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, namely Conan and Red Sonja... hilariously, their versions of these character are actually historical figures in Marvel's Earth, and Conan has actually met some superheroes.

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.

Notable Supers

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 has gain a body of living elastic, allowing him to stretch, squash, and reshape himself as he desires, whilst Susan has gained the power of invisibility (and, later, invisible forcefield projection) and Johnny can cover himself in a fiery aura that lets him fly and hurl fireballs. And poor Ben Grim 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.

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.

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.

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 giant with the mind of an angry child, known as the Hulk. And whilst Hulk just wants to be left alone, humanity refuses to stop provoking him.

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.

Eventually, though, the Avengers gained in popularity, and so you'd be hardpressed to remember that they began as, basically, Marvel's league of losers.

/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.