Marvel Enterprises is working with retail giant Target in a new initiative to promote reading by producing and distributing comic books featuring Marvel superheroes to millions of third and fourth grade students.  The first comic in the educational series, Reading to the Rescue, was recently handed out through Marvel's Cover Concepts subsidiary (see 'Marvel Extends Its Scholastic Reach') to over one million third and fourth graders.  In the spring of 2005 Target and Marvel will produce and distribute a second title, Reading to the Rescue #2: Assignment Impossible to more than two million school children.

Target and Cover Concepts have employed educational experts such as Forrest Stone, EIC of Education World and former editor of the Weekly Reader and the Scholastic Voice, in order to make sure that the comics fit in with the reading curriculum.  In addition to the free comics, Marvel, Target and Cover Concepts also provide teachers with a short resource guide that includes tips and recommended classroom activities based on the comics, which feature key Marvel superheroes including Spider-Man and Captain America.