10 Best Comic Book Universes

The history of the Marvel Universe is somewhat different from that of DC's since it doesn't go back to 1939. Technically, if you wanted to be a stickler about it, the current Marvel Universe, which is known as Earth-616, began in 1961 with the publication of Fantastic Four #1.

All the books that came before under the header of Timely Comics or Marvel previously weren't considered to be a part of a shared universe until they were brought into the Silver Age with the help of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko.

Since that time, the Marvel Universe has expanded into a wide-ranging multiverse consisting of countless realities, all with variations of Marvel Comics' greatest heroes and villains.

Unlike the DC Universe, which places its characters in fictional versions of cities, the Marvel Universe attempts to simulate the real world in such a way that it mirrors important people, places, and events. Many of the creators who lived and worked in New York City placed heroes like the Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, the Avengers, and Spider-Man (among many more) in the city they loved, and the Marvel Universe grew from there to include different states, countries, planets, and galaxies.