Marvel Comics, the Marvelous Beginning!

Marvel Comics is an American comic book institution. These days they are part of a corporate conglomerate, known as Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Although not starting out as a capitalist mega-force, they are now well known for highly popular (and, I might add, profitable) characters such as Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, and X-Men. Since the 1960s, Marvel has become one of the two largest American comic book companies in history, along with DC Comics.

Here is a generous description of what Marvel has to say about itself: "With a library of over 5,000 proprietary characters, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies. Marvel's operations are focused in four areas: entertainment (Marvel Studios), licensing, publishing and toys (Toy Biz). More amazing Marvel Comics!