How Many Marvel Characters Are There? [Comics & Movies]

The amazing and ever-expanding world of Marvel Comics has been entertaining comic book fans and readers for decades. Throughout that history, thousands of characters have appeared in the Marvel stories. So of course you wonder how many Marvel characters are there?

There are currently more than 8,000 characters in the Marvel Universe, according to the official numbers provided by both Marvel and Disney. The number has steadily been increasing over the years, which is why Marvel will have to update their count soon.

This article is going to further elaborate on the above-answered question. You’re going to find out the exact numbers related to the characters from the comic books, but also the cinematic universe, and the video game universe. This is why the article is going to be divided into three separate sections, each dealing with one specific medium.

How Many Marvel Characters Are There in Comics?

Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing house founded back in 1939, meaning that Marvel has been around for a while. From 1939 to 1947, the company was known by the name Timely Comics, and from 1947 to 1961, they were known as Magazine Management, with both of these publishing houses are considered to be the predecessors to the modern-day Marvel Comics, which was officially founded in 1961. 

This brief history lesson was necessary to illustrate just how long Marvel has been on the market, which is important for the numbers that we are going to present. Namely, the fact that Marvel has been on an ever-growing market for so many decades certainly indicates that there might be a lot of characters in the universe. So, what are the exact numbers?

Disney CEO Bob Iger has told the public that Disney has the rights to more than 7,000 characters, but the numbers are even bigger since the movie studio doesn’t have the right to all of Marvel’s comic book characters. If you look at Marvel’s official website, you’ll find the following piece of information:

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy-five years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.

As you can see, the actual number of comic book characters owned by Marvel includes more than 8,000 characters, which is an amazing number. Not all of these characters are equally famous, but the whole library includes the heroes, the villains, humans, aliens, and other non-superpowered characters that have appeared in the comic books.

The number is, of course, growing steadily, so we’re sure that Marvel will have to review their numbers soon, but until that happens – this is the official number we have.

If you observe the Marvel Wikia, you’ll notice that they are mentioning more than 70,000 characters, information on most of which can be found on the Wikia, but this includes different versions of main characters, which are treated as individual characters by the Wikia, but also one-off and ancillary superheroes, villains, and other mutants. This is not the case with Marvel Comics.

How Many Marvel Characters Are There in the Movies and TV Shows?

As far as the movies and various TV shows are concerned, the exact number of characters that have appeared in the MCU was never published.

If you take a look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia, you’ll see that there are, as of October 2021, 3,667 character entries for the MCU. It is possible that the list is not completely accurate or up-to-date since it’s an unofficial one.

Now, going back to Bob Iger, who said that Disney has rights to more than 7,000 Marvel characters, we can conclude that the MCU has, so far, introduced around half of its available characters, somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 characters.

The rest of the characters are owned by Sony, and even some of them have been integrated into the MCU. The former 20th Century Fox company owned a bunch of other characters before the Disney acquisition, but these rights went to Disney after the sale.

How Many Marvel Characters Are There in Fortnite?

Fortnite players have had the pleasure of experiencing different comic book characters while playing the game. The inclusion of these characters was not literal – there was no Iron Man in Fortnite – but Marvel-based skins were introduced in the game, allowing players to take up the mantles of their favorite superheroes.

Again, this wasn’t an official introduction of these characters in the game, but the players could at least look like them, so it was close enough. These are the skins that are available in-game as of October 2021:

• Ant-Man
• Black Panther
• Black Widow (Snow Suit)
• Black Widow Outfit
• Blade
• Cable
• Captain America
• Captain Marvel
• Cuddlepool
• Daredevil
• Deadpool
• Doctor Doom
• Domino
• Gamora
• Ghost Rider
• Groot
• Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk)
• Loki Laufeyson
• Mystique
• Psylocke
• Ravenpool
• Silver Surfer
• Star-Lord Outfit
• Storm
• Taskmaster
• Thanos
• Thor
• Tony Stark (Iron Man)
• Venom
• Wolverine

As you can see, the list includes mostly heroes, but there are some villains on the list as well. The list is quite large for a non-licensed product, which is a great thing for Marvel fans.

The most notable omissions from the list are Spider-Man, whose inclusion has been the subject of rumors several times, and Drax the Destroyer, the only character from the Guardians of the Galaxy that has yet to appear in the game.

If you’ve counter correctly, you’ll know by now that there are a total of 30 Marvel characters skins in Fortnite, with the potential for new ones being very palpable.