Marvel Comics

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Marvel Comics is the younger of the two most popular comics companies of all time. If you haven't heard of them, you've been living under a real rock. They are iconic for their work in the Supers genre, although /tg/ also likes them for their dabbling in Sword & Sorcery comics as part of Marvel including whatever licensed stuff they have into their continuity. This means Conan and Red Sonja are actually historical figures in Marvel's Earth, and Conan has actually met some superheroes due to time-travel shenanigans.

Universe

Marvel Comics arguably came into its own in the so-called "Bronze Age" of comics, when the restrictions of the Silver Age eased and comics could start showing more serious tone. Having struggled to really keep up with DC Comics during the Silver Age, the Bronze Age allowed Marvel to find a defining "feel" for itself as, essentially, "soap operas with supers".

Characters tend to be much less powerful in Marvel compared to DC - in particular, whereas DC heroes tend to have large powersets covering multiple superhuman abilities, Marvel heroes are more likely to focus on comparatively small powerset, or even just a single power. Perhaps as a result of this, Marvel heroes tend to be more likely to team up either informally or formally.

In contrast to DC's finite, countable, number of alternate realities (52+various one-off series+imprints+anti-mater universe Earths), Marvel has endless, near infinite, ones.

Notable Supers of World War II

Namor McKenzie, the Submariner

A tryst between an Scottish blooded American and an Atlantian princess has produced a half-Atlantian half-Human supermutant that's one of the oldest characters from what is now Marvel comics. Originally appeared as a villain that destroyed New York, which has since been retconned by certain environmental conditions causing him to go crazy. Later teams up with Captain America and the Human Torch after learning some recent environmental damage that threatened his home was caused by the Nazis. For some reason, despite being the off-spring of a Scot and an Atlantic Ocean fish, he has always been depicted with Asian facial features. Aquaman was a ripoff of him.

Effectively immortal (or at least long lived enough the near century doesn't matter much to him), Namor still shows up in modern comics.

Captain America

Rejected from normal military service for being too scrawny, all-American patriot and scholar Steve Rogers instead decides to serve his country by volunteering as test subject for an experimental super soldier formula. The formula works, transforming Steve into the "peak human" Captain America, but a spy kills the formula's creator and destroys the lab, causing the formula to be forever lost. Gets a shield made of super metal capable of reflecting stuff, which he can throw as a weapon with uncanny ability. He spends a few years fighting spies and criminals and after Pearl Harbor, he leads America's superpowered forces during World War II. His true, idealistic, belief in American values contrasts his commander-in-chief's views that the Constitution was "marvelously elastic", to the point of believing it was OK to suppress exonerating evidence in order implement crimes against humanity on American citizens.

Near the end of the war, Captain America was lost and frozen in an ice berg, surviving thanks to being a super soldier. He is recovered near the start of the modern age (whenever that currently is) and revived, where he's living anachronism in a world that has largely moved past his values, but he's still the best leader of supermen in the world (if not beyond). Presumably sterile, since clones have his powers yet he's never had his sperm harvested to created peak human superbabies.

The Human Torch

Before World War II reached the United States, the scientist Phineas Horton created a revolutionary intelligent android. A flaw in the components causes the android to ignite when exposed to oxygen, forcing Horton to imprison the android in a vacuum sealed capsule. The capsule's seal quickly decays and the android breaks out, learns to control its fire powers in an easily replicated accident with a common enough material, and become a superhero known as the Human Torch, taking the alias Jim Hammond. He would adopt Tom "Toro" Raymond, a trainwreck survivor with pyrokinetic abilities of his own (Toro had no origin story till he was retconned into being a mutant in 1977). This android and his sidekick would eventually fight in World War II and has the honor of killing Hitler in the Marvel universe..

Made a few appearances early in the modern age, but has largely been forgotten. For whatever reason the fact that, uncontrollable flames aside, the Marvel world has had intelligent androids that can pass for human since 1939 is rarely relevant, and normal people have technology that's only on par with the current stuff.

Notable Supers of the "Modern" Age

The Fantastic Four

One of the oldest and certainly the breakout stars of Marvel's early days, the Fantastic Four's star has waned somewhat since the Silver Age. When scientist Reed Richards persuades his old friend Benjamin Grimm to pilot an experimental rocket of his up into space, along with siblings Susan and Johnny Storm, the quartet are bombarded by mysterious cosmic radiation. Crashlanding back on Earth, they discover that each of them has been imbued with a supernatural ability; Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) has gain a body of living elastic, allowing him to stretch, squash, and reshape himself as he desires, whilst Susan (Invisible Girl/Woman) has gained the power of invisibility (and, later, invisible forcefield projection) and Johnny (The Human Torch, taking a name from a World War II hero that was actually a robot) can cover himself in a fiery aura that lets him fly and hurl fireballs. And poor Ben Grimm (The Thing) has been transformed into a monstrous, ogre-like figure made of rocky scales, imbued with fantastic strength and durability.

The Fantastic Four thrived in the Silver Age; their entire concept was, essentially, "explorers of the unknown", with Reed constantly inventing new rockets/time traveling machines/dimensional gateways/scanners that uncover long-hidden secret civilizations and the like. But even here the "super soap opera" formula was taking form. Reed and Sue's relationship is always somewhat rocky, since Reed has a bad tendency to focus on his science and neglect his wife, whilst Reed also feels guilty for Ben's incurable transform, and Ben resents him in turn. And all the while, Ben and Johnny squabble like brothers.

Seven years after their creation (surprisingly brief for superhero romances) Reed and Sue have a son they name Franklin after Sue and Johnny's father. Franklin had the power of Psionics, with the exact details as confusing and contradictory as pre-3.5 psionics. The most notable thing about Franklin is his aging makes the the sliding timescale weird: Born in 1968, he was barely more than a toddler (if that) when he joins Power Pack in 1986, and only hitting puberty in the late 2010s.

The Hulk

A throw-back to the earlier monster comics that Marvel had made its name from, the Hulk is brilliant but neurotic and emotionally repressed scientist Bruce Banner, who is exposed to the detonation of his own superweapon, the Gamma Ray Bomb, whilst trying to rescue a teenager who drove onto the military blast testing site. The radiation, rather than killing him, unlocks a split personality; a brutish, adrenaline-driven childlike creature, the embodiment of Banner's pent up rage and hatred. Now, whenever Banner gets angry, he transforms into a super-powered green giant with the mind of an angry child and torn clothing that always covers the private parts, known as the Hulk. And whilst Hulk just wants to be left alone, humanity refuses to stop provoking him.

His cousin, She-Hulk, is one of the few distaff counterparts in comics to grow beyond just a female version of an existing character. After his cousin Jennifer Walters is injured, Bruce is forced to give a her blood transfusion, which inadvertently turns her into a large green giant as well. Unlike Bruce however, Jennifer is largely in control of her abilities and takes great pride in being a huge, sexy musclegirl while also being recognized for her brains as an accomplished attorney. Unless you're reading the reading the comics written by Jason Aaron, in which she is a hideously malformed mass of muscles barely recognizable as female and who struggles to speak coherently, more literally like the Hulk with boobs, and this is treated as somehow being "more empowering" than turning into a beautiful, articulate, intelligent and well-respected green amazon.

Spider-Man

Arguably one of the most famous Marvel superheroes who actually isn't part of a team. Spider-Man was Stan Lee's attempt to get away from the "kid sidekick" trope, which he loathed, by creating a fully independent teenage superhero - Peter Parker, a brilliant but socially awkward youth from a blue-collar background who gained fantastic spider-like powers after being bitten by an irradiated spider. When his Uncle Ben is murdered by a robber that Peter could have stopped but selfishly chose not to, Peter vows to live up to his uncle's creed that "with great power, there must also come great responsibility", and attempts to become a superpowered costumed vigilante, whilst juggling a normal life around his secret life as a crime-fighter.

Surprisingly, he's spun out a rather large "family" of knock-off Spider-folk, something that you normally see more in DC Comics. A short list of Spideys:

• Scarlet Spider: The original knock-off Spider-Man, this poor bastard was part of the infamous convoluted 90s mega-event known and loathed as "The Clone Saga". Long story short, there was a clone of Peter Parker created, nobody was sure who was the original at first, and the guy who thought he was a clone went off, dyed his hair blonde, changed his name to Ben Reilly, and created a new identify for himself as the Scarlet Spider - his suit was solid red, contrasting a blue hoodie (hood usually worn down) with a black spider emblazoned on the front. Most notable for wearing tricked out gauntlets that could launch "impact webbing" (basically webbing grenades) and spiked projectiles called "spider stingers".
• Kaine: A failed and deformed prototype clone, also from the Clone Saga. Basically Spidey's answer to Red Hood.
• Venom: A former rival journalist bonded to a slime-like alien organism that Spidey wore for a while as living battle armor, until he found out it wanted to permanently fuse with him on a genetic level. Has repeatedly flipflopped between hero and villain.
• Carnage: A serial killer bonded with the offspring of Venom's alien bio-armor. Such a crazy psychopath that Spidey and Venom regularly team up to kick his shit in.
• Spider-Woman: There have been multiple female counterparts to Spider-Man, and their backstories are all a mess.
  • Jessica Drew: The first Spider-Woman. Has had multiple contradictory backstories, including being treated with radiation and spider venom to save her from an incurable disease or being an actual spider hyper-evolved into a human woman. Wore a red and yellow suit. Can fly, fire bolts of bio-electricity from her hands, and emit pheromones that repulse women but enthrall men. Was introduced and kept around more for trademark reasons than anything else.
  • Julia Carpenter: Got superpowers by being tricked into entering a shady super soldier program. Gained super-strength, wall-crawling, and the ability to project "psychic webbing" from her fingertips.
  • Charlotte Witter: A psychic whose powers were involuntarily activated through torturous experiments inflicted upon her by Dr. Octopus. Possessed adhesive "psi-webs", the ability to produce telekinetic "limbs" that looked like ghostly spider's legs, precognition, telepathy, and psionic detection. The only villainous Spider-Woman.
  • Martha Franklin: Niece of Spidey's antagonist J. Jonah Jameson. Through magical bullshit, gained the combined powers of the first three Spider-Women above. Then got killed off.
  • Anya Corazon: Latina who belonged to a mystic society, which gave her a magical tattoo that she could use to summon a mystical carapace that gave her enhanced strength and durability. Lost that power and switched to spider-themed gadgets instead. Originally called herself Arana ("Arachnid"), now goes by Spider-Girl.
  • Cindy Moon: The most recent Spider-Woman, introduced in 2014. A girl who got bit by the same spider that bit Peter Parker, but she couldn't control her powers, so she was sealed up in a bunker for a decade until Spidey freed her. Same powers as Spider-Man, but produces organic webbing from glands in her wrists. Calls herself "Silk" rather than "Spider-Woman".
  • May Parker: A "What if?" story on if Mary and Peter's baby from the Clone Saga wasn't stillborn got popular enough to make her adventures an on-going that lasted over 100 issues on top of some shorter lived sequel series. The alternate reality she existed in spanned MC2, the largest AUs in Marvel's history before the Ultimate Universe came along. Is noted for her very stable, "normal" relationship with her parents that (eventually) support her heroing and, thanks to having her own original antagonists, being able to reform most of her recurring foes and make them allies. Actually called herself "Spider-Girl" in her own series, herself noting that "Spider-Woman" sounded like "somebody's mom", but less talented writers bringing her back as an adult have had her adopt the -Woman moniker.
• Miles Morales: Technically comes from another dimension, but has been permanently moved to the mainstream universe, so he counts. Mixed race (Black/Latino) teenager who got bit by the same spider that bit his dimension's version of Peter Parker. Refused to become a hero, until his dimension's Spider-Man got killed. Then tried to take up the mantle in guilt. The skubbiest Spidey-clone; you either love him as a genuine affirmative action legacy character, or you hate him because he doesn't seem to have any character depth outside of "Teen Spidey, but BLACK!" (A third faction exists which doesn't mind if he's just "Teen Spidey, but BLACK!" so long as his existence can head off another stupid attempt to youthen up Peter Parker like "One More Day", possibly one of the worst and most disliked retcons in comics history.)
• Gary Drew: Son of Jessica Drew in MC2, he had an uncurable illness so his mom subjected him to the same process that gave her her powers. This gave him Spider-Powers but didn't actually cure him, so he responds by spending what he's sure will be a short life to the fullest by helping people like the original Spider-Man he idolized. May eventually convinces him to seek help from Mr. Fantastic, but he's never seen again after this, giving all sorts of grim implications. He's since appeared as a baby in mainstream Marvel continuity, largely to cap off the stupid arc where his mom continued superheroics while deeply pregnant.
• Miguel O'Hara: In the Cyberpunk future of 2099, Alchemax employee Miguel O'Hara tries to quit his job. In response, his employer drugs him with a highly addictive drug they have a monopoly on to force his continued employment. In desperation, Miguel tries to splice his own DNA, but the procedure is sabotaged. Fortunately, this only gives him spider-powers instead of killing him. After saying he's the historical figure Spider-Man in jest, he realizes taking that identity is actually a good idea. Easily the most successful 2099 series, in large part because he's not the original but in the future, and has his own substantially different powers (venomous fangs and gliding)+costume.
• Gwen Stacy AKA "Spider-Gwen" or "Ghost Spider". In the main Marvel continuity, Gwen Stacy was Peter's girfriend, who got killed by the Green Goblin in one of the more iconic scenes marking the transition from the Silver to Bronze Age; her death was a sore point for Parker ever since. In Spider-Gwen's continuity, she was the bitten by the Radioactive Spider, and lost Peter Parker to his self-destructive tendencies, leading to his death being a sore point for her ever since. One of several "new" characters invented for the well-received "Spider-Verse" event; she has since become a notable B or C lister--somebody the fans like, and don't mind seeing, but not popular enough to sustain her own series.

One More Day and the Clone Saga

A lot of writers and editors really hate the Peter Parker Spider-man, especially once he married Mary Jane Watson. This lead to several attempts to "fix" the character, two of which were some of the most hated storylines in all of comics. The Clone Saga (originally intended simply as a way for Peter Parker to retire as Spider-man, replacing him with Ben Riley) was hated because it went on a year longer then it should have, and had a bunch of really confusing and nonsensical plot points. One More Day had Peter Parker make a deal with Mephisto (essentially, the Devil) to save his Aunt May's life by undoing his marriage to Mary Jane. The latter is held to be one of the stupidest decisions in the history of comics, for many, many, many, many, many, MANY obvious reasons.

Thor

Odin has banished Thor to Earth in the guise of a mortal to learn humility (later retconned as secretly being to protect him), Donald Blake discovers his true identity and powers during a trip to Norway. Originally just a normal superhero with some Norse trappings, later authors tied him closer and closer to Norse myth and "Donald Blake" has largely been forgotten in favor of him just being Thor.

Iron Man

Tony Stark, a genius weapon inventor who was also an eminently hateable asshole playboy who was kidnapped by [insert currently politically acceptable villain here]. After being forced to make weapons for his captor, he instead builds a suit of super-armor with which he escapes, although the experience leaves shrapnel dangerously close to his heart, which results in him needing to keep a part of the suit over his heart to keep the shrapnel from migrating.

Usually played as a heroic trainwreck: He fights the good fight, but he just as frequently is his own worst enemy. His control freak issues, general assholery, survivor's guilt, and alcoholism are the usual centers of his weaknesses.

The Avengers

Like DC, Marvel came up with a big meta-team for its superheroes. But whereas the Justice League was built around the idea of "people love these superheroes, so if we have them all adventure together, it'll be even bigger!", the Avengers originally began as a kind of dumping ground for B-lister and C-lister superheroes whom Marvel really didn't think could pull off their own comic lines. Characters like Iron Man, Ant Man, and Thor.

It should be added that the Avengers was originally more of a "place to stay" than a traditional superteam; there was a large mansion donated by Tony Stark, which was effectively the Avengers "clubhouse", with people cycling in and out as they needed a place to stay. The thing is, as so many characters cycled through, and so many minor characters who suddenly got popular had the Avengers in their history, their profile was raised until the Infinity Gems became a thing, at which point the Avengers became the big "all hands on deck" team Marvel used when they wanted to do a big "event" comic. (The Fantastic Four and X-Men both being restricted in membership to Four members and mutants, respectively.)

Nowdays, you'd be hardpressed to remember that they began as, basically, Marvel's league of losers.

The X-Men

The second major team-focused product from Marvel, the X-Men are a group of mutants - a newly emerging human subspecies who possess powers and/or deformities as a result of an awakened "X-Gene". Led by the visionary civil rights activist Charles Xavier, they seek to promote peace and equality between humans and mutants, whilst battling against myriad mutant criminals - most prominently Magneto, a charismatic magnetism-controlling Jew who, having seen his human family destroyed by the Nazis, is determined to prevent similar atrocities from being carried out against mutants.

Floundering during the Silver Age, it was the Bronze Age when the X-men stepped forward and truly took off, since they combined the super soap opera formula with an ability to stand in for any of the various Civil Rights movements of the time.

Hands down the biggest sub-universe of the Marvel universe. Seriously, there are literally dozens if not hundreds of X-Men and multiple spin-off teams of mutant heroes, usually designated with an X- prefix. Some of the more notable members...

• Cyclops: Original leader of the X-men. Possesses ocular force energy beams, but can't turn them off, due to brain damage. Sadly has come to be perceived as an uptight stick-in-the-mud and mostly defined by his borderline obsessive relationship with Jean Grey. Except for the brief period where he was dating Emma Frost.
• Jean Grey: Incredibly powerful telepath and telekinetic. Infamous for dying and being resurrected - the reputation is exaggerated, but she can't shake it off. Iconic for her love triangle between herself, Cyclops and Wolverine, despite the fact she married Cyclops for quite a while.
• Wolverine: Rude, mouthy Canadian midget with troll-like regeneration, heightened senses, and ultra-sharp retractile claws in his knuckles. Originally introduced as a minor Hulk antagonist, he was originally the least popular member of the 70s revival team, where he graduated to main character. Luckily for him, Chris Claremont rescued him with a murky yet grimdark backstory and surprising character depth as the bloody-handed anti-hero of the team who nonetheless wants to overcome his savage instincts.
• The Beast: Henry McCoy, possessing the brain of a genius and the brutish strength & agility of a gorilla doped to the gills on speed and coke. Originally just looked like a guy with really big feet, he accidentally mutated himself into a hairy, gorilla-like monster in the 80s and it stuck. Originally a fun-loving jokester who was so beloved he managed to serve on both the X-Men and the Avengers, but since around the 2010s, has become increasingly portrayed as an evil incompetent screwup.
• Storm: African mutant with the power to fly and manipulate the weather, including throwing lighting and subzero winds at people. Originally of uncertain ethnicity, with it being noted that her mutation caused her to display a melding of physical traits from different human ethnicities (with cat-like eyes, for good measure!) but was retconned into being pure-blooded Kenyan. Spent some time as leader of the X-Men after Cyclops cracked and couldn't handle it.
• Nightcrawler: One of the rare mutants whose physical deformities were evident from birth, Nightcrawler looks like a blue devil, but has the heart of a swashbuckling, fun-loving action hero, and is a deeply devout Catholic. Mutation gives him ambidexterity, superhuman agility, prehensile feet, and the ability to teleport.
• Colossus: Russian mutant who can transform into a living steel body, gaining superhuman strength and durability in the process.
• Angel/Archangel: One of the original X-Men, a millionaire's son with massive white-feathered wings.
• Rogue: A former villain who was introduced taking out Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel. Possesses the ability to drain "life force" from others with a touch, rendering them unconscious and granting Rogue a copy of their memories and, if possible, superpowers. For most of her history has possessed "flying brick" powers due to siphoning so much life force from Carol Danvers that she almost killed her. Can't turn her powers off, forcing her to cover up. Has had a long, messy, on-off relationship with Gambit.
• Gambit: The most "90s" member of the team. Louisiana thief with the ability to activate the kinetic energy in anything he touches... basically, he can cause whatever he touches to blow up. Actually is only operating on, like, a shadow of his full power, having had brain surgery to cut off most of his full abilities. At full strength, would have the ability to completely and totally manipulate kinetic energy, which includes blowing shit up by looking at it, turning people into walking bombs, and assuming an energy form that can travel between planets and dimensions. Very few people remember this anymore.
• Emma Frost: Formerly a teacher for a rival and villainous group of mutant teens, she went straight(ish) and joined the X-men. Incredibly powerful telepath, but also can shapeshift into a living diamond form, in which she gains super strength and nigh invulnerability.

Of minor note: X-Men is the premier comic for "Comic Book Death", where it's hard for the audience to take a death seriously because the next writer will undo it. Just about all of the above have either "died", or "for real died", or even "we mean it, he's not coming back (and to prove it, here are his replacements)", and been brought back. To quote the comic itself: "Sometimes it seems that in mutant heaven there are no pearly gates, but instead revolving doors." In 2020 they just stopped even pretending and gave them them the ability to out-right resurrect the dead at no cost but time.

Hercules

Literally just the Hercules of myth who has returned to the modern world. A pretty solid reminder that superheroes really aren't that different from the heroes of ancient myth.

Black Panther

The most prominent and well-known of Marvel's African super-heroes (with the possible exception of Storm, who mostly operates outside the continent), as well as one of the earliest African superheroes in a mainstream comic publisher. T'challa is the heir to the throne of Wakanda, a reclusive and highly technologically advanced African nation. Originally, this was because Wakanda had A: avoided being caught up in the slave trade, and B: had developed a custom of sending its best and brightest abroad to study the most advanced technologies they could and then bringing them home to apply their knowledge to bettering their people. This was further augmented by the fact Wakanda was the only known deposit of the alien super-metal Vibranium, which made it kind of like if America had been the only country in the world with plutonium/uranium when trying to invent the atomic bomb. This was then retconned into Wakanda having always been centuries ahead of the world in terms of technology due to said Vibranium, because the original backstory didn't make them special enough... even though this makes no sense when you think about it because, seriously, how is a culture with Iron Age technology supposed to make anything useful from a metal whose entire defining schtick is "being indestructible"? It's not like they can beat it into shape the way they could with iron ore!

Anyway, as King of Wakanda, T'challa has imbued a mutagenic/magical plant called "The Heart-Shaped Herb", which has given him superhuman strength, speed, senses, reflexes and agility. In later versions, his costume has also gone from just Batman-esque stylized bodyarmor to a hyper-advanced suit of Power Armor. Mostly concerned with keeping Wakanda safe from outside threats, or sometimes with opening up Wakanda to the outside world - it depends on the series/media. Wakanda being characterized as arrogant, elitist, aloof and xenophobic (think the worst portrayals of elves), this is often a lot harder than it sounds.

Spent a lot of time out of the public eye, but was catapulted into mainstream darlinghood with his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is a legitimately good film, but don't fall for the SJW hype about it being "the first black superhero movie!" That would actually be Image Comics' Spawn, in 1997, with DC Comics releasing a Steel film in the same year. It's not even "the first black Marvel superhero movie!" - that would be Blade (1998), which actually got two sequels and was Marvel's first big film-related success prior to the Spider-Man and X-Men films. It can, however, be legitimately argued as the best black superhero movie out there so far.

The Punisher

Introduced in the 70s as a villain, swiftly turned into a dark antihero, the Punisher is Frank Castle; a US marine whose family was gunned down when they got caught in a shootout between warring mobsters and who promptly snapped when the guilty parties got away scot-free due to their connections. He declared a one-man war on crime, deciding that all criminals should be punished with death and if the state was too namby-pamby to do it, then he would. He occupies a very weird niche in the Marvel universe, having great success (at least, if you measure success by bodycount) in cutting through normal criminals of all kinds - mobsters, drug dealers, murderers, rapists, human traffickers, etc. But when facing off against supervillains, unless it's a D-lister that nobody cares about (like the freaking Stilt-Man), generally, Punisher is way less effectual, which does kind of make sense. But then you get into the little nagging thoughts like "why does nobody hire some of Marvel's bigger super-mercs on him? $10 million dollars in Juggernaut's account and you're going to have a Punisher pancake!"

Fans of Marvel either love Punisher for his grimdarkness, ultraviolence and cathartic "lethal vigilantism", sometimes even going so far as to hype him up as Marvel's resident embodiment of Humanity Fuck Yeah, or hate him as an edgelord asshole with really annoying fanboys... sort of a Deadpool 1.0.

Power Pack

The four Power siblings were given superpowers by a dying alien who tried, and failed, to stop another group of aliens from kidnapping their father to learn the secrets of the destructive matter/anti-matter bomb he accidentally created. In addition to a common abilities of moderate regeneration (can heal broken bones in days instead of months) that can be augmented by combining for a trance (able to cure supernatural disease), and summonable costumes, each of the four has a unique power based on aspects of physics. Alex, the bossy oldest sibling, has the power of tactile gravity manipulation and takes the name Gee (later taking advantage of temporary power loss to quietly switch to Zero-G when he's told how stupid "Gee" sounds). Julie/Lightspeed, the bibliophile elder sister, has the power of motion... which is really just high speed flight with a rainbow trail. Jack, the over-confident and jerkish younger brother, has control over his density (allowing him to switch to an ultra-dense miniature version or an insubstantial cloud of flying gas) becomes Mass Master. Katie/Energizer, the immature youngest child, gains the power of energy allowing her to convert mass to energy at a touch (with the explicit but purposefully avoided ability to use it on living beings) then shoot it out as a powerful exploding ball. Despite being a group of children, their stories were known to be extremely dark and heavily incorporated the regular crossover events, often to a greater extent than the series that was supposed to be the star (Inferno has had relatively little lasting impact on X-Men, but was catalyst for several major plot developments in the story of the Power children).

While merely B-Listers (if that) at their height, they stand out for being the newest Marvel heroes in the main continuity with actual relevance that didn't come from an existing property (and their debut is already closer to the release of Fantastic Four #1 than the present day). While the group has since split up as most of the members have reached adulthood, the component members make regular appearances. The girls are also extremely popular in the western Loli fandom. Alongside the much older (in real world terms) Billy Batson, they're the model for superpowered children without adult superiors.

Deadpool

A terminal cancer patient subjected to an experimental treatment that gave the subject Wolverine's regeneration ability. Unfortunately for him, the rapid destruction and reconstruction has caused him to go crazy, and has left him horribly disfigured to the point he looks like Freddy Kruger and Brundlefly's horribly mutated lovechild. Possibly the oddest character to get popular; among other things, referred to as "The Regenerating Degenerate" "The Merc with the Mouth", and various other, less printable things, Deadpool started out as one of Rob Liefeld's many pointlessly edgy villains, but was eventually adopted into a much more interesting character by later writers. Deadpool's popularity is built on a few major pillars:

1. Ultraviolence. The character came of age in an era when ultraviolence was popular, and between his regeneration and the fact that he's usually fighting generic criminal mooks, he's very much a "as much violence, blood, and guts as the rating allows" character.
2. He's a pathetic loser. He's usually depicted as living in a dingy apartment, hated by just about everybody who knows him, and in general, is frequently portrayed as lower class. And the same experiment that gave him powers also resulted in him becoming completely insane, and in constant pain (the only reason he survived it is because his terminal cancer interacted with the induced regeneration factor in such a way that he could survive, unlike all the other subjects of said experiment).
3. Wisecracks and random humor, especially weird pop culture references. Again, insane.
4. He breaks the fourth wall. A lot. And he occasionally actually directly interacts with it in very odd ways. Most other characters write it off as him being insane, so he can do so in mostly serious works. Tends to get really played up in non-comics appearances; for example, in the Marvel vs Capcom games, he hits his opponent with their own health bar from the game's GUI.

Despite his huge fanbase in real life, Deadpool is very much a love-him-or-hate-him character, and has an almost equally vocal hatedom who despise him for being too "goofy".

Gwen Pool(e)

Originally a dumb attempt to milk the mild success of Spider-Gwen and actual success of Deadpool, Gwen Polle is, in-fact, related to neither. After Marvel made the name and costume, they handed it off to freelancer Christopher Hastings (Yes, the guy behind Dr. McNinja.) and told to make an ongoing series despite the character literally being nothing but a name and costume. He took this opportunity make Gwen an interesting, well-rounded, original character that underwent actual character development and can truly be said to be an entirely different person at the end of her series while boasting a well rounded supporting cast of characters both new (Mega Tony, The Terrible Eye) and old (Batroc the Leaper as her mentor). Naturally his run wasn't renewed and the character was tossed to various less-talented (and presumably cheaper) authors who gave so few damns they couldn't keep her personality consistent, let alone live up the brief history of the character.

Gwen Polle was a high school drop-out in the "real" world who dreamed of becoming a comic book artist. While making easy money volunteering for sleep monitoring studies, she was somehow (the event is only mentioned in past-tense rather than fully detailed, so what exactly happened is unclear) is transported to Earth 616. There she acts as a dark reflection of the kid from Last Action Hero: Using her deep knowledge of comics to get by despite a lack of superpowers or extraordinary "mundane" ability, but also showing no concern to nameless characters she endangers or outright kills because (in her mind) nameless background characters don't matter. As mentioned above, that's just the start of her character.

Cartoons, TVs and Movies

Naturally, Marvel has tried to branch out into other media with their characters for years, but... never to any real success. In the 90s, they struggled to create their own counterpart to the DC Animated Universe, but poor inter-connectivity and a lot of executive screwups (Spider-Man not being allowed to punch people) meant that the shows they put together just couldn't cut it.

Not helping was that, due to bankruptcy, movie rights to several of their most prominent characters - the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and Spider-Man - were sold off to 20th Century Fox, whilst the rest of Marvel would ultimately become a subsidiary of Disney, leading to Marvel literally competing against itself.

With the creation of the MCU, the general perception of Marvel's extra-comic media has more or less settled into "Marvel does shit cartoons and TV shows, but great movies; DC does great cartoons and TV shows, but shit movies", due to DC's incredibly fumbled attempts to try and jump on the MCU-style movie-verse bandwagon. However, DC has slowly started to get better at things, so who can say how it'll develop.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

The largest franchise on Earth at the moment, the MCU has plenty of coverage elsewhere. We only mention it here because, again, most profitable franchise on Earth at the moment.

Weird Connections and Other Trivia

The Tokusatsu genre owes a lot to various Marvel projects: The Japanese version of Spider-Man, for example, was the first Tokusatsu show to feature a giant robot, and Marvel did some licensing that resulted in them being credited in three seasons of Super Sentai (better known as the series that would later be transformed into Power Rangers).

There was a fully licensed Star Trek/X-Men novel entitled "Planet X". It's as stupid as it sounds.

One particular X-Men character, Wolverine, became so well-known for gratuitous cameos that TVTropes named their page on "Brief cameos of a popular character that are heavily advertised but amount to nothing" "Wolverine Publicity".

She-Hulk and Spider-Woman owe their origin in the real world to the Bionic Woman tv show, mixed with Marvel's own TV versions of Hulk and Spider-man going on at the time. After the success of the Bionic Woman (a spin-off of The Seven Million Dollar Man), it was quickly realized by Marvel's lawyers that the producers of these TV series could invent their own female versions of Hulk and Spider-man, and not pay Marvel a cent for such a spin-off series, so two female versions of the Hulk and Spider-man were quickly created to prevent such an eventually. She-Hulk stuck around, Spider-woman did not.

/tg/ Relevance

Like its rival, Marvel Comics have produced a number of licensed tie-in RPGs, and even TSR partnered up with them to bring those games to the table.