Marvel Comics

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Fandom
Name: Marvel Comics
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Marvel Entertainment
Martin Goodman (founder);
Influential Writers/Artists/Editors: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Steve Ditko, Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Joe Quesada, Joss Whedon
Date(s): 1939-present
Medium: Comics
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: Marvel Comics official site, Marvel Comics at Wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.
(This article is about fandom surrounding Marvel comics. For fandoms centered on movie versions of Marvel properties, see X-Men Movieverse, Iron Man Movieverse, Captain America Movieverse, Thor Movieverse, Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Avengers Movieverse. See also The Avengers, Hulk, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and X-Men.)

Marvel Comics has had an active fandom since its early issues, although it's presence in fan zines was not as prevalent as other media, like TV and film. The fandom expanded exponentially with the onset of the internet existing primarily on mailing lists, message boards and individual fansites. One of the largest sites, CFAN, was maintained from approximately April 1999 to June 2003[1]. The most popular characters and series in early internet fandom were related to the X-Men and Spider-Man. Later the fandom moved to LiveJournal where it was common to find communities focused on specific characters, pairings or teams.

Marvel comics fandom is now much smaller than it was in its heyday, although the X-Men films and the MCU have brought many media fans, who were not previously comics fans, into the fandom. The MCU films have especially boosted interest in the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and other series, which were not as popular in early internet fandom. Some media fans were also brought into the fandom by Joss Whedon's writing stints on Astonishing X-Men and Runaways.

Outside Mainstream Continuity

See List of Marvel Universes‎

Popular mini-fandoms that are published by Marvel, but are not part of their mainstream continuity include Marvel 1602 and Supreme Power.

The Marvel Ultimate Universe universe is an imprint that was launched in 2000. It basically "reset" many of Marvel's key titles from the beginning, starting over with a clean slate and showing the characters in high school and college, gaining their powers and encountering each other and antagonists for the first time.

However, this was not just a simple re-telling; many changes were made as the stories progressed, resulting in a truly alternate version of the Marvel universe. Some changes were made in order to simplify confusing canon, such as Spider-Man's Clone Saga. Some characters were altered to create greater diversity; the Ultimate version of Nick Fury is African-American and Piotr Rasputin is gay. Other changes were more like complete re-imaginings of the characters, such as Orson Scott Card's work on Ultimate Iron Man.

Fandom

Popular Pairings

On LiveJournal

Popular pairings in livejournal-based Marvel fandom currently include:

Pairings that were popular in the past have included:

  • Gambit/Rogue (hugely popular for some time, thanks to a UST filled on-again-off-again canon relationship)
  • Wolverine/Rogue (a pairing which owes most of its popularity to the first three X-Men movies)
  • Rictor/Shatterstar (The New Mutants, X-Force)
  • Northstar/Iceman (this pairing gained popularity after Northstar, a canonically gay character, admitted he had a crush on Iceman)

Other popular Marvel pairings include Scott/Jean, Scott/Emma, Tony Stark/James Rhodes, Kitty Pryde/Piotr Rasputin, Kitty Pryde/Pete Wisdom, Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker/Matt Murdock, Peter Parker/Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock/Foggy Nelson, Tony Stark/Whoever Tony Stark Wants, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes.

Challenges

For a full listing of Fanlore articles on Marvel challenges see Category:Marvel Challenges

Marvel fandom has always had a basis for community fanwork challenges, that has only expanded since the creation of the MCU, some examples being:

There were also other challenges such as gift exchanges, fanweeks, fests and kink memes. For perspective on the depth of past, and current, challenges see the List of Marvel Challenges

Fanworks

Examples

Some non-Steve Tony and non-Avengers examples should be added

Fics

Vids

Tumblr

Arts and Crafts

Art Gallery

Usenet

  • rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe - for discussion of all Marvel comics, although X-Men conversation was steered to racmx.
  • RACMX - rec.arts.comics.marvel.x-books, a usenet for discussion of the X-Men comics books, active from around 1992 until 2012.
  • ACFF - alt.coms.fanfiction, a usenet list devoted to comics fanfic, active from around 1994-1999.

Archives

CFAN

While comics fandom of the 1990s-2000s were dominated by the X-Men, a small but growing contingent were posting non-X fanfic and opening archives of their own. The CFAN "Non-X Marvel" section of their site directory provides a peek at this part of fandom. And like Marvel comics fandom itself, the slash and 'ship communities started small but grew over time, until it became the main focus for a lot of fans.

  • Screen shot 1 of CFAN's Non X Marvel site list.

  • Screen shot 2 of CFAN's Non X Marvel site list.

  • Screen shot 3 of CFAN's Non X Marvel site list.

Collaborative Fanwriting Projects

Others

Mailing Lists

  • Untold-L - a short-lived mailing list for comics fanfic, replaced by OTL
  • Outside the Lines[3] (all comics based fic was allowed, but OTL was dominated by fic for Marvel, and in particular the X-Men.)

Communities

Wattpad

LiveJournal

Dreamwidth

Zines

Fannish Links

Meta/Further Reading

Resources

References

  1. ^ CFAN on the wayback machine [1]
  2. ^ See jane_elliot in epic_recs. All That Remains by Kijikun (NC-17), 22 June 2010. (Accessed 07 June 2012)
  3. ^ Outside the Lines hub
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