What is Marvel ?

The 1980s also saw Frank Miller’s stint on Daredevil, which took that book in a darker and grittier direction, reviving sagging sales

In a cross-promotion with Combos Snacks, Marvel once published a single-issue comic titled ‘Combo Man’, about a boy who was able to transform into a superhero amalgamation of Magneto, Hulk, Wolverine, Daredevil, Iron Man, the Punisher, Carnage, Spider-Man, the Human Torch, Captain America, and Cyclops after being bombarded by energy and eating a Combo.

The shapeshifter Mystique is the mother of Nightcrawler, but writer Chris Claremont previously intended her to be his father.

Captain America’s shield is round because his original shield was thought too similar to the costume of a rival publisher’s superhero, The Shield.

Tom Morello, guitarist for the rock band Rage Against the Machine, makes a cameo appearance as the first terrorist guard killed by the title character in ‘Iron Man’.

making it one of Marvel’s best sellers. In 1988 Todd MacFarlane began a popular run as artist on The Amazing Spider-Man.

In the Marvel comics series “Spider-Man: Reign”, set 30 years in the future, it is revealed that Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker’s wife, has died from cancer brought on by Peter’s radioactive semen.

Marvel’s X-Men and DC’s Doom Patrol, both teams of outcasts with strange powers led by a wheelchair-bound mastermind, debuted within three months of each other. The Doom Patrol were first.

Four years later MacFarlane and a number of other popular artists, including Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, and Rob Liefeld, left Marvel to found rival Image Comics, a company that allowed creators to retain the copyrights of their characters.

In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Black Widow shot and killed Tony Stark’s butler, Jarvis, after he walked in on the two of them having sex, revealing her true sinister persona.

Captain America co-creator Joe Simon claims in his autobiography that he got the inspiration for the Red Skull from the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae.

As the original ‘X-Men’ comic series was created in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement was at its peak, Professor X and Magneto were modeled after Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, respectively.

During the 1990s and early 2000s a new wave of writers, including Brian Michael Bendis (Daredevil, The Avengers), Jonathan Hickman (Fantastic Four), and Ed Brubaker (Captain America), became well known for their mature and sometimes controversial takes on Marvel’s characters.

Many of Marvel’s Asgardians are based on Norse mythology, but the Warriors Three Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg are based on Errol Flynn, Charles Bronson, and Shakespeare’s Falstaff.

Wolverine once fought a super villain in South America composed entirely of cocaine.

Marvel produced a short-lived series called The Human Fly, based on a real-life stuntman who kept his true identity a secret. He was billed as “The wildest superhero of all because he’s real.”

Stan Lee once posed nude for a book about the behind the scenes details of the Marvel offices, with just a book covering his privates. Marvel prevented the photo making it into the book though, and it wasn’t released for 29 years.

The 2010s saw the emergence of another new wave of talent, with writer Matt Fraction

Shatterstar is his own grandfather. Longshot is also his own grandfather. They are each other’s father and son. It’s weird.

In a special four-page supplement of a 1985 ‘Chicago Tribune’ comics page, Spider-man revealed he was sexually abused as a child by one of his older friends, a story produced by Marvel Comics in cooperation with the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.

artist David Aja turning in a visually arresting run on Hawkeye, longtime Spider-Man writer Dan Slott teaming with artist Mike Allred for a bold take on a classic character in Silver Surfer, and writer G.

In the Six Part Saga “Man and Wolf”, Captain America was injected with a serum that turned him into a Werewolf.

In a deleted scene from the 2008 film ‘The Incredible Hulk’, in which Bruce Banner goes to the Arctic to commit suicide, Captain America’s body and shield can be spotted frozen beneath the ice.

In Pryde of the X-Men (the pilot for a never realized X-Men Animated Series), Wolverine was improperly dubbed with an Australian accent. Since Australian stuff was popular at the time, the error wasn’t corrected and it was instead suggested to change Wolverine’s nationality in the comic’s continuity.

Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona breaking new ground with their critically acclaimed Ms. Marvel.