Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is the oldest and most popular American comic book producer and publisher in the world, founded in 1933 in New York City, USA. The company is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
The company includes, among others, the world’s largest comic book publisher—Marvel Comics—publisher of characters such as Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, the X-Men group, and many others. In total, Marvel is the legal owner of nearly 5,000 characters. The company also owns the holding company Marvel Toys, formerly known as Toy Biz, which produces toys featuring Marvel’s characters.
For years, Marvel Entertainment has competed with the world’s second-largest comic book company—DC Comics—which, in turn, belongs to Disney’s biggest rival, Time Warner.
History
In 1933, Marvel Publishing was established in New York City on the initiative of Martin Goodman. Six years later, in 1939, he founded a comic book magazine called Timely Comics. The first comic book hero was Captain America. After the successful debut of the character, the publishing house began to gradually expand and create other characters. In 1950, the company’s name was changed to Atlas Comics. However, readers became increasingly reluctant to buy comics featuring the same heroes, and ultimately, after financial problems arose, the publisher’s name was changed in the second half of the 1950s to the more universal and distinctive name—Marvel Comics (the name it operates under today).
The 1960s were the so-called golden era for Marvel, known as “The Marvel Age of Comics.” In November 1961, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby published the first issue of the Fantastic Four. In 1962, Spider-Man debuted in the anthology Amazing Fantasy. The character gained great recognition among comic book readers, making the company the largest of its kind in the USA. Today, Spider-Man is one of the symbols of global pop culture. Lee and Kirby collaborated again in 1963 to create the group of mutants known as the X-Men. Since then, Marvel has become the largest American comic book publisher, surpassing its long-time competitor DC Comics.
Currently, Marvel Comics (sometimes referred to as Marvel Publishing) is a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, which produces comics, films, and series featuring franchise characters under the brands Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation. The company also established the holding company Marvel Toys, which produces toys featuring Marvel’s heroes, including Spider-Man and Iron Man.
On August 31, 2009, it was announced that Marvel Entertainment would become part of the media giant The Walt Disney Company. As later calculated, Disney purchased the company for approximately 4.5 billion USD. The transaction officially concluded on December 31, 2009, after legal verification by authorities.
By November 2014, Marvel had published over 43,000 comic book issues, while DC Comics had published 44,000.
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In September 2015, Marvel Studios was integrated directly into Walt Disney Studios. Marvel Television and Marvel Animation remained within Marvel Entertainment.