MARVELS 393
Marvel was wholly owned by Goodman until 1969, when he sold the company to
Cadence Industries. Th e 1970s were a tumultuous period for Marvel; the company had
some spectacular failures like the attempts to publish feminist comics ( Th e Cat ) and to
co-opt the underground movement with the short-lived magazine Comix Book. At the
same time, the company began focusing on the comic book fans that would be the bulk
of the future audience for the medium. A new version of the X-Men debuted in 1975,
and became a mainstay of Marvel’s superhero lineup. Jim Shooter became editor-in-
chief in 1977; during his decade-long tenure, Marvel aggressively courted the profi table
direct market.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel was also developing its characters into Holly-
wood properties. Under Cadence’s control, the company built a substantial presence
in television animation, creating cartoons featuring both its own and licensed
characters. In 1985, Cadence sold Marvel (by then the “Marvel Entertainment
Group”) for $46 Million to New World Pictures, a television and fi lm production
company interested in exploiting Marvel’s characters.
New World got little chance to exploit those ideas, as fi nancial trouble forced them
to sell Marvel to fi nancier Ronald Perelman in 1989. Under Perelman’s control, Marvel
diversifi ed and expanded its business by leveraging its position in the comic book indus-
try to borrow money and acquire new subsidiaries. As the comic book industry faltered
after 1993, the company had diffi culty servicing its debt. In December 1996, the Marvel
Entertainment Group fi led for bankruptcy to reorganize its debt. Th e bankruptcy was
resolved in 1998 when the company was re-merged with Toy Biz (which had been spun
off in 1994). In 2005, after the success of the Spider-Man and X-Men fi lm franchises, the
subsidiary Marvel Studios began to produce fi lms based on Marvel characters, instead
of licensing the characters to other companies. By 2009, Marvel was still a major part of
the comic book industry, but the company itself has become more of a media company,
with comics still playing an important role. At the end of August 2009, the Walt Disney
Company announced that it planned to purchase full ownership of Marvel for $4 bil-
lion in cash and stock, an acquisition that would place Marvel in a position analogous to
DC, which is owned by the Time-Warner media conglomerate.
Mark C. Rogers
MARVELS. A 1994 limited comic book series written by Kurt Busiek and illustrated
by Alex Ross , Marvels is notable for its synergy of artwork and storyline. It is also
notable for its retelling of the history of the Marvel universe from the perspective
of the unassuming bystanders always on the front lines: the ordinary citizens of
New York. A sequel series, Marvels: Eye of the Camera , by Busiek and illustrator Jay
Anacleto, would follow 15 years later, in 2009.
In traditional superhero comics, stories are told around the interplay of heroes and
villains: Batman fi ghts the Joker, the Fantastic Four tangle with Dr. Doom, and so
on. Much like the extras in a movie, the citizens of New York, Gotham, or the like are
relegated to the background; their lives are unimportant simply because they do not
