Marvel is one of the most popular, lucrative and successful media organisations on the
planet today.
Its comics, movies, characters and merchandise are some of the most read, watched, beloved
and purchased in the world.
You may think, therefore, that the company's entire history is all sweetness and light
- but that's not actually the case.
Marvel has experienced many lows - just like pretty much any other organisation tends to
have - and moments of darkness, controversy and shame.
This video will run you through just a few of them, so sit back, relax, and enjoy it
- but don't forget to sign up to our channel to watch more like it in the future.
Here are ten shocking secrets Marvel would not want anyone to know.
Their Movies Used To Be Awful If you're still fairly young - or even if
you're not - you may not realise that Marvel had been making feature-length movies long
before the MCU's inception and the current crop of Marvel movies.
The problem is, they were absolutely awful.
A feature length Dr. Strange movie was made in 1978 as a pilot for a proposed TV series
that didn't happen because the film was awful, 1986's Howard the Duck is one of the worst
comic book movies ever made, 1989's The Punisher went direct-to-video, and a cheap and nasty
version of Captain America was released in 1990.
Moreover, in 1994, a Fantastic Four movie was made that was so bad, it wasn't even released
at all!
And there are a number of other horrendous early Marvel movies too.
They Almost Made Some Even Worse Movies Now, you may think that a movie featuring
a cheaply made Howard the Duck puppet was as bad as it could get for Marvel - and you
might be right - but, on a number of occasions, they very nearly ended up making movies that
had every chance of being even worse.
A few examples of Marvel movies that nearly were include a She-Hulk movie starring Brigitte
Nielsen, a Silver Surfer musical scored by Paul McCartney and featuring Olivia Newton
John in an important role, a Wolverine movie starring Bob Hoskins, and a Spider-Man movie
in which Spidey would literally have been a human/tarantula hybrid - seriously, they
really all almost happened.
Can you imagine?!
They Steal Character Ideas From DC Now, granted, this actually works both ways
- DC and Marvel have used each other's characters to inspire their own on many occasions - but
Marvel are undoubtedly the worst offenders.
A few examples are as follows; Thanos was influenced by Metron and Darkseid, Deadpool
was influenced by Deathstroke, Moon Knight was influenced by Batman, the Nova Corps were
influenced by the Green Lantern Corps, Mister Fantastic was influenced by Elongated Man,
Hawkeye was influenced by Green Arrow and there are many, many more that we haven't
mentioned - we'd be on all day if we attempted to mention them all!
They Treated Stan Lee And Jack Kirby Terribly For A While
Stan Lee and the late Jack Kirby are undoubtedly the two most important people in Marvel's
history.
Together, they created thes likes of Spider-Man, Hulk, the X-Men, Captain America and the Fantastic
Four - but Marvel didn't always give them the credit they deserved for it.
Marvel claimed that, because Lee and Kirby created those characters while working as
their employees, they had no rights to them - but the pair understandably wanted their
share of the profits when the characters became popular.
Bitter legal battles ensued, lasting for years, until Lee eventually worked something out
and is now heavily involved with Marvel to this day.
Kirby died in 1994, however, so his situation wasn't resolved so easily.
His family fought Marvel for years without a resolution, until 2014, when Marvel and
Kirby’s family reached an undisclosed settlement and Marvel released a statement acknowledging
Kirby's huge contribution to the company throughout his life.
The Avengers: Age Of Ultron Cast Threatened To Quit
Marvel Studios' are known to have had unsettled relationships with a number of their MCU cast
members - Edward Norton and Terrence Howard were both replaced in the franchise after
disputes with the studio, while the likes of Natalie Portman, Mickey Rourke and Hugo
Weaving are known to have not enjoyed some of their experiences with them - but the more
established crop of actors almost had a falling out with them too.
In fact, the production of 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron was actually in jeopardy when
the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth threatened not to show
up for the movie unless the salaries they were originally offered were dramatically
increased.
Of course, the increase did eventually occur and the actors did appear in the movie, but
Marvel wouldn't want you to know what almost happened.
Their Comics Used To Be Very Sexist Some would argue, to this day, that Marvel
are somewhat sexist - given the distinct lack of titular female superheroes to date in their
cinematic universe - but, back in the day, some of their comic books were sexist in hugely
inappropriate ways.
There have been scenes in which The Thing wanted to spank Sue Storm, Ant-Man used to
regularly domestically abuse The Wasp, some of the female characters' costumes were shockingly
inappropriate, and, as recently as 2010, Marvel launched a series of female-centric comics
called "Girl Comics" because, you know, girls can't read comics unless they're totally feminine
(that last bit was sarcasm).
They've Published Some Truly Awful Titles As we've previously mentioned, Marvel are
responsible for some of the most iconic comic book titles in history - the likes of Spider-Man,
Hulk, the X-Men, Captain America and the Fantastic Four, for example - but they've also published
some horrendous titles that they'd really rather everyone forgot about.
2005's romance comic Trouble, 1991's NFL Superpro comic, a Billy Ray Cyrus comic, a comic starring
rap group Onyx and, of course, the infamous swimsuit issues, are just some of the titles
Marvel would happily delete from their history if they were given the opportunity to do so.
They Turned Down The Option To Own DC It's hard to imagine it now, but back in 1984,
the comic book industry was in trouble.
Sales were extremely low and absolutely nobody wanted to see superheroes on the big screen.
Noting that Marvel were doing better than DC, however, the head of Warner Communications'
- Bill Sarnoff - approached Marvel about the possibility of them purchasing the publishing
rights to DC Comics.
Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter declined the offer, suggesting DC's characters just weren't very
good or interesting.
We bet that's a decision the company regrets massively - even if they're not prepared to
publicly admit it!
They Once Filed For Bankruptcy Given that Marvel is now a media powerhouse,
you'd be forgiven for thinking they've ever been in any serious financial trouble - even
during the aforementioned times when comic book sales weren't great - but the fact is
they once filed for bankruptcy.
Between 1993 and 1996, stocks in the company plummeted from more than $35 per share to
a mere $2.
All Marvel could do in response was file for bankruptcy.
They were at the stage where they were selling their own office equipment to gather funds
but, thankfully for the company and its fans, they merged with Toy Biz and turned their
attention to making the movies you know today, which resulted in a major change in their
fortunes.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Michael Jackson Tried To Buy Them Back when the late Michael Jackson was throwing
money around for fun in the 1980s - he bought the entire Beatles back catalog for Christ's
sake - he actually attempted to buy Marvel Comics.
The controversial King of Pop approached Stan Lee for his help - and Lee was actually willing
- but the former Marvel president and chairman wasn't in charge of the company at the time
and Jackson's bid failed.
Moreover, Jackson wanted to play Spider-Man in a Marvel movie and, rather crazily, lobbied
extremely hard to play Charles Xavier in the first X-Men movie in 2000!
Thanks for watching our video about ten shocking secrets Marvel would not want anyone to know.
Can you think of any other secrets Marvel would like to keep from everyone?
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more great videos like this one.