Disney to Acquire Marvel Comics for $4 Billion
I know comics-related news usually falls under “Etta’s” domain, but this was just too huge for me to ignore. According to this post over at Newsarama.com, Disney entertainment will acquire Marvel Comics Entertainment and all of its over 2,000 comic book characters (including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, etc.) in a large stock and cash transaction.
What does this mean for the future of comics? Will we see Wolverine fighting alongside Uncle Scrooge? Will Darkwing Duck join the Avengers? Will the Punisher meet (and hopefully kill) the Jonas Brothers? Actually, I’d like to see that last one…
As a longtime despiser of the Disney brand (except for the Pixar stuff), I am shocked and concerned over this news. I truly hope this doesn’t lead to the Marvel Comics films turning out like “Sky High” and “High School Musical”. Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine. I guess only the future will tell, but to quote a classic film, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”.
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I can’t see this being good for Marvel in the long run. Being owned by WB certainly hasn’t done anything to help DC, in fact you could probably argue that it has hurt them.
Then again, since Steve Jobs is one of the big shots around Disney now-a-days, maybe we’ll get an Avengers themed Mac. Oh, wait, I don’t want that.
You beat me to posting this news! I actually stopped home on lunch to hear this on the TV,and was surprised to see it already on the site. Kudos! Though I did have a much snappier headline planned-”Mouse buys House of Ideas”.
I’m torn on the actual deal itself. While I personally am not a fan of how Disney has done business the past decade or so, and the quality of their products has diminished in that time as well, their current deal with Pixar has made them stronger in my eyes. Also, their marketing is truly second to none, and the inroads at a retail level for Marvel from this deal would be phenomenal (Walmart’s partnership with Disney alone would lead to a large amount of Marvel sales. Media also will play a large roll in this, considering that Disney’s controlling shares in ABC, ESPN, ABC Family Channel, the Disney Channel (and spin-off channel Jet EX) will also expand the Marvel brand. Movies become interesting as well, as Marvel’s new found studio system was just beginning to look formidable, and now that they’re owned by Disney, how does that pan out? Fox will most certainly sit on their film rights to the X-Men, not allowing them to be retained back to Disney/Marvel, as will Sony sit on their Spider-Man film rights in the same way. This also calls into question what will happen with BOOM! Studios recent deal with Pixar-I personally love BOOM!’s comic publishing and their talent involved, and would hate to see this come at their expense.
This is a huge story in progress, and I am considering a large amount of coverage on it here. More later.
Come on people, lets hear what the rest of you have to say.