'Marvel Comics' is the comic-book publisher founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman as Timely Comics, renamed Marvel Comics in 1961 after the editorial direction of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko established the modern Marvel Universe with the Fantastic Four. The publisher's shared continuity โ incorporating Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and many other characters โ has been adapted continuously since the 1970s across television, film, and direct-to-video animation, separate from the more narrowly-scoped Marvel Cinematic Universe (a film franchise beginning with 'Iron Man' in 2008) which adapts only a subset of the publishing line.