Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics is an American comic book line published by Marvel Publishing, Inc., a division of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Affectionately called "The House of Ideas" by the fan press, Marvel's best-known characters include Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Daredevil,Thor and The Punisher. Most of Marvel's fictional characters are depicted as inhabiting a single shared world; this continuity is known as the Marvel Universe. — It was founded in the 1930s as a group of subsidiary companies under the name Timely Comics, and was generally known as Atlas Comics in the 1950s. However, Marvel's modern incarnation dates from the early 1960s, with the launching of Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Since the 1960s, Marvel has been one of the two largest American comics companies, along with DC Comics.