Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my commerce educator, Ms. Angira Sharma, for

her clean guidance and simulating suggestions which helped me to
complete this project. I would also like to thank my parents for always
helping me and standing by my side.

Thank you
Devangad Singh
 Introduction

Brief about the Company

Marvel Entertainment, LLC operates an animated character-based

entertainment company. The company utilizes its character franchises
in entertainment, licensing, and publishing. It covers various areas of
entertainment for kids, teens, and young adults ranging from comics
and online content to live and animated blockbuster Hollywood movies
and television shows. The company also provides advertising and
custom solutions. In addition, it offers clothes for adults, clothes for
kids, characters, accessories, toys, home décor products, entertainment
products, and personalize products online. Marvel Entertainment, LLC
was formerly known as Marvel Enterprises, Inc. and changed its name
to Marvel Entertainment, LLC in September 2005. The company was
founded in 1939 and is based in New York, New York. Marvel
Entertainment, LLC operates as a subsidiary of The Walt Disney
Company.

Marvel has film licensing agreements with Sony Pictures (for Spider-
Man films), and Universal Pictures (a right of first refusal to pick up the
distribution rights to any future Hulk films produced by Marvel
Studios), and a theme park licensing agreement with IMG Worlds of
Adventure and Universal Parks & Resorts. Aside from their contract
with Universal Parks & Resorts, Marvel's characters and properties
have also appeared at Disney Parks.
 MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT

History

Marvel’s origins can be traced back to the 1930’s when it was owned by
Martin Goodman and operated as a small comic book company, Timely
Comics producing stories about detectives, westerns, science fiction,
crime, and horror stories. The first Marvel Comic series was released in
1939 featuring the Human Torch and Namor the Sub Mariner. The sales
were good enough to solidify Goodman’s place in the super(hero
category. acting upon the success of the first Marvel Comic series
Goodman followed up with the first Captain America issue in 1940. This
was a good strategy because it was during the time WW2 was raging
and Captain America battled the Nazi in the comics as American
soldiers did battle on foreign soil. Goodman’s company grew
tremendously throughout the 30’s and 40’s during the Golden age of
comic books. During the 1950’s the comic book industry lost its
popularity battle to the introduction of television and sales slowed
tremendously. On top of that, a newly created censorship board, the
Comics Code authority, also contributed to the decline in sales for Atlas
News Company, formerly Timely Comics. Atlas News Company
discontinued distribution in 1956 and was forced into a distribution
deal with their competitor DC Comics to get a limited number of issues
from the Marvel series circulated each month.
The 1960’s brought a renewed interest in superheroes from the baby
boomer generation, who were currently high school and college
students. In 1962 Stan Lee, editor, manager, and spokesman for Marvel
Comics, co-created Marvel’s most popular character Spider Man. This
genre also gave birth to the Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, the
avengers and X-men. 'ow operating under Marvel Comic Groups, the
company began marketing its products and also debuted its first super-
hero on ABC’s television network. In late 1990-s Marvel Entertainment
Group merged into Marvel Enterprise along with ToyBiz to avoid
bankruptcy. A decade later when the company was financially stable its
name was changed back to Marvel Entertainment.

Ownership

The company is a subsidiary company of Walt Disney. On August 31,

2009, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Marvel
Entertainment for .4.24 billion, with Marvel shareholders to receive .30
and approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each share of Marvel they
own. It has been a limited liability company (LLC) since then. The voting
occurred on December 31, 2009 and the merger was approved. The
acquisition of Marvel was finalized hours after the shareholder vote,
therefore giving Disney full ownership of Marvel Entertainment. The
company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange under its
ticker symbol (MVL), due to the closing of the deal.

Profitability
Marvel’s can be seen in these income statements. Their gross profit
change is positively high. Initially the change is positive which is very
high as the time period of 2002 and 2003 was the time when the Marvel
Toys were at their peak popularity which resulted in vast growth of
Marvel. Even the comics had their fair share in the market which had
helped in Marvel expansion. Their average change in the net profit has
been negative initially due to the golden age for Marvel in 2002 and
2003 which resulted in very high profits but the then their profits
declined due to high taxes and increased expenses.

Competition

Everyone on this planet who is a comic book reader knows the biggest
clash in the comic book industry. The clash between Marvel and DC
comics. The rivalry goes a long back in time……
While there certainly were rivalries among the various comic book
publishers during the Golden Age, by the time that the Comics Code
Authority came into effect in 1954, there really were no longer any
notable comic book rivalries, in part because there weren't many comic
book publishers left period. The two biggest publishers of that era were
National Comics (DC Comics) and Dell Comics and their output
(superhero comic books and Disney comics) were so different from
each other that there really wasn't a whole lot of overlap in their
audience. Marvel, meanwhile, had a very good reason not to go after DC
Comics, as in 1958, Marvel (then going by the name Atlas Comics) lost
their distribution deal and were saved from going out of business by DC
Comics allowing them to be distributed by the distribution company
that National owned. As part of this deal, Marvel had to deal with
restrictions on how many comic books they could release in any given
month (generally eight comic books, but that was relaxed as the years
went by). So, there was little reason for Marvel to ruffle any feathers in
those days.
Over the next few years, however, Marvel's fortunes continued to
improve. DC Comics was still the undisputed top seller in the industry,
but Marvel was doing well enough that everyone, including DC Comics,
had to pay notice. In the meantime, Stan Lee had perfected his persona
in the letter pages of Fantastic Four, turning the letter column into a
sort of "conversation" with his readers, using that column to promote
other Marvel Comics.
People had started to like the style of Marvel. This led to a brutal
missive by Stan Lee in early 1966 that basically pointed out how Marvel
Comics were for smart people and that other comic book
companies...well...weren't. This was the debut of referring to the other
companies as "Brand Echh" (this predated Amazing Spider-Man #47) a
reference to the ads of the time where companies would refer to their
rivals in commercials as "Brand X." Nowadays, a Coca-Cola ad will just
SAY Pepsi, but back in the day, they would say "We're better than Brand
X."
This comment by Stan Lee led to a war between both the universes. DC
started to release parodies of Marvel which it mocked all its heroes and
used the tag “Brand Echh” to mock Marvel. They even mocked Stan Lee
in their comics.
Years have passed and yet the rivalry has not ended yet. Both the
companies are strong in their fields. Currently, Marvel have dominated
the cinemas while DC has dominated itself in the field of TV shows. In
terms of toys, Marvel has the upper hand. It is difficult to say who has
the upper hand in comics. The storyline of DC has a good arc while
Marvel comics are more sorted and easier to follow up. Even the
characters of Marvel are more attractive. Even with all this, this
competition will not stop till the end of time. The below graph shows
the head to head between Marvel and DC Comics with other companies
trying to fight.
SWOT Analysis of Marvel