Before getting into any further crunchy details about Marvel powerful brand aura compared to DC Comics’, you will find below a bit of its history so that you can figure it out better on what Marvel built its success.
Marvel was created in 1939 by Martin Goodman, a New-York publisher of pulp magazines. Marvel’s business got prosperous in the 1930s/1940s - when the comics industry was in its greatest time - but started to really takeoff after World War II. The characters of the first issues included the Sub-Mariner (part man, part fish) and the Human Torch. Thanks to them, he was able to set up his own company called Timely Comics also known as Timely Publications whose most faithful readers were child and young people. This latter was engaged in combatting the Nazis. Timely Comics was mainly profitable thanks to Captain America. The first issue featuring him were sold 1 million times. Timely Comics was known for combatting against Nazis but chose to diversify by promoting female icons and shifting the focus on super-heroes to humor.
In the early 1950s, Goodman launched a distribution company called Atlas Publishing. But he faced many criticisms including that comic books were responsible of causing violence to society. Atlas Publishing entered a harsh phase as customers boycotted stores and some comic books were even burned publicly. Goodman notably made a deal with DC Comics to distribute a couple of his comics issues.
In 1961, Lee and Kirby (respectively writer/editor and artist of the company) contributed to the first issue of “The Fantastic Four”. You may have already heard about them but just for those who do not know them already, they are four superheroes, as the name implies, determined to write off the internal society dysfunction and fight against the vilain willing to destroy nations. On top of that, key characters such as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk or the X-Men were cleverly used to demonstrate the real world, through metaphors: for instance, the discrimination against the X-Men was actually echoing to the issues of racism and homophobia. It definitely helped Marvel to spread awareness about social issues. On the opposite, we found DC Comics most famous and profitable icons e.g. Superman, Batman and Superwoman, but very less representative of reality. Goodman's comic books began to bear the words "Marvel Comics Group" on the cover of some publications.
In the mid 1960s/early 1970s, Marvel had to catch up with DC Comics’ competition and strong regulations from Comics Code Authority, hence deciding to handle a diversification strategy. He introduced new characters like the Coal Tiger - known for being a black hero, Dardevil, Invisible Women and new media formats like TV shows featuring super-heroes. At that time, it also began to promote products related to those characters (T-shirts, games, toys) and musicals even if failing. To reach a broader segment of customers, Marvel as well published black-and-white comics magazines for an older audience. It also expanded its issues into new thematic such as drub abuse. In the 1980s, sales were mainly made in stores exclusively dedicated to that range. That period was also marked by marvel turning into a publicly held enterprise.
Nonetheless, diversifying moves improved Marvel awareness and strengthen profitability in the 1990s (meanwhile Marvel struggle to get out of bankruptcy) through licensing, further media outlets and marketing operations. In addition, the society chose to sell space in comic books for advertising, to extend its market into Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and to be part of the movie arena.
For your information, Marvel applied to the cinema industry started to really prosper in the 21th century. In fact, Marvel passed through hard times before knowing success and mass popularity in that field. Over the past 12 years, its movies generated more than $5 billion in the U.S. only. Even more striking, in 2012, “The Avengers” movie resulted in a turnover of $ 207 million on the first weekend. Now, Marvel evolves still more in the video-game field and keeps fighting for social causes such as the gay marriage.
All in all, Marvel is now a multibillion company, which has continuously adapted its identity on an evolutionary basis: it shifted from being an outsider to a redoubtable giant. Marvel is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company since in 2009. The foundation of the company is made of a library of more than 8000 characters that are present in a broad variety of supports for over 70 years now. The most well known are Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, the Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, Daredevil. Marvel’s success relies on three main branches: entertainment, licensing and publishing.
By Wonder Elsa
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