Superhero teams such as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and many Marvel superheroes live in this universe, including characters such as Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Wolverine, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, and Captain Marvel, Blade, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Mister Fantastic, among numerous others.
), same historical events (such as World War II), and so on; however, it also contains many other fictional elements: countries such as Wakanda and Latveria (very small nations) and organizations like the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.
Monsters also play a more prominent role with east Asian origins of magical incantation, outlandish sorcery and manifesting principle in the Marvel Universe.
[citation needed] The general public is so familiar with such concepts that Empire State University has a scholarship for "aliens, dimensional travelers, clones, independent machine intelligences and other students outside the norm",[8] businesses and residences have superhero property insurance[9][10][11] and bookmakers take bets on their battles' outcomes,[12] and New York air traffic controllers handle starships landing at local airports.
[volume & issue needed] The Marvel of this reality publishes comics that adapt the actual adventures of the superheroes (except for details not known to the public, like their secret identities); many of these are licensed with the permission of the heroes themselves, who customarily donate their share of profits to charity.
This is usually justified as a second-hand account of events as told to credited authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, although the general public continues to believe them to be fictional.
Other licensed works that have been incorporated into the Marvel Universe include Godzilla, the Transformers, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (in the character of Machine Man), Rom the Spaceknight, the Micronauts, and the Shogun Warriors.
[volume & issue needed] Within the fictional history of the Marvel Universe, the tradition of using costumed secret identities to fight or commit evil had long existed, but it came into prominence during the days of the American "Wild West" with heroes such as Carter Slade/the Phantom Rider.
[citation needed] Marvel's most prominent heroes were created during the Silver Age of Comic Books in the 1960s to early 1970s, including Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Thor, Bruce Banner/the Hulk, Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Ant-Man and the Wasp (Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne), Natasha Romanoff/the Black Widow, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Pietro Maxmioff/Quicksilver, Wanda Maximoff/the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Simon Williams/Wonder Man, Hercules, Kevin Plunder/Ka-Zar, Groot, Nick Fury, T'Challa/the Black Panther, Mar-Vell (the first Captain Marvel), Carol Danvers (also known as the first Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, and the current Captain Marvel), Sam Wilson/the Falcon, Dane Whitman/the Black Knight, Norrin Radd/the Silver Surfer, Jane Foster (also known as the second Thor), Warren Worthington III/the Angel-Archangel, Hank McCoy/the Beast, Scott Summers/Cyclops, Robert "Bobby" Drake/the Iceman, Jean Grey (also known as Marvel Girl and Phoenix), Charles Xavier/Professor X, Lorna Dane/Polaris, Alex Summers/Havok, Sean Cassidy/the Banshee, Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Susan Storm/the Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/the Human Torch, Ben Grimm/the Thing, Brunnhilde/the Valkyrie, the Inhumans (composed of Blackagar Boltagon, Medusalith Amaquelin-Boltagon, Crystalia Amaquelin-Boltagon/Crystal, Gorgon, Karnak Mandel-Azur/Karnak the Shatterer, Triton and Lockjaw) and Alexi Shostakov/the Red Guardian.
Other notable heroes from the Bronze Age and Modern Age from the early-to-mid 1970s to the early 1990s include James "Logan" Howlett/Wolverine, Ororo Munroe/Storm, Piotr "Peter" Rasputin/Colossus, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, Luke Cage (also known as Power-Man), Danny Rand/Iron Fist, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, Barbara "Bobbi" Morse/Mockingbird, the White Tiger (Hector Ayala), Shang-Chi, Greer Grant Nelson/Tigra, Jessica Drew (also known as Spider-Woman), the Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Daimon Hellstrom, Satana Hellstrom, Theodore "Ted" Sallis/the Man-Thing, Eric Brooks/Blade the Vampire-Slayer, Michael Morbius/Morbius the Living Vampire, Howard the Duck, Monica Rambeau (also known as Photon, Pulsar, Spectrum and the second Captain Marvel), Moondragon, Drax the Destroyer, Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Frank Castle/the Punisher, Marc Spector/the Moon Knight, the Eternals (composed of Ikaris, Thena, Ajak, Makkari, Kingo, Phastos, Gilgamesh and Sprite), War Machine, Nova (Richard Rider), Adam Warlock, Power Pack, Betsy Braddock, Scott Lang (the second Ant-Man), Felicia Hardy/the Black Cat, Silver Sable, Katherine "Kitty" Pryde (also known as Shadowcat, Ariel, Sprite, Star-Lord and the Red Queen), Emma Frost (also known as the White Queen), Jennifer Walters/the She-Hulk, Tyrone Johnson/Cloak and Tandy Bowen/Dagger, Brian Braddock/Captain Britain, Doreen Green/Squirrel Girl, Elektra Natchios, the New Mutants (composed of Illyana Rasputin/Magik, Xi'an Coy Minh/Karma, Danielle Moonstar/Mirage, Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, Doug Ramsey/Cypher, Warlock and others), the New Warriors, David Haller/Legion, John Proudstar/Warpath-Thunderbird, Anna Marie LeBeau/Rogue and Jubilation Lee/Jubilee.
Prominent teams of superheroes include the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Defenders, the Inhumans, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Howling Commandos, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Runaways, the Midnight Sons and the Thunderbolts.
The Guardians of the Galaxy include Marvel's cosmic characters such as Adam Warlock, Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, but the team has also introduced other heroes into the roster such as Kitty Pryde, the Silver Surfer, the Thing and Nova.
The Inhumans are a royal family consisting of Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Gorgon, Triton, Karnak and Lockjaw, who rule the city of Attilan.
The Runaways are a group of teenagers and a dinosaur consisting of Alex Wilder, Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, Chase Stein, Molly Hayes, Gert Yorkes and Old Lace who rebel against their evil parents known as the Pride.
The Midnight Sons consist of supernatural heroes such as Blade, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Elsa Bloodstone, Hellstrom, the Werewolf and the Man-Thing.
the Fixer) and Jolt, while the current incarnation of the team is made up of reformed supervillains/anti-heroes working for the government: Deadpool, the Punisher, the Red Hulk, the Winter Soldier and the Ghost.
Depending on the genetic profile, individuals who are exposed to different chemicals or radiation will often suffer death or injury, while in others it will cause superhuman abilities to manifest.
These include the Inhumans, another genetically unstable race (like the Deviants, but in their case, it is due to their use of a substance called the "Terrigen Mists") that was created by a Kree experiment long ago; the Subterraneans, a race of humanoids adapted to living below the surface, created by the Deviants (some Subterraneans were transformed into the 'Lava Men' by a demon); and Homo mermanus, a humanoid species of water-breathers that live in Earth's oceans.
Most of the Savage Land races have their origin from a group of primitive ape-men who seems to have escaped the Celestial experiments and whose influence is present in all modern Homo sapiens.
Some supernatural beings, entities and human characters created by Lovecraft and Howard, who were friends and influenced each other's work, have been adapted by Marvel and include Abdul Alhazred,[21][22][23] Conan the Barbarian[24] Nyarlathotep[25] and Set.
The gods were forced to stop meddling with humanity (at least openly) a thousand years ago by the Celestials, and most people today believe them to be fictional.
They retain the well-known vulnerabilities common to vampires in other media interpretations, including sunlight, garlic, religious icons and weapons made of silver.
The Phoenix Force is composed of the psionic energy from all living beings' past, present, and future, and is an embodiment of rebirth and destructive transformation through "burning away what doesn't work", and helped to restart the universe before the Big Bang.
[volume & issue needed] 'The "Fulcrum" is a comparatively recent addition to the hierarchy, that "all" cosmic entities allegedly serve, of a level of raw power stated to far surpass the might of the Watchers and the Celestials.
It is possible to travel through time without creating a new alternative universe, instead of altering events in the future, but this seems to have devastating and very far-reaching repercussions, as depicted in Marvel 1602 (it almost destroyed the whole multiverse, including the afterlife).
The character was revived more than 20 years later, explained as having been frozen in a block of ice though believed to be dead, to lead Marvel's latest team of superheroes the Avengers.
[citation needed] Naturally, this tendency is purely due to story conveniences (or a somewhat haphazardly shifting patchwork pattern of authors), and mainly that the fictional "continuity" has been maintained and expanded far beyond what Stan Lee and others originally planned or hoped for.
Hence, the passing of time was more discernible in the very early years, such as the graduation of Spider-Man; and what started as children or teenaged characters, such as Kitty Pryde, Franklin Richards, Valeria Richards, Power Pack, or the New Mutants are all allowed to age at wildly shifting rates (in the second case even backward at times), whereas surrounding characters somewhat dependent on a certain age limit do not change at all.
This recurrently creates inherently contradictory effects, as events are routinely described to have happened several years ago, even in cases when this would mean that some of the involved characters would have been toddlers.
[citation needed] A more recent explanation was given by Galactus to the Ultimates, namely that some important events – for instance, the creation of the Fantastic Four or the Avengers – have a 'gravity' all their own and warp time around them, causing the timeline to subtly change to accommodate this.