The Start of It All
Martin Goodman starts the magazine publishing business that will later become Marvel under the names of Western Fiction Publishing, Red Circle, Complete Western Book Magazine and many other names.
Martin Goodman starts the magazine publishing business that will later become Marvel under the names of Western Fiction Publishing, Red Circle, Complete Western Book Magazine and many other names.
Marvel Comics #1 is published under Martin Goodman's Timely Comics umbrella. Other logos would be used, including Atlas in the 1950s.
A renaissance begins at perennial also-ran comics publisher Marvel with the publication of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #1, the first of a new wave of super-heroes that would include Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, and The Avengers. Marvel's market share would grow, solidly becoming the #1 publisher by the 1980s.
Martin Goodman sells Marvel to a firm whose products range from magazines to vitamins; the firm would later be known as Cadence Industries.
Cadence sells Marvel to New World Entertainment, a television and film production company.
Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews and Forbes holding company buys Marvel Entertainment group from failing New World Entertainment for $82.5 million.
Burdened by a large debt following many expensive acquisitions in trading-card and other tangentially related fields -- and shaken by the mid-1990s decline in comics publishing fortunes -- Marvel Entertainment files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
A long legal battle between holders of Marvel's bonds results in temporary control of the company by Carl Icahn and his associates. Later, control is regained by the owner of one of Marvel's subsidiaries, Toy Biz. Marvel emerges from bankruptcy with a much-reduced publishing slate.
The first Spider-Man feature film is released. Increased attention to comics benefits Marvel and a comics industry on the rebound, thanks to a business model that also includes bound collected editions of comics, allowing Marvel and other publishers to capitalize on their long publishing histories through bookstore sales.
The Walt Disney Company announces the purchase of Marvel Entertainment Group for $4 billion in stocks and cash. From here, the success of Marvel Comics starts to take a direction for the better. Major films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ironman, Captain America and the Avengers were big box office hits when Disney bought the company as well as successes in comic book sales as well.