Today marks the 30th anniversary of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.'s initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Marvel issued 4.2 million shares of common stock at $16.50 per share in a $69 million offering that valued the total company at approximately $240 million. The IPO would drive the company to chase accelerated growth - supercharging its comic publishing initiatives and aggressively pursuing licensing deals in trading cards, toys, television and film. The pursuit of growth would also lead to a series of disastrous acquisitions that would burden the company with $1.7 billion of debt and drive Marvel to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1996. Like a phoenix from the ashes, Marvel emerged from bankruptcy in 1998 and was ultimately acquired by Disney in 2009 for $4 billion. As they say, the rest is history!