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What comic books exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?


A recent reminiscence of Captain America: The First Avenger made me stop and think about a very meta question.


During this sequence showing Captain America playing stage shows as propaganda to sell war bonds, we see a number of real-world Captain America products being bought by children, including most jarringly the actual Captain America comic book with him punching Hitler in the face.


The comic that the children are reading


This means that Captain America comic books exist, canonically, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


The children reading the above comic in the film


I can't recall any other event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where such a blatant reference to the comics is made, so I don't know if Thor, Black Widow, The Hulk, Iron Man, or Hawkeye have as much public exposure (to say nothing of the X-Men, who we'll keep separate in this question since they belong to the X-Men Cinematic Universe).



Beyond this passing reference to Silver-Age Captain America, is there any other evidence of Marvel Comic books existing inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe?



Answer



So far in the MCU, there has been no mention of any other hero having their own comic book.



Earth-199999 (MCU movies)


Captain America appears to be the sole exception to this rule, perhaps due to his unique status as the world's "first" superhero. It's also important to keep in mind that, in-universe, the Captain America comic book was part of an immense marketing campaign launched by the US government during WWII. Due to his unique status, Captain America was the centerpiece of a huge recruiting & bond drive that included all sorts of merchandise and public appearances. Another prime example of this is the collector's card set owned by Phil Coulson.


Later heroes do appear to have other forms of merchandise, however. In the days & months following the Battle of New York, we see both clothing (t-shirts) AND action figures styled after The Avengers. This includes a Captain America t-shirt (which may have existed before the battle), but also a toy version of Mjolnir and a plastic Iron Man mask. At the Stark Expo shown in Iron Man 2, which predates the formation of The Avengers by several months, we see a young boy wearing a full Iron Man costume, most likely a store-bought Halloween costume.


In addition, SHIELD has a wide variety of branded items (mugs, pens, badges, etc.) that can be seen in several episodes of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. These items aren't publicly available, and are akin to mugs & other items available to internal employees of the CIA or FBI. However, just as in real life, we must assume that such items - especially after the fall of SHIELD - can inevitably found on eBay (or whatever the MCU equivalent is).



Earth-10005 (Fox movies)



In the 2017 film "Logan", the concept of comic books was addressed in the Fox/X-Men continuity. In that film, Logan told Laura that events depicted in the X-Men comic book never happened and were just "made-up". The comics used in the movie were designed by Dan Panosian to resemble actual Marvel covers, albeit using the company name "X-Men Comics Group" instead. More information regarding the comics seen on-screen can be found at SlashGear here.


Logan reads an X-Men comic book


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