The Marvel Studios Phenomenon Inside a Transmedia Universe [Hardcover]

Marvel Studios has provided some of the biggest worldwide cinematic hits of the last eight years, fromIron Man(2008) to the record-breakingThe Avengers(2012), and beyond. Having announced plans to extend its production of connected texts in cinema, network and online television until at least 2028, the new aesthetic patterns brought about by Marvel's 'shared' media universe demand analysis and understanding.

The Marvel Studios Phenomenonevaluates the studio's identity, as well as its status within the structures of parent Disney. In a new set of readings of key texts such asCaptain America: The Winter Soldier,Guardians of the GalaxyandAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the thematics of superhero fiction and the role of fandom are considered. The authors identify milestones from Marvel's complex and controversial business history, allowing us to appraise its industrial status: from a comic publisher keen to exploit its intellectual property, to an independent producer, to successful subsidiary of a vast entertainment empire.

Martin Flanaganis Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Salford, UK. His work studies the forms of contemporary Hollywood entertainment. As an author he has contributed to theNew Review of Film and Television StudiesandScope, and the edited collectionsWeb-Spinning Heroics(2012) andFilm and Comic Books(2007). His monograph,Bakhtin and the Movies: New Ways of Understanding Hollywood Film(2009), explores and situates superheroic narratives within wider Hollywood generic traditions.

Andy Livingstoneis a writer forCinema 22magazine and neophyte documentary filmmaker, working in Manchester's independent cinema scene. Areas of focus in his academic program included transmedia and the marketing and genre placement of comic book adaptations, both of which subjects he considered in extended projects.

Mike McKennyhas covered the Ulc,