Marvel Worldwide

มาร์เวลเวิร์ลไวด์ อิงค์ ( Marvel Worldwide, Inc.)

          Marvel Worldwide Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American publisher of comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Worldwide's parent company

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 The 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, Wolverine, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Captain America, the Silver Surfer, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and he Avengers and antagonists such as the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Kingpin, Magneto, Doctor Doom,Loki, Galactus, Thanos, the Abomination, and the Red Skull. Most of Marvel's fictional characters operate in a single reality known as the Marvel Universe, with locations that mirror real-life cities. Characters such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Daredevil, and Dr. Strange are based in New York City, whereas the X-Men have historically been based in Salem Center, New York, and the Hulk's stories have usually been set in the American Southwest.

In 2013 Marvel held a 33.5% share of the comics market, compared to its competitor DC Comics' 30.33% share. By comparison, the companies held 40.81% and 29.94% shares in 2008.

           History

Timely Publications

       

           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. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc., Timely by the following year had its own staff in place.Martin Goodman founded the company later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939,publishing comic books under the imprint Timely Comics. Goodman, a pulp magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. Launching his new line from his existing company's offices at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, he officially held the titles of editor, managing editor, and business manager, with Abraham Goodman officially listed as publisher.

The company's first true editor, writer-artist Joe Simon, teamed with artist and emerging industry notable Jack Kirby to create one of the first 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.

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", 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, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. When editor Simon left the company in late 1941, 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. 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.