While Avengers Endgame smashes box office records around the globe, the superhero genre's inspiration came alive with a free comic book day on Saturday.
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Canberra's comic institutions, Dee's Comics and Impact Comics, had thousands of people through the doors, all keen to take home some new comic books.
However, owners of the stores say while the Marvel powerhouse attracts droves to the cinema, comics are exploring a greater breadth of stories than ever before.
Impact Comics co-owner Mal Briggs said the attention on Marvel and the superhero genre created room for a wider range of comic books, as people could get their superhero fix elsewhere.
In the past year, the bestsellers at Impact Comics have included a biography of musician Nick Cave in comic form, a comic book version of To Kill a Mockingbird and new series Saga, which Mr Briggs describes as a cross between Game of Thrones and Star Wars.
However, he said the Marvel movies had introduced a whole new generation of primary school aged children to comic books.
"Comics are really good for comprehension, sounding words out and using a wider vocabulary," Mr Briggs said.
He sells wordless comics for children below reading age and has people in their 70s coming in that have read Spiderman their entire lives.
Dee's Comics owner Brendon Dann said the Canberra comic scene had remained fairly consistent, although there was a boom in the early 2000s when the first Marvel movies were released.
Mr Dann said while the Marvel films and associated media stuck with what they knew and were successful, it had meant other comic creators had become more innovative. DC Comics had maintained strong sales in the comics world with Batman, the Flash and Wonder Woman.
"There's something about a brooding, billionaire orphan that can't get over his parents' death and chooses to beat up the city's mentally ill that remains intriguing," Mr Dann said.
He said one of the great things about comics, especially for new readers, was that as long as you had a vague idea of the character you could jump in at any point and enjoy the story.
"As long as you know Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider, that's all you need to know to jump in at any point in the Spiderman story," Mr Dann said.
One other major shift in the comics scene, according to Mr Briggs, was the perception of the stereotypical reader, which he said was about 10 years out of date.
Mr Briggs said about 60 per cent of his current customer base would be women. He said he recently advertised for a new staff member and the applications were overwhelmingly from women.
Canberra is also pulling its weight in the field of comic book artists, with a bunch of local artists showing off their newest editions on Saturday.
One Canberra artist, Jon Sommariva, has even joined the Marvel juggernaut by creating the child-friendly Marvel Action Avengers comics. Mr Sommariva was on hand at Impact for free comic day.
Both owners have had years of experience in the comics industry and said it was the unique form of storytelling that kept readers coming back.
"Words and pictures together are a magical combination," Mr Briggs said.
"You tell a story that's more complete. It's a unique medium."
Mr Dann added: "Comics are a timeless medium where the only thing is the limit of your imagination. Even movies can be limited by a budget, but if it can be imagined it can be in a comic. They're stories that bring people together with a shared satisfaction."