Marvel Comics Characters By Andy Jones

2000s
With the new millennium, Marvel Comics escaped from bankruptcy and again began diversifying its offerings. In 2001, Marvel withdrew from the Comics Code Authority and established its own Marvel Rating System for comics. The first title from this era to not have the code was X-Force #119 (October 2001).
Marvel also created new imprints, such as MAX (a line intended for mature readers) and Marvel Age (developed for younger audiences). In addition, the company created an alternate universe imprint, Ultimate Marvel, that allowed the company to reboot their major titles by deconstructing and updating its characters to introduce to a new generation. The company has also revamped its graphic-novel division, establishing a bigger presence in the bookstore market. As of 2010, Marvel remains a key comics publisher, even as the industry has dwindled to a fraction of its peak size decades earlier. Some of its characters have been turned into successful film franchises, the highest-grossing being the X-Men movie series, starting in 2000, and the Spider-Man series, beginning in 2002.
In 2002, Stan Lee sued successfully for a share of income related to movies and merchandising of Marvel characters, based on a contract between Lee and Marvel from the late 1990s; according to court documents, Marvel had used "Hollywood accounting" to claim that those projects' "earnings" were not profits.