American comic book Kane and Bill Finger created Batman, who debuted in "Detective Comics" #27 (1939). The period from the late 1930s through roughly the end of the 1940s is referred to by comic book experts as the Golden Age of comic books. It featured extremely large print-runs, with "Action Comics" and "Captain Marvel" selling over half a million copies a month each; comics provided very popular cheap entertainment during World War II especially among soldiers, but with erratic quality in stories, art, and printing. In the early 1940s over 90 percent of girls and boys from seven to seventeen read comic books.
Superhero film (which debuted in Marvel Comics) and set the stage for further comic book film adaptations. After the comic book boom and the success of several comic book adaptation films (including superhero films) in the 1990s, the first decade of the 21st century brought increased interest in the genre and some of the most profitable superhero franchises, many from Marvel Enterprises. The success of the "X-Men" TV series had made 20th Century Fox license the film rights in 1994. After the success of "Men in Black" in 1997, Columbia Pictures licensed the film rights of "Spider-Man" in 1999. 20th Century Fox's