From captain america and spiderman. To the x. Man and the hulk. Anyone else. Even if youve never read the comics so much you recognize these iconic superheroes memes that wells famous creates a quite accurate to say that marvel that evolution is the superhero comics with thousands of characters and in so weaving storylines the marvel universe is one of the most astonishing tales in modern 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 sell stories it was kind of like a victim of his own success. Its a great story has a points where the hero is on. Is nice seemingly beyond salvation mobbles talking style. Can when it declared bankruptcy followed by an all out war between investors 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 reemerge from the ruins of its comic book empire. And force its way back to the topic. Of. 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 long time fans like sean how is that is correct is a set in the real world. People that i meet the new york city they have the feeling that they might. Catch a glimpse of a superhero battle there on the where the post office or something for almost 80 years marvel has captivated comic fans across the globe she sings best selling comic books costumes. Video games. And record breaking ups office hits marvel has come could the entertainment world. Bazza rewinds for 3 decades and smallville wasnt just a fling comic super villains it was combating bankruptcy stuff defections and tied up in a legal battle the threatens to destroy the company. To find out we go back to the beginnings of the marvel universe. 2 superheroes we next day were born in new york in the late 1930 s. 2. 2 in the midst of the Great Depression marvels 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 would soon follow john not like a true saida. The 2 propelled d. C. Comics popularity well ahead of marvel sen just a small pulp fiction publisher ninus tellingly from earlier years marvel has ovaries that kind of 2nd Place Company superman and batman and d. C. Comics were were kind of the Industry Standard and marvel was. Through a scrappy other player to cash in on the trends time he hired didnt seem to produce its own line of superheroes cartoonists jay simon and so jack kirby would go on to create some of marvels must famous characters. And this is america and the 2nd world war. Right right. Time is patriotic super hero i think the fake real life animes in world war 2 you. Struck a chord with soldiers and their families back home. I think that it was a way to see 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 nasa games popularity in korea and japan has helped. Influence the development of local manga comics. But in the 1950 s. There was a growing movement against violence and gore in comic books. And it was allowed. And with. Everything else is in regulation that severely limited the kind of content publishers could print. The homage to ensure that a vampire dreads in a comic everything was just completely be fagged and no fun so comic shells wanted it. By the early 1960 s. Marvel was struggling just to stay in business the companys editor in chief stan lee was ready to create. But then marvels old rival d. C. Comics threw together its most popular characters into a single super group. Their mission to fight do justice to serve all mankind. The Justice League became a surprise case and inspired stanley and his jack kirby to create their own team of superheroes. Greatest genius super the laws of the world as ever and all fantastic. The 1st issue broke convention with all superhero archetypes of the day unlike the stoic and sniff lawless superman and batman. And 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. Jamey 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 impact theres now an exhibit dedicated to its famous character in new york. Spiderman is as 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 wants a try to have a social life i mean its truly a very modern story right its about the kid who has more responsibilities than any kid should have especially as ability of being spiderman and consequently. Spiderman became the most popular comic book characters since superman but marvels biggest innovation was just around the corner. A small superheroes emerged they began 2nd ceramics and crosseyed built each of the stories. This collective became known as the marvel universe. The narrative of the marvel 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 stanley and his collaborators forward in periodic updates stanley gave read as a glimpse into the inner workings of the awful office. Featuring crisis. Autists. 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 is popular with fans as the superheroes they created. I think stanley is one of those figures without whom there might not be account. Industry both creatively and a business and promotional level he reinvented what the superhero was and could be. By the 970 s. Marvel was the number one comic book company in the world. Releasing 40 different titles every month away and selling 50000000 comics a year in more than 100 countries. Its super harrys even became stars on animated shannys. The company traditionally in 2nd place to its rival d. C. Comics was now number one but somehow retained its status as an underdog so you had d. C. Comics with superman batman wonder woman it Everybody Knows those characters but with marvel we were like the shrugging Company Really and we had spiderman involved in these guys who had problems even though we were the bestselling comics we were still the underdog new banks joined marvel in the mid 1980 s. As the underdog 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 healers 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 chic and disposable comics have become prized items and speculators was snapping up issues in bulk to resell them to collectors for indoor must profits. In the us vintage comics that cost 400. 00 in the 1970 s. Shop to for. 5000. 00 us dollars a decade later. By the early ninetys and some 1st issue comics well worth of 40000. 00 u. S. Dollars and up to cash in the number of specialty comic books all surged globally from a few 100 to over 10000. 00. As rare and new comic books were flying off the shelves marvel attracted the interest of millionaire businessman run home on the book the company for over 80000000. 00 u. S. Dollars in 1990. Hellman would signal a change the way marvel ran its business. Proving he was kind of a step above conglomerate owner he was in a corporate raider he was somebody who had no emotional connection to the tonics so you know this was marvels 1st real existence as. Kind of a piece in 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 uses 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 bank joint marvel 2 years before. 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 growth home and fesa town to raise the price of comic books by appealing to collect says they started marketing their comics as products as collectors items as things that were other then you know the inherent value of. Something you read we had a practice of doing special covers enhanced covers glow in the dark others will covers how a 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 government looks 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 followed. In 99. 00 he won 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 intensified. Marvel goes public thats one 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 a venture they do they want to get fame. Hellmans Marketing Team 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 wolverine 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 or the complete wolverine collection. But at some point the guy who collects every appearance of wolverine can no longer afford to collect every appearance of movement at some point you chase the guy away by trying to take too much of this morning. 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 contents of the comics began to suffer. And this started to alienate the companys cool audience. Bounce if marvel was losing readers why was it still seeing a Record Number of sales every month. The problem was the distribution system. Unlike traditional news stands specialty comic book shops cannot return unsold copies for a refund. If the issues dont south retail is shown to the cost. So marvel couldnt tell how many comics the shops were actually signings of customers. And this was about to become a big problem. Bookstore manager jeff as discovered shops that are both a huge oversupply of comic books for speculators. 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. 00 for as because dollars and bought so much of this manufactured trade. 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 when news got to little bank he went to the comic book stores to find out what was going on. Or 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 the conversation was very bleak. And it gave me the sense that something was going on here that we needed to record this new center field representatives out to survey comic Stores Across the country their findings was shocking. Every time marvel saw that special edition of the subsequent issues or a 20 percent decline in sales. Raises were getting tired of expensive and gimmicky comics that were mainly marketed to collectors and 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 site which. 2 marvel continued to publish enhanced covers and also began to include Trading Cards to encourage more connect as. A mating 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 werent in it for the long haul they wanted to make as much money as they could make right now right here and damn the consequences. Of 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 i didnt want to be a part of what i saw heirs be coming down for. A more. Insatiable drive for profits at marvel was also beginning to westin with its creative team. By the. Time Founding Editor in chief stanley had moved to california to see hollywood deals for the company. And the new editors left in charge one being allowed to do that 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 double it sort of being thing and you have this the static feeling for the characters you also know youre in a business and thats that constant tug of war and you had all these editors slamming their heads up against the wall to make their 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 1902 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 had oversaturated 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 wins picture. Later is a collectors realize that the value of comics have been inflated the comic industry implied it. Publishes sales plummeted by 70 percent. And 9 out of 10 comic book stores in america closed 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 on a toy retailer how montrose marvels debts up to 600000000. 00 u. S. Dollars all the while moving it further and further away from its core comic books. By 995 the company was in crisis it reported a full she 8000000 dollar loss the 1st time since permanent bought the company that they havent turned a profit. Is 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 in that going. After almost 2 decades at a Company Editor danny finger also made the difficult decision to leave. I was heartbroken to leave more things have changed there in such a way that it was very unpleasant for me on a day to day basis but you know id work there are 18 years it was where i growing up you know id say the end of a romantic relationship or the death of the loved one living moral was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. By 996 marvel reported a staggering loss of over 400. Eckstein 1000000 u. S. Dollars the company desperately needed cash to keep running and to pay back its debts. But in a disagreement with shareholders over the companys future poland declared bankruptcy. As majority owner it gave him the power to reorganize marvel without their consent. But interest so prominent drag 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 out our phones and threats to destroy 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