He is stronger than his superhuman rivals, immune to conventional disease and highly resistant to injury. Oh, and he's a god.

Thor, the Nordic god of Thunder, could be the latest superhero from the pages of Marvel Comics to be heading for the big screen.

Marvel, which will release Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow, next week, is to announce soon the details of a series of films that will cherry-pick from its catalogue of 5,100 comic-book characters.

Superheroes expected to feature in the line-up include Thor, Captain America, Ant-Man, Black Panther and the Avengers.

Simon Philips, the president of Marvel Entertainment International, says: “There will be an announcement imminently on our new slate of movies. We need to green-light movies early enough to give our video games partners enough time to create a game to be launched at around the same time as the film. We are a company driven by consumer products.”

The power of Marvel's super-heroes should not be underestimated. The comic-book colossus, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has created characters that have soared worldwide at the box office.

The three Spider-Man films took nearly $3 billion (£1.5 billion), the three X-Men films generated close to $1.2 billion and Hulk took $245 million. Then there are the DVD sales, toys and computer games, with Spider-Man the most popular.

However, until recently Marvel has failed to reap full benefits from these successful films, instead opting to limit its exposure to financial risk by licensing the characters to big film producers, such as Sony Pictures.

Two years ago the 69-year-old company took the bold step of furnishing the financing to make the movies, with the aid of a $525 million loan from Merrill Lynch. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk mark its first steps into the world of film-making.

The characters born in the 1960s, co-created by Stan Lee, have proved to be the most attractive to the film industry.

Living in a Cold War culture, the Marvel creators sought to deconstruct the superhero conventions of previous eras to reflect better the psychology of their day. These characters complained, argued with one another and even suffered from depression.

It is Mr Philips's task to exploit Marvel's characters to the full. He recently faced the challenge of taking them into the Japanese market, which is dominated by the traditional manga animation.

Choosing to work in partnership with a Japanese publisher, the group has recreated Spider-Man and the X-Men, changing their names and giving them the appearance of manga characters.

“You wouldn't recognise some of the characters. Wolverine [an X-Men character] has his famous claws, but looks nothing like the Marvel character,” he says.

The group has created an Indian Spider-Man and also plans a similar approach in the Chinese and South Korean markets. Further international expansion will include the creation of a Marvel theme park in Dubai, which is scheduled to open in 2011.

Mr Philips says that one of the most effective ways of exploiting Marvel's brands is through consumer products. It has signed a lucrative two-year worldwide agreement with Carrefour, the French retail giant, to produce a range of Hulk, Spider-Man and Iron Man clothes and school bags.

Marvel is also planning a clothing range for women, which will feature T-shirts with pictures of vintage cartoon strips.

The group is planning to create a Marvel food range. “We are in talks with a number of people to create a healthy heroes food programme,” he says. “This is not about food with lower saturated fat. We want our food range to be 100 per cent healthy.”

So will Green Giant sweetcorn face a challenge from Incredible Hulk sweetcorn? Surely Iron Man baked beans will make you strong.

Yet Marvel wants to be seen as a positive force for children and not simply a money-making machine.

In its latest role, it has created a comic book for the United Nations, which was given free to a million children in the United States. It shows the international body working with superheroes to solve conflicts and rid the world of disease.

Mr Philips recognises that exploiting of its superheroes keeps its brands in children's minds. “We are establishing franchises,” he says. “Creating bigger visibility by having a presence on television, launching a video game and selling other consumer products are ways to do this.”

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