The Hard Goodbye begins as Marv has sex with a beautiful blonde prostitute named Goldie, only to wake up to find her dead and himself framed for her murder.

Marv convinces Wendy of his innocence and reluctantly takes her along to the infamous Roark family farm to subdue Kevin.

Knocking Wendy out so she would not witness what will occur next, Marv inflicts the most brutal form of death he can imagine: sawing off Kevin's legs and leaving him to be eaten by his own pet wolf.

Marv survives, however, creating a problem for the Roark family and the corrupt police force as he possesses knowledge that would have the city implode.

In A Dame To Kill For, a prequel to The Hard Goodbye, Marv becomes a sidekick of sorts to his good friend Dwight McCarthy by agreeing to help him rescue his former lover Ava Lord.

Marv is depicted as an extremely imposing, 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) man with a flattop buzzcut, a falcon-like nose and a heavily scarred face, making him unappealing to the opposite sex.

In the book Sin City: The Making of the Movie, creator Frank Miller describes the creation of Marv as a juxtaposition of his two biggest influences: film noir and medieval stories.

Even for someone his size, Marv has an unusual level of speed which, coupled with his well developed fighting skills, incredible strength and pain tolerance, allow him to bring down nearly anyone who challenges him or breaks his personal code of ethics with startling ease.

He suffers from an unnamed mental condition that causes him to "get confused", which, judging from his own awareness of his illness and the effects it is shown to have, probably involves short-term memory loss and possibly hallucinations.

In at least one instance, after being tied to a chair by Gail, who states that knots are her specialty, she and the rest of the girls of Old Town are startled to find out Marv was able to untie himself while being beaten by her, all without anyone in the room even noticing.

He often speaks in a soft, plain-spoken, calm, almost nonchalant demeanor, showing no sign of hesitation or fear, even while committing gruesome killings.

In The Hard Goodbye, instead of panicking when cornered by several members of the SWAT team, upon being asked to open the door, he lights up a cigarette and very calmly states "I'll be right out.

He makes it a point to avoid unnecessarily hurting or killing those who have not earned it in his eyes, and also notes with some amusement that he enjoys confrontations with paid hitmen, since he never feels guilty about what he does to them.

He also adheres unrelentingly to his own personal code of honor, which dictates the repayment of debts and chivalry towards women, stating that "it really gets my goat when guys rough up dames", even refusing to lay a finger on Gail, who wrongly believed he had killed several prostitutes under her employ, after she tied him to a chair and tortured him for information.

For instance, when an assistant DA threatens her life after he refuses to sign a false confession, Marv signs it (after fracturing the assistant DA's arm in three places) Marv is played by Mickey Rourke in the first film adaptation; Rourke took to the role despite the heavy amount of make-up work required and the minimal use of sets and even other actors.

He also makes a cameo appearance in the segment That Yellow Bastard at the same bar where John Hartigan goes to look for Nancy Callahan, just as featured in The Hard Goodbye.

Death Row Marv was comparably rare to most other action figures on the market, as it was offered exclusively to comic book specialty stores and was not made available to larger chains such as Toys R Us and Walmart.

In 2007, Marv was announced to be in the second series of Marvel Toys' Legendary comic book heroes action figure line.

[2] Empire magazine also ranked Marv as the 26th greatest comic book character of all time writing that "Marv is a grade A patsy, the fall guy, the hapless hero at the center of a conspiracy that he can't even begin to understand but with a traditional Miller tweak... [he is] a force of nature, cutting a path through the corrupt power-brokers of the city, until his pound of flesh (and more) has been exacted.

"[4] IGN also listed Marv as the 75th greatest comic book hero of all time, writing that "Sin City is a place where only the strong and sadistic can survive.

Marv is a little of both, but he also has a noble streak and an unbreakable sense of loyalty towards those few people who can see beneath his craggy exterior and recognize the good man within.