Marvel: from zero to hero, and back again

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Just as its greatest characters were at times as flawed and human as they were superhuman, Marvel Entertainment has over the years seen its powers wax and wane.

From a humble division of a pulp fiction publisher to comic book titan, then to bankruptcy before soaring high in recent years on the strength of blockbuster superhero movies, Marvel on Monday scored its latest triumph after Walt Disney Co agreed to buy it for $4 billion.

The company, created in 1939 by pulp fiction publisher Martin Goodman under the name Timely Comics, shot to fame in the middle of the last century as the outfit behind immortal comic-book heroes like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.

Much of the credit for its early success went to Stan Lee, a comic industry legend for his role in creating Marvel's most famous characters including Spider-Man and the Hulk, who joined as an assistant in Goodman's comic division and by 1941 was its editor-in-chief.

"We were just churning out these books, we were hoping they'd sell and we could keep our jobs so we could pay the rent," Lee told Reuters in a phone interview.

Author Mickey Spillane wrote a comic for Lee featuring a detective named Mike Danger, who went on to have a life apart from comics as the legendary Mike Hammer of novels and movies.

But the best known Marvel characters emerged in the 1960s, starting with the creation of the Fantastic Four, who were Marvel's answer to rival DC Comics' popular group of superheroes, the Justice League of America.

Under Lee, Marvel Comics became known for intricately woven stories, with flawed but heroic characters who inhabited a "Marvel Universe," where myth and fantasy blended with elements of the real world.

LESS THAN MARVELOUS

But in the 1970s and 1980s, the rise of Hollywood and video entertainment began to entice readers away from comic books and toward the screen and other media.

Investor Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989 for $82.5 million, and said then he viewed Marvel as a "mini-Disney."

The company had long sought to bring its comic book stories to the movie screen, but it experienced failures in that arena after licensing out projects that went nowhere, experts said.

In 1996, Marvel filed for bankruptcy, and out of the bankruptcy proceedings, toy company co-owner Ike Perlmutter gained control of Marvel.

Perlmutter's Toy Biz firm had a contract with Marvel, and he made a play for control of Marvel because he was worried about losing the contract, said Shirrel Rhoades, a former Marvel executive.

Perlmutter, and partner Avi Arad, have since been credited with leading Marvel out of its creative miasma and turning it into a movie powerhouse by partnering with Sony Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox on the "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" movies.

"Perlmutter with his team, he was able to resuscitate the company. And the movies were just a goldmine," Rhoades said.

Key to the success of the Marvel movies was the rise of computer-generated imagery that allowed the films to have the same look and feel as the comics, Rhoades said. Also, Marvel exercised more creative control than it had on previous movie projects, he said.

But as with any comic book mythology, victory often comes at a price.

Rhoades said Marvel will ultimately benefit from its $4 billion acquisition by the Walt Disney Co -- but it will come with changes in corporate culture.

"Disney has always been a little more corporate, buttoned down than Marvel," Rhoades said. "Marvel has always been a little more about bad boys who are breaking the rules."

(Editing by Edwin Chan, Bernard Orr)