At the time, Marvel taught children economics by publishing its quarterly report in comic form

Although it was DC that started popularizing superhero comics, It was Marvel who turned its characters into human beings when it began expanding it in the 1960s: The Fantastic Four were constantly wrong, Hulk was as much a hero as he was a villain, and Thor came to confront Odin for revealing his identity to Jane Foster. Lycra-clad muscular figures left the schools and started reading at the universities. They grew up and turned around marvel In one of the most powerful companies in the world for two decades. Then came the nineties.

Structure break bank

Well, yes, back in the 1980s, Marvel was one of the most powerful companies in the entertainment world: comic book sales never stopped rising, and Collectors treasured every trick of the trade like it had never been seen before. And everything seemed to ensure that things would stay the same in the ’90s. Indeed, in 1991 the best-selling comic in history, “X-Men #1,” was published, with a cover by Jim Lee, which managed to sneak 8,186,500 copies. Additionally, X-Force #1 did the same with 3.6 million, and in 1990 Spider-man #1 took in nearly two and a half million. Marvel decided to be the first comic book company to go public. Five years later, Marvel went bankrupt.

But let’s go back to 1991, because it was the same year he was The company was racking its brains over how to show its shareholders its success by going public: A dry report wouldn’t offer Marvel’s full potential to investors, so after a conversation with Gary Fishman, a Wall Street mogul and lifelong comic book fan, they decided to launch A small four-page comic in which the superheroes explained how things went in the first quarter.

The idea made sense, as Marvel CEO Bill Levins said at the time: “I know a lot of people who know about comics, a lot of people who know about comics. But it’s hard to find business people who understand comics.Thus, as explained by John Romita Sr. and written by Fishman himself, the comic was about Spider-Man and Hulk Explain the Advantages of Advertising, EPS And that kind of thing.

It was an unprecedented success: all the investors were excited, not just because of the numbers but because They really understood everything that was going on. What few could have expected was what was going to happen in the annual report: a 36-page comic was sent free to each of them. In the Marvel 1991 Annual Report, superheroes (Thor, Spiderman, Storm, Iron Man, Reed Richards, Ghost Rider, Captain America, Hulk, Wolverine and Punisher) They went to the stock market while Uatu watched them intently. It was the beginning of a tradition that didn’t last as long as Marvel would have liked.

Let’s talk about the economy!

in 1992, Each quarterly report will be issued in a two-page mini booklet with a unique cover And the numbers that accompanied Spiderman, Scarlet Spider, or Iron Man. But what shareholders really expected was the annual report: 64 pages full of heroes in epic poses reeling from all the Marvel characters. “Death requires understanding why Marvel Entertainment’s profits increased 94% to $224 million!” Doctor Death said very characteristically.

over the years, Wolverine won’t say lines like “The 1994 ToyBiz line of babies and children is licensed by Gerber!” And no one cared too much because it didn’t make sense: in a world as tedious and interconnected as the economy, this kind of initiative was most welcome. Well, comics weren’t the easiest to read and maybe, really, Shareholders’ children haven’t learned much from economics, but that doesn’t mean they’re still gorgeous pieces of popular culture that only those who invested in the company had access to: another reason to do so, added to the fact that they’ll never go out of favor. TRUE?

1996. Marvel declares bankruptcy And she’ll be rescued by a man who managed to save the industry before the whole world hated him and who, to be exact, was just fired from Disney this week: Ike Perlmutter. But that’s another story. What interests us is that Marvel It produced only two quarterly reports in 1996. From there, we all know what happened and no one in the industry was in the mood to draw and write a comic explaining, one way or another, that it was time to clean out the booth.

You won’t find budget Marvel comics at a US thrift store, but fortunately they are well preserved. Remember Gary Fishman, the comic-savvy Wall Street tycoon? OK then Donate two copies of each comic to Columbia University to protect them from time to time. Incidentally, when going public, Marvel would continue to lose money until the year 2000, when its value per share was barely a dollar and a half. In 2009 it was already at 54.03. And we all know nothing bad hurt him after that, re-defining cinema in decades past. Yes in deed , There are no comics where Reed Richards stretched across charts and stripes. In the end, we lost.

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