To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Marvel Comics, The Times Online dug up 70 little-known facts about the world's best known superhero powerhouse. There's tons of Marvel trivia tidbits to wow and outgeek your friends, like the time when Michael Jackson tried buying Marvel.

From The Times Online:

Michael Jackson once came close to owning Marvel. According to Stan Lee's former business partner, Peter Paul - who was jailed in 2005 for stock fraud - Jackson agreed to buy Marvel on Lee's behalf. Paul had met Lee in 1989 and had brought him onboard the American Spirit Foundation, a charitable organisation he ran with the actor James Stewart. Spotting the worth of Marvel's superhero properties, Paul hatched a plan to bring in investors to buy Marvel and install Lee as company's head. In 1991-92, he put together a Japanese/American investment group and approached Marvel's Ron Perelman. with an offer to buy the company for about $28 million. Perelman decided instead to take Marvel public. Paul tried again several years later, this time lining up Jackson as an investor. Jim Salicrup, a former Marvel editor who was present at the meetings Jackson had with Lee and Paul, remembers Jackson saying to Lee: "If I buy Marvel, you'll help me run it, won't you?" Paul said that Marvel's owner at the time, Ike Perlmutter, was unwilling to take less than $1 billion for the company and Jackson eventually lost interest.

Read the entire list here, thanks to shockabilly for the link.