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Founded in 1939 and first known as Timely Comics. In their early days they published a variety of comics, including Tarzan clones like Ka-Zar, and super hero comics like Namor, The Human Torch, and Captain America. In the fifties they published monster comics, and starting in 1961, published superheroes again. Writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby co-created a number of superheroes like The Fantastic Four, Hulk, and the X-men. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spiderman. These characters broke new ground on established superhero norms, and formed a fictional shared world now known as the Marvel Universe. During the 60s, the company changed their name to Marvel comics, and is now the leading American comic publisher.
Marvel 616. The mainstream Marvel reality, that most Marvel comics take place in, is now known as Marvel 616. The name originated when Alan Moore wrote Captain Britain for Marvel's U.K. branch. Captain Britain was a hero who crossed into other realities. In one story a myriad of other realities were visible on some kind of numbered chart, and the regular Marvel reality was numbered 616. Much speculation has went into the significance of the number 616, but it is possible that Alan Moore chose it completely at random.
Regardless there are scores of other realities featured in the series What If and other mini-series and other events like Age of Apocalypse and Days of Future Past. Each reality has it's own number, and all the realities together form the Marvel Multiverse. Most numbers now originate from the date of publication of the comic that said reality first appears in.
Up one step from the Marvel Multiverse is the Marvel Megaverse, a collection of all Marvel realities including worlds not related to 616. For example, in 1986, Marvel started a new comics imprint featuring a fresh world called New Universe. This is part of the Marvel Megaverse. Ultraverse is also part of the Marvel Megaverse, as it was originally published by Malibu, who in real life was bought out by Marvel Comics.
Characters included in Marvel 616
Micronauts
Rom
Beowulf
Dracula
Frankenstein
The Volsunga Saga
Crystar (A toy line actually developed by Marvel)
War of the Worlds
Godzilla
Doc Savage
Included in the Marvel Megaverse
Ultraverse
Razorline
New Universe
New Universe Reboot
Shadowline
Supreme Power
Strikeforce Morituri
Possibly the world of 1984
Ultimate Universe
Marvel Zombies
Transformers
Marvel in other media.
Live action TV shows.
The Amazing Spider-Man (1977-1979)
Dr. Strange TV movie. (1978)
The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982)
This series was continued in the following TV movies.
The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988,Starring Thor)
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989,Starring Daredevil)
The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990)
Despite the title of the above movie, a fourth TV movies was planned starring Iron Man. However, it was canceled due to Bill Bixby's health. He died of cancer in 1993.
Spider-Man (tokusatsu) (1978-1979) As strange as it may sound, this was a live action Japanese TV show, co-produced by Marvel and Toei Company. Toei was given permission to do whatever they wanted. So in this show Spiderman was a Japanese motorcycle racer who fought giant monsters while piloting a giant robot (mecha). This was an early tokusatsu (literal translation, special effect) show in the Super Sentai genre. (Super refers to the giant robot/mech, Sentai is fighting squadron.) This show influenced later shows of the genre like Power Rangers.
Check out the opening here.
Though not featuring any Marvel Characters, Marvel and Toei co-produced another show called Battle Fever J (1979-1980)
Two Captain America TV movies aired in 1979.
Generation X TV movie (1996)
Nick Fury/SHIELD TV movie. (1998) Starring David Hasselhoff no less.
Mutant X (2001-2004)This show did not feature X-men characters but the concept was almost the same.
Animated shows
The Marvel Super Heroes (1966)(This show was simply shots of actual Marvel comics with little animation.
Fantastic Four (1967 – 1970)
Spider-Man (1967 – 1970)
Fantastic Four (1978)
Fred and Barney meet the Thing (1979)
The Flintsones never met the Thing in any actual episode, but appeared in the title sequence together. This show had a totally different take on the Thing. Here he was a teenager who turned into the Thing by touching two magical rings. The Fantastic Four never appeared in this show.
Spider-Woman (1979 – 1980)
Spider-Man (1981 - 1982)
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981 – 1983)
The Incredible Hulk (1982)
X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men (1989) This was a pilot only episode. The 1992 six player X-men arcade was a sequel to this.
Solarman (1989, only pilot episode)
The Marvel animated universe (1992 - 2000)
X-Men (1992 – 1997)
Iron Man (1994 – 1996)
Fantastic Four (1994 – 1996)
Spider-Man (1994 – 1998)
The Incredible Hulk (1996 – 1997)
Spider-Man Unlimited (1999 - 2000)
The Avengers: United They Stand (1999 - 2000)
There were 3 volumes of a comic book series adapting the above mentioned X-men cartoon. The first three series were called X-men Adventures. The last was Adventures of the X-men. After the show was canceled the comic continued with original stories. In issue 12 of Adventures (1997) the entire reality of the X-men animated universe is destroyed, and reforms into Marvel 616. Very interesting.
Silver Surfer (1998)
This cartoon is not considered part of the Marvel animated universe.
X-Men: Evolution (2000 – 2003)
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003)
Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (2006 - 2007, 2009-)
The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008-)
Wolverine and the X-Men (2008-)
Iron Man: Armored Adventures (2009-)
Theatrical movies.
Captain America serial. (1944)
Howard the Duck (1986)
The Punisher (1990) Starring Dolph Lundgren
Captain America (1990)
The Fantastic Four (1994)
This movie was never released theatrically. Constantin films were about to lose the film rights, and rushed into production with a budget under 2 million. It was produced by Roger Corman. It can be found on the convention cicuit, and probably online by this point. It is apparently very bad. Constantin pictures did eventually make the two Fantastic Four movies listed below.
Blade (1998) Which had two sequels and a TV series. The third sequel had Hannibal King and Dracula. The TV series mentioned Chton and Moon Knight.
X-men (2000)Which had 2 sequels, and a Wolverine movie. More spin-offs are in the works.
Spiderman (2002)and two sequels.
Daredevil (2003)and an Elektra spin-off movie.
Hulk (2003)
Punisher (2004)
Man-Thing (2005)
Fantastic Four (2005)and one sequel starring Silver Surfer
Ghost Rider (2007)
Marvel Movie Universe (2008)
Marvel comics launched their own movie studio to self produce films based on their characters. In 2008 they released Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. 2010 had Iron Man 2. 2011 will have Thor and Captain America. All these lead up to 2012's Avengers film, starring all of the above characters. Also of note is that Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson) appeared in the post credit scene in Iron Man, mentioning the Avengers Initiative. His name also appeared in the Hulk, which had a few Captain America references. Tony Stark also appeared at the end of Iron Man. There have been other movie franchises that intersected, (Universal Horror movies, Aliens vs Predator, Jason Vs Freddy, Godzilla and various Japanese monsters) but this is the first time a shared universe of films was planned from the ground up.
Punisher War Zone (2008)
Marvel Crossed over with
DC Comics
Image
Shi
Star Trek
Valiant
Evil Dead
Transformers
Guiding Light (Soap Opera)
Evil Dead
The Nightman TV show crossed with Manimal.
