, followed by the new […]
Fresh off of Empyre: Captain America, the best tie-in to the big Avengers/Fantastic Four summer event, writer Phillip K. Johnson takes on the darkest corner of the Marvel Universe. Continuing from 2019's Marvel Zombies: Resurrection #1 one-shot, Johnson is now delivering a full miniseries with the title with artist Leonard Kirk, colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, and letter VC's Travis Lanham. Anyone […]
Marvel Comics is launching another Conan comic book series in December, with the revival of King-Size Conan, with a plethora of classic talent, including Roy Thomas, Chris Claremont, Kurt Busiek and more – but also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman with his very first comic book story he's created for Marvel Comics. KING-SIZE […]
Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum are showrunners of the upcoming animated Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. show on Hulu. Patton even does the voice of the Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing. And, it seems, they are also writing a Marvel M.O.D.O.K. comic book, coming out in December, and drawn by Scott Hepburn. And it appears with M.O.D.O.K. […]
Man, there are a lot of Eternals collections scheduled for December 2020 Marvel solicitations. Almost as if a movie was still planned to be coming out… but we begin with The King In Black, spreading itself out across the Marvel universe… KING IN BLACK #1 (OF 5) DONNY CATES (W) • RYAN STEGMAN (A/C) […]
Phoenix has been turning up a fair bit in Jason Aaron's Avengers and Thor runs. The Phoenix from the far past, one million years BC, and in the far future, the Phoenix-Wolverine fighting Old King Thor. But could this be his attempt to bring Phoenix to the present and do his version of Brian Bendis' […]
December sees the publication of Wolverine #8. Except if you add all the Wolverine ongoing series and a few of the mini-series together you may get somewhere approaching Wolverine #350. So that's what everyone is pretending, in December, that that's what Wolverine #8 is. It is also how you can have Amazing Spider-Man #850 followed […]
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