“I am Iron Man.”

With those words, billionaire genius Tony Stark changed the world and the Marvel Cinematic Universe took off at top speed, never looking back. Soon, heroes from the past, present, and outer space would unite to protect Earth from all sorts of vile villainy – like evil A.I.s determined to wipe out humanity, Asgardian princes out to conquer and rule, diabolical Nazi plots that were hidden in plain sight, and alien madmen looking to decimate half of all life in the universe.

When you look at Marvel from 1939 all the way to 2022, how much of a change do you actually see? 

From 1939 to 2007 Marvel released at most 27,000 comics that caught the attention of all its readers

The first character that Marvel Comics released was The Human Torch. He was created in 1939. He debuts in the first story of the now-classic comic book Marvel Comics #1 (1939). The Human Torch is the founding member of the Fantastic Four. The Human Torch was originally called the “Android Human Torch until it was changed by the creator. 

On April 6, 1941, Marvel Comics released their first female superhero, Miss Fury. Miss Fury is a fictional superhero from the Golden Age of Comics. She first appeared as The Black Fury on April 6, 1941, a Sunday comic strip distributed by the Bell Syndicate, and created by artist June Tarpé Mills 

In July 1969, Marvel released their first black mainstream superhero, Black Panther. Black Panther’s original character was named “Coal Tiger”. Black Panther first appeared in the Fantastic Four No. 119 comic.

As the years went on Marvel started releasing movies. Marvel Studios releases its films in groups called “Phases”. In 2008 the first movie that was released in Phase 1 was Iron Man 1 starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Phase 1 ended in 2012 with the movie The Avengers.

Soon Marvel released Phase Two. Phase Two started with the movie Iron Man 3 in 2013 that continued with Robert Downey Jr. still starring as Tony Stark. The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was released during Phase Two. This Phase ended in 2015 after the release of Ant-Man.

Marvel continues to release 2 more phases. Phase 3 has more movies that keep the story going but at the end of Phase 3 Marvel killed off many well-known superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow.

Phase 4 is where Marvel started going downhill because they started releasing TV shows that were changing many of the different stories. They released the show “Loki” after that had him killed in “Avengers- Infinity War”. They released “WandaVision” after they killed Vision in Infinity War. Since Marvel started doing this, it made many people believe they were becoming desperate for something to make. Yes, many people enjoyed these shows but some people just didn’t understand the reason for releasing them. Many other stories have been written on other platforms covering about whether on not Marvel has gone downhill like Decider.

Then Marvel released the new movies Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder. All Three of these movies started having Marvel go back up because we get to see the back story of Natasha Romanoff in Black Widow. we get a new superhero in Shang- Chi who goes and confronts his past. We see Doctor Strange protecting a young girl with the power to jump from one universe to another while running from Wanda after she lost her husband and kids in the multiverse of madness. And we get to see was Thor had been up to in Love and Thunder when he goes to stop a man from killing all the gods.

While Marvel has its ups and downs with their movies and new shows, they’ve provided content over the years beloved by millions across the world and they show no signs of stopping.