Marvel Comics Logo History + Spiderman-Hulk-Iron Man-Captain America-Thor Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age and Modern Age Bumper Logos

**Marvel Comics** is the name of the publishing company, owned by Disney Studios, One of the oldest comics publishers was established in 1939 and gave birth to dozens of legendary characters, including Spider-Man, Venom, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Wolverine, the X-Men, Thor, Thanos, Iron Man, Captain America, the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

## Meaning and history

### 1939 – 1951 (Timely Comics)

The logo used during the following twelve years was based on a shield shape divided into two fields. The top field was solid blue and housed the lettering “Timely Comics” in white. The field below combined vertical stripes in blue and white. Here, the central place was occupied by the word “Inc.” inside a red rectangle.

### 1951 – 1957 (Atlas Comics)

Martin Goodman, the founder of the company, started to use a different brand identity for the comics in November 1951. The covers of these comics featured a globe logo with the word “Atlas” written on a banner. The logo belonged to the Atlas News Company, which was a newsstand distribution company also owned by Goodman.

### 1961 – 1963 (Marvel Comics)

The original logo was utterly straightforward featuring the letters “M” and “C” positioned one above the other. The “C” was smaller than the “M.” The glyphs were placed inside a rectangular frame.

### 1963 – 1966

This once contained more information. The abbreviation was replaced by the lettering “Marvel Comics Group,” which was once again placed inside a rectangular frame. The lower right-hand angle was free because the words were aligned to the left. This created a feeling of imbalance and resulted in a slightly awkward design.

### 1966 – 1971

The update resulted in a more professional logo. The frame was gone. The text was centered, which gave the structure the balance it had lacked. The glyphs grew bolder, which added some weight to the wordmark.

### 1971 – 1983

The type became lighter and cleaner with all the three words positioned within a single line.

### 1983 – 1987

The words “Comics Group” were dropped, due to which the main word in the company name received all the attention. It didn’t look bolder than in the 1966 logo, but the shapes were cleaner, which resulted in better legibility.

### 1987 – 1990

The glyphs were italicized adding some dynamism.

### 1990 – 2002

The era of the red and yellow Marvel Comics logo started. The majority of the space was taken up by a stout, heavy “M.” Its top was formed by the word “Marvel,” also in red. Marvel bumpers logos: "Marvel Spider-Man", "Marvel Hulk", "Marvel X-Men", "Marvel Iron Man", "Marvel Captain America", "Marvel Thor" and "Marvel Fantastic Four". Right across the lower half of the letter, the word “Comics” was written in a casual script.

### 2000 – 2012

Once again, the logo was reduced to a single word. It was given in large white letters, which were placed inside a red square. The proportions of the glyphs were similar to the 1983 logo, but their shapes were somewhat different.

### 2012 – present

The design went through a subtle update, which was performed by Rian Hughes. It is hard to notice the differences even with a side-by-side comparison. Some of the most obvious ones are the link at the top of “V” and “E” and the shortened space between the “E” and “L.”

## Colors and font

The red color draws your attention to the Marvel Comics logo. The glyphs are positioned very close to each other, which results in a feeling that there’s a lack of free space.