Marvel Entertainment was a moribund toymaker not even twenty years ago. Today Marvel Studios
is the dominant player both in Hollywood and in global pop culture. How did an upstart studio
conquer the world? In MCU beloved culture writers Joanna Robinson Dave Gonzales and Gavin
Edwards draw on more than a hundred interviews with actors producers directors and writers
to present the definitive chronicle of Marvel Studios and its sole ongoing production the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. For all its outward success the studio was forged by near-constant
conflict from the contentious hiring of Robert Downey Jr. for its 2008 debut Iron Man all
the way up to the disappointment of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and shocking departures
of multiple Marvel executives in 2023. Throughout the authors demonstrate that the original
genius of Marvel was its resurrection and modification of Hollywood's old studio system. But
will it survive its own spectacular achievements? Dishy and authoritative MCU is the first
book to tell the Marvel Studios story in full-and an essential effervescent account of
American mass culture.
