In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.24 billion. It has been a limited liability company (LLC) since then.

Marvel Enterprises
ToyBiz and Marvel Entertainment Group were merged into Marvel Enterprises to bring it out of bankruptcy in June 1998. As part of this merger plan, Fleer/SkyBox and Panini would be auctioned off separately.

Later, 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.

In 2003, Bill Stine purchased back Quest Aerospace, a 1995 Toy Biz acquisition, from Marvel. In summer 2003, Marvel places an offer for Artisan Entertainment. A new unit, Marvel International, was set up in London under a president, Bruno Maglione, to extend the company's operation and presence in major overseas markets in November 2003. In December 2003, Marvel Entertainment acquired Cover Concepts from Hearst Communications, Inc. In November 2004, Marvel consolidated its children's sleepwear-apparel licensing business with American Marketing Enterprises, Inc.

In November 2004, the corporation sued South Korea-based NCSoft Corp. and San Jose, California-based Cryptic Studios Inc. over possible trademark infringement in their City of Heroes massive multiplayer online game. Marvel settled a film-royalties lawsuit in April 2005 with its former editor-in-chief and publisher, Stan Lee, paying him $10 million and negotiating an end to his royalties.

Marvel Entertainment
In September 2005, Marvel Enterprises changed its name to Marvel Entertainment to reflect the corporation's expansion into financing its own movie slate.

In 2007, several Stan Lee Media related groups filed lawsuits against Marvel Entertainment for $1 billion and for Lee's Marvel creations in multiple states most of which have been dismissed. Additionally, a lawsuit over ownership of the character Ghost Rider was filed on March 30, 2007, by Gary Friedrich and Gary Friedrich Enterprises, Inc.

Disney subsidiary
On August 31, 2009, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment for $4.24 billion, with Marvel shareholders to receive $30 and about 0.745 Disney shares for each share of Marvel they own. The voting occurred on December 31, 2009 and the merger was approved. The acquisition of Marvel was finalized hours after the shareholder vote, therefore giving Disney full ownership of Marvel Entertainment. The company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange under its ticker symbol (MVL), due to the closing of the deal.

On June 2, 2010 Marvel announced that it promoted Joe Quesada to Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment. In June 2010, Marvel set up a television division headed by Jeph Loeb as executive vice president. Three months later, Smith & Tinker licensed from Marvel the character rights for a superhero digital collectible game for Facebook and Apple's mobile platform. On October 1, 2010, Marvel moved its offices to a 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) suite at 135 W. 50th Street, New York City, New York, under a nine-year sublease contract.

Stan Lee Media's lawsuit against Marvel was dismissed again in February 2011.

In July 2011, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Marvel characters co-created by Jack Kirby would remain the property of Marvel.