From captain america and spiderman to the x. Man and the hope. That no one else. Even if youve never read the comics youll likely recognize these iconic superheroes and that world famous creates to be quite accurate to say that marvel devolution eyes the superhero comic with thousands of characters and interweaving storylines the marvel universe is one of the most astonishing titles in multan fiction. Thoughts it all becomes one rival for the company at the time of the millennium. It was losing sight of what you were trying to sell stories it was kind of like a victim of his own success. If a great story has a points where the hero is on his knees seemingly beyond salvation models talking style. Can when its a clad bankruptcy followed by an all out war between. Thats just that raged for years. And a lot of screaming on telephone and threats to destroy one another everybody was just scared to death this is the inside story of how one of the worlds most beloved pop culture icons real moche from the ruins of its comic book empire. And force its way back to the top. New york. Times for marvels headquarters and so many of its super errands. From dramatic battles a Grand Central station. To spectacular rescues on the Staten Island ferry. Part of the magic of marvel for the long time fans like sean how is that his character is a set in the real world. People that i knew from new york city. The feeling that he might. Catch a glimpse of a superhero battle you know in their underwear the post office or something for almost 80 years marvel has captivated comic fans across the globe producing bestselling comic books costumes. Video games. And record breaking pops office hits marvel has conquered the entertainment world. Azza rewinds for 3 decades and marvel wasnt just bottling comic super villains it was combating bankruptcy stuff defections and tied up in a legal battle that threatens to destroy the company. Which is. Still struggling. To find out we go back to the beginnings of the marvel universe. 2 the superheroes we next day were born in new york in the late 1930 s. 2. 2 in the midst of the Great Depression novels rival d. C. Comics created a character that became an instant hit. Superman who was an inspiration for a lot of kids in the depression he was a crusader for the masses superman was soon followed by much like a charm saida. The 2 propelled d. C. Comics popularity in well ahead of mom posts then just a small pulp fiction publish on line is timely from earlier years marvel was always kind of 2nd Place Company superman and batman and d. C. Comics were were kind of the Industry Standard and marvel was. Sure the scrappy other player to cash in on the trends is jaimee high tech scene to the juices phoneline if superheroes good cartoonists jay simon and so jack toby would go on to create some of marvels must famous characters. And is america and the 2nd world war. Right. Where. Time is patriotic superhero. I do battle real life animes in world war 2. Struck a chord with soldiers and their families back home. I think that there was a way to see a victory to have an idea of what that would feel like. 930 s. And fortys for the golden age of comics in the United States and as american soldiers brought my comics overseas yes against popularity in korea and japan which helps influence the development of local magic bullets. But in the 1950 s. There was a growing movement against violence and scorning. Mike brooks. Any book aloud. With. Good results is in regulation that severely limited the kind of content publishers could print. To college to ensure they would never damn tired from drugs in a comic everything was just completely the fandom no fun to comics sells pointed to. By the early 1960 s. Marvel was struggling just to stay in business the companys editor in chief stan lee was ready to crater. But then marvels old rival d. C. Comics through together its most popular characters into a single super group. Their mission to fight for justice i do search all mankind. The Justice League became a surprise case and inspired stanley and assist jack kirby to create their own team of superheroes. Greatest team and super the longest the world has ever known. Fantastic. The 1st issue broke convention with all superhero archetypes of the day unlike the story can sneer floorless superman and batman slim kirbys heroes came not just with superpowers but with problems that readers could relate to. It was the beginning of characters having a 3 dimensionality that really set marvel apart. Danny finger off edited some of marvels most famous superheroes for close to 2 decades. Marvel comics gave you a depth of characterization where people could Work Together but not like each other or like each other but be angry at each other or quit the team as far as comic books that was fairly. Unprecedented. A year later marvel straight even further from comic conventions for the 1st time a teenager became a superhero. Such was marvels impacts theres now an exhibit dedicated to its famous character in new york. Spiderman is is my favorite character now hes very complex and yet hes very simple hes hes the most like a regular person peter parker was an introverted didnt have a lot of friends also asked to work 2 or 3 extra. And then has a sick relative and yet wants to excel. And he want to try to have a social life i mean its really a very modern story right its about a kid who has more responsibilities than any especially as ability to inspire me and its about. Spiderman became the most popular comic book characters since superman but marvels biggest innovation was just around the corner. As more superheroes emerged they began sic interaction crossover with each of the stories. This connected became known as the marvel universe this. Narrative of the metal universe is just a staggering achievement that i think is really the most complicated narrative that probably exists in history. It wasnt just a new universe that stan lee and his collaborators forward in periodic updates stanley gave readers a glimpse into the you know what of the marvel office. Featuring crisis. Artists. And even secretaries so you had 2 levels of connection and every comic. You have not just the stories themselves. But you have updates of what was going on in the office and you had a sense that you knew the people behind the stories they were like almost surrogate family members the team at marvel became as popular with fans as the superheroes they created. I think stanley is one of those figures without whom there might not be accountable industry both creatively and a business and promotional level and he reinvented what the superhero was and could be. By the 970 s. Marvel was the number one comic book company in the wilds. Releasing 40 different titles every month. And something 50000000 comics a good in more than 100 countries. Its super harrys even became stars on animated shellys. The company traditionally in 2nd place to his rival d. C. Comics is now number one is somehow retained its status as an underdog so you have d. C. Comics with superman batman and wonder woman Everybody Knows those characters but with marvel we were like the shrugging company we had we had spider may have been balkan these guys who have problems and so even though we were the best selling comics we were still the underdog new banks joins model in the mid 1900. As the underdog the guys were fighting the good fight and it felt like we were all fighting the good fight about so as the Company Became increasingly successful that changed. The owners of marvel became progressively less knowledgeable and less interested in their comic books. By the 1980 s. The comic. Industry was booming worldwide with people hungry for heroes once considered cheap and disposable comics have become prized items and speculators were snapping up issues in bulk to resell them to collectors for enormous profits. In the u. S. Vintage comics that cost 400. 00 in the 1970 s. Shot up to 5000. 00 u. S. Dollars a decade later. By the early ninetys and some 1st issue comics were worth 40000 u. S. Dollars and up to cash in the number of specialty comic book stores surged globally from a few 100 to over 10000. As rare and new comic books were flying off the shelves marvel attracted the interest of millionaire businessman ron perlman who bought the company for over 80000000. 00 u. S. Dollars in 1990. Pound one with scn to be changed the way marvel ran its business. Probably was kind of a step above. The glamour of warner he was in the corporate raider he was somebody who had no emotional connection to the comics so you know this was marvels 1st real existence as. Kind of a piece and someones game. I can remember ron coming through the office during that 1st week. And he was he was he may not have been smoking the cigar but he was at least chewing the cigar he says this short little man who looked like he owned the world being toward through the offices by a young woman dressed as spider woman in spandex and to me thats who run pro men will always be this guy who owns the world it can make young women dress up in spandex. New banks joint model 2 years before pound uncles have the company. When i started at marvel you know i was i was surrounded by the people whose comics i had grown up reading it was really amazing it was fun it was exciting everybody was thrilled to be there when the announcement came that the company was being sold. Everybody was nervous and as we saw perlman walking through the office we became more nervous. To drive grimes home and fesa town to raise the price of comic books by appealing to collect as they started marketing their comics as products as collectors items as things that were other than you know the inherent value of. Those something you read we had a practice of doing special covers enhanced covers glow in the dark covers well covers for our great covers and adding a glow in the dark cover caused us to take that same 32 page comic book that we sold for a 1. 15 instead make it to 95. 00. In the short term consequences of that were that we would sell 4 times as many copies of back comic double the price so 4. 00 times the comic lives portrayed on the bottom. Initially polman strategy watched dramatically over the next couple of years models revenues grew by 50 percent and its profits multiplied 6 fall. In 9091. 00 the company went public and its market value balloons to 3000000000. 00 us dollars. We all thought that was hilarious because were just a bunch of guys running around the Office Shooting each other with plastic guns at night but the mood at marvel changed significantly after the initial Public Offering but shareholders now expecting bigger returns the pressure at marvel intensify and. Marvel goes public thats when profits have to be of every quarter marvel started just. Increasing production at a crazy rate in 1905 marvel had been publishing 40 titles a month by 993 they did more than doubled that number. But printing so many comics and specialty covers started to dilute the marvel brand theres all different gimmicks some of them very nice gimmicks but gimmicks arguments adventure they do they run a bit thin. Hellmans marketing seem also began to dictate the contents of the comics. Artists and writers were told to engineer more crossover stories that featured its best selling superheroes to display a comic book stores like this one in new york. We knew that there were people there were ravenous overeem and punisher and always spiderman collectors and all you got to do is put those characters into or a low selling comic and suddenly you some more copies because people wanted to maintain their complete spiderman collection of the complete wolverine collection. But at some point the guy who collects every appearance of wolverine can no longer afford the collective reappearance of movement at some point you chase the guy away by trying to take too much of his money. The plots also figured into one another so readers have to buy all related issues if they wanted to make sense of them as production increased the quality and content of the comics began to suffer. And this started to alienate the companys cool audience. Bounce if marvel was losing ranges why this is still seeing a Record Number of sales every month. The problem was the distribution system. Unlike traditional newsstands specialty comic book shops cannot return on sold copies for a refund. If the issues dont sell retail is a show to the cost. So marvel couldnt tell how many comics the shops were actually soundings of customers. And this is about to become a big problem. Bookstore manager jeff as discovered shops that have both a huge oversupply of comic books for speculate as. I had seen in other stores i worked out in basement long boxes of this millions of books there spawn the one box one box to box 3 parts for as because doors and bought so much of this manufactured trite. And sold that thats going to everybodys going to want 50 of those and it just wasnt the case and then i mean a lot of stores are hurting. The news got so little bank he went to the comic book stores to find out what was given on. When you head those conversations with comic Book Store Owners about what they were selling or what they were sitting on thats when they started getting very dark conversations very bleak. And it gave me the sense that something was going on here that we needed to record. Loose and field representatives out to survey comic Stores Across the country their findings was shocking. Every time marvel sold its special edition and subsequent issues or a 20 percent decline in sales. Raises were getting tired of expensive and gimmicky comics that were mainly marketed to collect isnt speculators. Who sent an urgent memo to marvel senior management. And im sure a c c 6000000 other people showing that we were literally chasing away our long term readers a long term customers by doing these enhanced covers and the reaction to that memo was cyber. 2 marvel continued to publish enhanced covers and also began to include Trading Cards to encourage more collectors. Alienating even more of their readers. Meanwhile comic book shops unable to cope with unsold stock started to close down. So it just seemed absolutely absurd to me you know now i understand what they were doing they were in it for the long haul they wanted to make as much money as they could make right now right here and be in the consequences the im the to the people who suffered the results of their decision we got what we needed out of them. We dont need them anymore i didnt want to be a part of that strip mine i didnt want to be a part of what i saw as the coming down fall. Of marvel. The insatiable drive for profits at marvel was also beginning to westin with its creative team. By this. Time Founding Editor in chief stanley had moved to california to pursue hollywood deals for the company. And the new editors left in charge one being allowed to do their jobs. The editors job was to set direction for the comic and suddenly there was this this Marketing Division that was setting direction and the editors were not happy they feel like they should have more say in what the stories are at some point that created a conflict and certainly demoralize the people. Working in editorial and thats the devil is sort of being painted you know this the static feeling for the characters you also know youre in the business and that that constant tug of war and you had all these editors slamming their heads up against the wall to make the comics that they were responsible for spike in sales get really sad and and there was more infighting and people were just unhappy they were having fun. And then in 1992 the inevitable happens. In a mass exodus marvels top talents left to join rivals and to form their own publishing houses. By alienating writers and artists who had developed stories who had popularized the characters marvel ended up setting themselves up for failure. As comic book readers followed their favorite artists of the new labels marvels market share dropped from 45 to 30 percent. Meanwhile the special and collectible comics but over saturated the markets. If you print tens of thousands of a particular kind of comic immediately it cant be worth as much so its it was kind of like a victim of his own success in 1903 when spec. Waiters and collectors realize that the value of comics have been inflated the comic industry imply did. Publish a sales plummeted by 70 percent. And 9 out of 10 comic book stores in america close their doors. The Comics Division that had once made up 90 percent of marvel sales was now a 3rd of its business in a desperate attempt to spur growth. Pomona to gone on an acquisition spree. From trading card manufacturers to stick a companys and 20 retailer home and drove marvel stats up to 600000000 u. S. Dollars all the while moving it further and further away from its core comic book. By 995. 00 the company was in crisis it reported a full she 8000000. 00 loss the 1st time since permanent bought the company that they havent turned a profit. Its stock value collapsed shares once worth 35. 00 in 1903 that sunk to just 2. 00. Each. As a result marvel announced company wide cuts. 40 percent of its workforce was necco. After almost 2 decades at the company edited down a finger off made the difficult decision to leave. I was heartbroken to leave marvel things have changed there in such a way that it was very unpleasant for me on a day to day basis but you know ive worked in 18 years it was where i growing up you know id say outside of the end of a romantic relationship with the death of the loved one living marvel was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. By 996 marvel reported a staggering loss of over 400 and. Eckstein 1000000 u. S. Dollars the company desperately needed cash to keep running and to pay back its debts. But its in a disagreement with shareholders over the companys future poneman declared bankruptcy. As majority owner it gave him the power to reorganize marvel without their consent. But entering so pohlmann dragged the companys reputation through the mud in a series of very public court battles. Surrounded by the small during ruin of its comic book empire marvel was in its darkest hour and the future looks bleak. And a lot of screaming on telephones and threats to destroy one another there is something that was so absurd in grotesque about these whole hearted men suing each other to have custody of something that emotionally a lot of College Readers thought belonged to that in 1998 after a 2 year battle it was finally over. From coleman sued for diversity over 500000000. 00 u. S. Dollars from marvel to his other businesses. Was ousted from the company. Bu