Pop culture has been influenced by many things from past decades. From music to fashion, we owe a lot of things to the past for shaping not only our lifestyles, but also our pop culture today. Nowadays when you walk around you always see someone wearing a Star Wars shirt or a Lord of the Rings necklace or something like that, but a great deal of pop culture is comprised by superheroes, more specifically, Marvel superheroes. Whether watching one of the many Spider Man cartoons or Avengers Endgame in theaters, we owe a lot to this franchise and how it shaped storytelling for future generations. But do you know how it all started? That’s what this article is all about.
It all started back in 1939 when a man by the name of Martin Goodman wanted to capitalize on the growing popularity of comic books, specifically comic books starring superheroes, and the company was originally called Timely Comics. Its first comic book was released in October of that year and was called Marvel Comics no.1 which starred several superheroes like the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. This quickly caused Timely Comics to join in on “The Golden Age” of comic books.
In the 1940’s, fans saw a lot of comics characters either fighting the Nazi’s or the Japanese, and Timely Comics were no exception leading to the creation of Captain America. A little fun fact, Timely Comics characters were fighting the Nazi’s and Japanese before the U.S. entered the war. Unfortunately, by the end of the 1940’s, comic book readers grew tired of superheroes forcing Timely Comics to cancel the last of its comic books in the genre in 1950. In 1951, Timely Comics became Atlas Magazine and started writing comic books in the genres of humor, westerns, horror, and science fiction; however, they experimented with bringing back their superhero characters in 1953. As with most great companies, they always have competition, and in 1956 DC comics started to rise in the “Silver Age”, and both Marvel and DC would later become the top of the comic book industry for several decades.
In August of 1961, Atlas Magazine was renamed to Marvel Comics and started the Marvel Era of comics with the launch of the Fantastic Four. Later on in the decade, we saw the release of not only the Fantastic Four comics, but also The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Ant Man, Spider Man, X-Men, Daredevil, and the Orignal Bullpen. All of whom were created by the legendary Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and so many others. In 1966, Marvel’s first animated adaptation starred famous characters like Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. In 1967, Jim Steranko created the secret agent, Nick Fury, and started featuring him in the book “Strange Tales’ ‘. Throughout the 60’s, several characters were created like Black Widow, Black Panther, Red She Hulk, Vision, Peggy and Sharon Carter, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, The Guardians of the Galaxy, and even S.H.I.E.L.D.
Throughout the 60’s and 70’s Marvel skyrocketed to fame for creating characters who interacted with each other in a realistic way and later on creating stories talking about pollution, race relations, and drug abuse. In the 70’s we had another wave of characters such as Valkyrie, Tigra, Ghost Rider, Blade, Moon Knight, Star-Lord, Spider Woman, War Machine, and Red Guardian. Later on in the decade we received a live action Spider Man starring Nicholas Hammond as the famous web slinging superhero and aired from 1977 to 1979. An animated series called, “The New Fantastic Four” which aired from September 1978 to December of that year. And finally in 1979 came the animated series for Spider Woman and aired until Januray 5, 1980.
The 80’s and 90’s had a lot of highs and lows for Marvel Comics. One of the highs being the new characters like She-Hulk, Venom, and Deadpool, as well as several new shows for the characters. We had an animated show for Spider Man, which aired from 1981 to 1982, an animated show called “Spider Man and His Amazing Friends”, which aired from 1981 to 1983, an animated series called “Marvel Action Universe” which aired from 1988 to 1991, and an animated series for the Incredible Hulk which aired from 1982 to 1983. Unfortunately the lows for the company during this time period was that they switched management multiple times and because of this the company had to file bankruptcy in 1996. Luckily though in 1998, the company emerged from bankruptcy and decided to diversify its output by launching imprints for a variety of demographics and expanding the cinematic output under Marvel Studios.
In the 2000’s, there weren’t a whole lot of new superheroes coming out in comic books, but as promised in the previous decade we had a slightly larger output in the cinema. In the year 2000, came the animated series “X-Men: Evolution”, which aired until 2003. In 2001, came the live action X-Men series which aired until 2004. In 2003 came yet another Spider Man animated series which lasted until Spetember of the same year. In 2006 there was a little change in paste from the most notable marvel characters, and aired a live action Blade series until Spetember of the same year. In the late 2000’s, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born with the releases of “Iron Man ” and “The Incredible Hulk” in 2008. On the other side of the spectrum we received an animated series for Iron Man, The X-Men, and yet another series for Spider Man. We may not have seen a lot of new characters, but in 2007 Marvel began publishing digital comic books and in 2009 Disney purchased Marvel studios and kept the ground rolling with many successful movies.
In the 2010’s was when we really saw a surge in the MCU. Following the releases of the other two Iron Man movies, there was also the release of the Captain America movies, Thor movies, one of the many Spider Man movies, Avengers Movies, Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and X-Men movies. As well as the singular releases of Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Wolverine, Fantastic Four, Ant Man and Antman and The Wasp. There was also a surge in tv shows, both animated and live action. With live action shows there’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”, “Agent Carter”, and “Daredevil”. While with animated shows we have three more Spider Man series, three Avengers series, and two Iron Man series, along with individual series for the X-Men, Wolverine, Black Panther, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, The Hulk, and Rocket Raccon and Groot.
Finally in our current decade, there’s a lot more series than movies so far but could change later on in the decade. With movies there’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “Spider Man: No Way Home”, “Docter Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, “Shang-Chi and The Legends of the Ten Rings”, “Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumanina”, “Black Widow”, and most recently “The Marvels”. In television on the other hand we have “Moon Knight”, “Ms Marvel”, “Secret Invasion”, “Loki”, “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier”, “Wanda Vision”, “She Hulk: Attorney at Law”, “Hawkeye”, and “What If….?”. In the next few years there should be another Captain America movie, a Fanstastic Four movie and a couple new Avengers movies, but there’s not a whole lot of information out there about any of those.
Above all, Marvel truly has a rich history that shouldn’t be ignored. Whether you’re a fan of the comic books or one of the many tv shows and movies, there is something interesting to learn in its history. Now this is only a brief summary of the history, and I didn’t include all of the shows and movies that came out, but I learned a lot about the company and I hope you did too.
