Marvel Entertainment, LLC is an American entertainment company founded in June 1998 and based in New York City, formed by the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and ToyBiz. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is known for its comic books by Marvel Comics, as well as its forays into movies with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment for US$4 billion. For financial reporting purposes, Marvel is reported as part of Disney's Consumer Products segment since Marvel Studios' reorganization from Marvel Entertainment into Walt Disney Studios. Over the years, Marvel Entertainment has entered into several partnerships and negotiations with other companies across a variety of businesses; as of 2019, Marvel has film licensing agreements with Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures, theme park licensing agreements with IMG Worlds of Adventure and Universal Parks & Resorts. Aside from their contract with Universal Parks & Resorts, Marvel's characters and properties have appeared at Disney Parks.

Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. incorporated on December 2, 1986, included Marvel Comics and Marvel Productions. That year, it was sold to New World Entertainment Ltd as part of the liquidation of Cadence Industries. On January 6, 1989, Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings bought Marvel Entertainment Group from New World for $82.5 million. The deal did not include Marvel Productions, folded into New World's TV and movie business."It is a mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property," said Perelman. "Disney's got much more recognized characters and softer characters, whereas our characters are termed action heroes. But at Marvel we are now in the business of the creation and marketing of characters." Marvel made an initial public offering of 40% of the stock on July 15, 1991, giving $40 million from the proceeds to Andrews Group, Marvel's direct parent corporation within MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings. In the early 1990s, Marvel Entertainment Group began expanding though acquisitions and the formation of new divisions.

Marvel purchased the trading card company Fleer on July 24, 1992. On April 30, 1993, Marvel acquired 46% of ToyBiz, which gave the company the rights to make Marvel toys; the Andrews Group named Avi Arad of ToyBiz as the CEO of the Marvel Films division. In 1993 and 1994, Marvel's holding companies, Marvel Holdings, Inc. and Marvel Parent Holdings, Inc. were formed between Andrews Group and MEG. The companies issued over half a billion dollars in bonds under the direction of Perelman, passed up in dividends to Perelman's group of companies. Marvel acquired Panini Group, an Italian sticker-maker, Heroes World Distribution, a regional distributor to comic-book shops, in 1994, it acquired trading card company SkyBox International in 1995. Marvel's attempt to distribute its products directly led to a decrease in sales and aggravated the losses which Marvel suffered when the comic book bubble popped, the 1994 Major League Baseball strike massacred the profits of the Fleer unit, Panini, whose revenue depended on Disney licensing, was hobbled by poor Disney showings at the box office.

In late 1995, Marvel reported its first annual loss under Perelman, attributed to the company's large size and a shrinking market. On January 4, 1996 Marvel laid off 275 employees. In late 1996, Perelman proposed a plan to save Marvel in which the company would merge with Toy Biz after Perelman spent $350 million for the Toy Biz shares that he didn't own, he would receive newly issued Marvel shares to maintain his 80 percent stake. Separately, in July 1996, Marvel filed with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise money to create a private entity called Marvel Studios. Much of the money to create Marvel Studios came from the sale of Toy Biz stock. In December 1996, the Marvel group of companies filed for bankruptcy. At this time, Carl Icahn, an American businessman and investor, began buying Marvel's bonds at 20% of their value and moved to block Perelman's plan. In February 1997, Icahn won the bankruptcy court's approval to take control of the company's stock. In June 1997, Icahn won the right to replace Marvel's board, including Perelman.

In December 1997, during the post-bankruptcy reorganization phase, Toy Biz came to an agreement to purchase Marvel from the banks. In December 1997, the bankruptcy court appointed a trustee to oversee the company in place of Icahn. In April 1998, while the legal battle continued, the NYSE delisted Marvel stock. In August 2008, former company head Ronald Perelman paid $80 million to settle a lawsuit accusing him of helping divert $553.5 million in notes when he controlled the company. ToyBiz and Marvel Entertainment Group were merged into Marvel Enterprises to bring it out of bankruptcy in June 1998. In February 1999, Fleer/Skybox was sold to a corporation owned by Alex and Roger Grass, a father and son, for US$30 million; the rights to names like "Spider-Man" were being challenged. Toy Biz hired an attorney to review its license agreement. Los Angeles patent attorney Carole E. Handler found a legal loophole in the licensing of the Marvel name and was successful in reclaiming Marvel Enterprises' movie rights to its character Spider-Man.

Marvel Enterprise organized itself into four major units, Marvel Studios, Toy Biz and Publi

Donald James Winslow was a professor at Boston University in Boston, United States who specialized in the subject of biography. Donald James Winslow was born in 1911, the third of four children of Guy Winslow, president of Lasell Junior College in Auburndale, Massachusetts, his father was a trustee of Tufts College and a friend of John Cousens, who would become president of Tufts. During his childhood, he met guests, he graduated from Newton High School in 1929, was admitted to Tufts, earning a BA in English in 1934 and an MA in English in 1935. He began teaching in the Boston University department of English in 1936, first as a teaching fellow and as an instructor, he earned a PhD from the University in 1942, joined US Army Air Corps Weather Service, serving there until 1946. Returning to Boston University, Winslow rejoined the English Department, becoming a full Professor in 1953, he chaired the English department at Boston University from 1952 to 1962. Winslow hired the poet Robert Lowell as a teacher in the English department, Lowell in turn taught the poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

Winslow was drawn to the subject of biography, becoming the bibliographer of the University of Hawaii's quarterly magazine Biography and giving one of the first university courses on the subject of biography. He taught courses on "Thomas Hardy", "Virginia Woolf", "The Age of Johnson", "The Age of Pope" and "Literature of the Eighteenth Century". Winslow retired from the university in 1977, he died of heart failure on 10 July 2010 at the age of 98. The archives of Lasell College are named after Winslow, who established the collection. Winslow wrote his master's thesis and doctoral dissertation on the British writer Thomas Hardy. In 1938, he took a bicycle tour of Dorset, where he met Hardy's sister Kate, he wrote a monograph about Kate Hardy. After retiring from the university, in 1987 he published a book Lasell: A History of the First Junior College for Women, he published a Glossary of Terms on Life Writing. Donald James Winslow. Love in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Tufts College. Donald J. Winslow.

Life-writing: a glossary of terms in biography and related forms. University of Hawaii Press for the Biographical Research Center. ISBN 0-8248-0748-0. Donald J. Winslow, F. B. Pinion. Thomas Hardy's sister Kate. Thomas Hardy Society. ISBN 0-904398-30-7. Donald J. Winslow. Lasell: a history of the first junior college for women. Lasell Junior College. ISBN 0-9619720-0-9. George Lane, Donald J. Winslow. Survivors: the faculty experience at Lasell in the administrations of Greene and Mitchell

Keith Broomfield was an American volunteer fighter, killed while serving with the Kurdish YPG in Syria. Broomfield is the first U. S. citizen to die fighting alongside Kurds during the Syrian Civil War. Keith Broomfield was born in 1979 in Massachusetts to Tom and Donna Broomfield, he worked as the production manager for the family's manufacturing firm Broomfield Laboratories in Bolton, Massachusetts. After a motorcycle accident and rediscovering his faith, Broomfield told his father he was called to fight in Syria, he joined the YPG on February 2015 under the nom de guerre Gelhat Raman. On arriving to Kobane in February, 2015, he was transferred to the military academy of Kantona Kobane, he had a translator on hand to help him. By March, now Gelhat, wanted to go to the frontline near Sexler, on the Euphrates River to the west of the city of Kobane. After several more weeks, with a new operation "Rubar Qamishlo" beginning, the axis of attack for the canton switched from west to south-east and east.

By April, Broomfield reached the front line after joining the Kobane Sniper unit. There were a number of foreigners there, as well as English-speaking Kurds. Broomfield chose to stay continuously in the front line from April until his death in June 2015. Despite lacking traditional military training, he adapted himself well. Many of his comrades spoke of him as a great shot and a hard-worker, his Kurdish slowly improved as well. However, the Kobane Sniper Unit was taking increasing casualties, their commander, Heval Herdem was killed in early April. This was followed by the deaths of three more of the snipers, two more were wounded in explosions, another was shot through the chest, several returned home or to Cizre Canton due to combat fatigue. On or around June 3, 2015, Broomfield was killed by enemy sniper fire