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    A Marvellous Transformation - 1020 L

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    Parth Thakkar
    Marvel was once a small comic book company with one employee that almost went out of business, but Stan Lee and artists created new types of superheroes that were more realistic and flawed like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man which became very popular, leading Marvel to become very successful with their own movies and TV shows that are now some of the most popular entertainment in the world.

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    A Marvellous Transformation - 1020 L

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    Parth Thakkar
    70 views2 pages
    Marvel was once a small comic book company with one employee that almost went out of business, but Stan Lee and artists created new types of superheroes that were more realistic and flawed like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man which became very popular, leading Marvel to become very successful with their own movies and TV shows that are now some of the most popular entertainment in the world.

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    Marvel was once a small comic book company with one employee that almost went out of business, but Stan Lee and artists created new types of superheroes that were more realistic and flawed like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man which became very popular, leading Marvel to become very successful with their own movies and TV shows that are now some of the most popular entertainment in the world.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    70 views2 pages

    A Marvellous Transformation - 1020 L

    Uploaded by

    Parth Thakkar
    Marvel was once a small comic book company with one employee that almost went out of business, but Stan Lee and artists created new types of superheroes that were more realistic and flawed like the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man which became very popular, leading Marvel to become very successful with their own movies and TV shows that are now some of the most popular entertainment in the world.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    A Marvelous Transformation

    A Marvelous Transformation
    by Danny Fingeroth

    logo of Marvel Entertainment

    How one comic-book company changed the


    superhero and conquered the entertainment world
    Marvel's movies, TV shows, and comics are among the most popular in the world. Everybody knows
    the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Avengers, right?

    Well, believe it or not, Marvel was once a tiny company with one employee and a handful of comic-
    book titles. Movies and TV shows were totally off its radar.

    Actually, Marvel barely existed in 1961; the company had nearly gone out of business a few years
    earlier. During the 1950s, some adults began blaming comic books-without any evidence-for
    encouraging teenagers to commit crimes. This led many readers to abandon the medium. Marvel's
    editor-writer Stan Lee and a handful of artists struggled during those years to hold on, producing
    comics about cowboys and monsters.

    Getting Back in the Game


    Years before, Marvel had some success with superhero comics, but those heroes had faded. By the
    early 1960s, DC Comics' Superman and Batman were the stars of the comic-book world.

    Marvel tried to get back in that game by developing a new kind of superhero. Stan Lee and artist Jack
    Kirby created the Fantastic Four, a team featuring the stretching Mr. Fantastic, the flame-powered
    Human Torch, the Invisible Girl-later Invisible Woman-and the rock-skinned, super-strong Thing.
    Unlike DC's super-teams, the FF didn't always get along, but bickered and argued, just like real
    people. These more realistic comic-book stars struck a chord with readers, who were growing bored
    with heroes who seemed unrealistically perfect. Lee and Kirby-sometimes with help from writer
    Larry Lieber-then came up with flawed heroes Iron Man, the X-Men, and the Avengers, which led to
    more success.
    ReadWorks.org · © 2020 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved.
    A Marvelous Transformation

    But one more key player was still to be introduced.

    With artist Steve Ditko, Lee created Marvel's most famous character: Spider-Man. "Spidey" was shy
    high school student Peter Parker, who had been bitten by a radioactive spider-it could happen!-
    and as a result, gained spider-powers. Readers identified with this superhero who could be you, and
    Spider-Man turned into a major success.

    It was time to see if Marvel heroes could be popular outside the world of comic books.

    Iron Man Hits It Big


    Marvel had some TV success in the 1960s, including the Spider-Man show and a live-action Hulk
    series in the 1970s. But starting in 1998, things really began to change.

    That year, one of the company's more obscure characters, Blade the Vampire Hunter, was featured in
    the movie Blade. That success led to 2000's X-Men and 2002's Spider-Man. Those movies did well,
    too, but they were done by Hollywood film studios, so Marvel had limited control over them.

    In 2008, Marvel started its own film studio-enabling the company to make movies of their
    complicated characters the way they wanted them to be done. That year Iron Man came out, with
    Robert Downey Jr. as the title character. When Iron Man was a success, the Marvel Cinematic
    Universe was launched.

    Marvel could now tie its movies and TV shows into one giant storyline and bring together characters
    like Thor, Iron Man, and Black Widow in the Avengers movies. The company turned comics like the
    little-known Guardians of the Galaxy into popular movies.

    Success followed success. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame became the top-grossing movie of all time in
    the world. Now, Marvel's popularity shows no sign of running out of steam.

    Not bad for a company that once upon a time almost went out of business.

    ReadWorks.org · © 2020 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved.

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