From the AP:

"Iron Man 3" had the second-biggest domestic debut ever, behind the $207.4 million start over the same weekend last year for "The Avengers," which teamed Downey's Stark with other Marvel Comics heroes. The new sequel surpassed the $169.2 million opening for 2011's "Harry Potter" finale, the previous second-place debut.

In just nine days, the film shot past the $312 million international total for "Iron Man 2" in its entire theatrical run.

Among the overseas totals so far: $63.5 million in China, $42.6 million in South Korea, $38.3 million in Great Britain and $35.8 million in Mexico.

Disney, Marvel Studio's parent company, attributes part of the film's success to its ongoing "Avengers" franchise, of which "Iron Man" character Tony Stark is a part. "A year ago, we speculated as to the impact of Avengers, and now we're witnessing it first-hand with the success of Iron Man 3," said studio distribution chief Dave Hollis.

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Decades before the movies and TV shows and fast-food tie-ins, before the lunchboxes and the Halloween costumes, a tiny, understaffed and restlessly creative magazine publisher began churning out pages and pages of comic book art. Whereas comics had once been characterized by junky kids’ titles, repetitive genre pieces and stiff, wearyingly noble superhero archetypes, Marvel characters were a revelation. Marked by humor, pathos and bold artwork, they were refreshingly complicated creations.

Perhaps the most complicated creation of all, however, was Marvel itself. As Sean Howe details in his exhaustively researched and extraordinarily compelling "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story," the company behind the creative onslaught was as contradictory and capricious as any of its characters. In the “Merry Marvel Bullpen,” friendships were wrecked, careers were destroyed and hearts were routinely broken. Peter Parker’s stint at the arachnophobic Daily Bugle was, in comparison, like working at Google.

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