Holy fucking shit: Disney has purchased Marvel comics for $4 billion.

From the NY Times:

Disney sees a deep opportunity to immediately patch the Marvel characters into its other businesses, however. Marvel characters will be added to Disney’s theme parks, while consumer products will be a huge component, particularly internationally where Marvel has made fewer inroads.

Marvel has aggressively exploited its most popular characters through motion pictures and consumer products, and has a thicket of deals with various studios that will stay in place. Twentieth Century Fox will continue with the “X-Men” franchise, for instance, while Sony Pictures Entertainment will keep “Spider-Man.”

And Paramount Pictures will continue to release Marvel’s “Iron Man” films — at least until that deal expires. So essentially Disney is in business with a trio of rival studios.

Will this help save the mainstream comics industry? Time Warner’s deep pockets certainly haven’t hurt DC (OK, well maybe just a little bit creatively). How will a kid-focused company like Disney cope with the fact that 99.9% are middle-aged men with pony tails? Could this mean we see digital comics distribution sooner rather than later? Will we finally see a showdown between Goofy and Wolverine?

I have so many questions!

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee: Proving you wrong since 1983.

21 replies on “Hulk SMASH Puny Mouse!”

  1. How sad. I can’t help but to be disappointed. However, I got to admit I am clutching my pearl at the thought of a Goofy vs Wolverine climatic battle scene!

  3. What will become of the Spiderman and Hulk rides at Universal Studio’s Island of Adventure??

    THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!!1!

  4. @ 3—didn’t those rides go away a long time ago when, like, three people went to the Marvel Island of Adventure?

  5. Can’t say I know for sure, but as recent as last January I was seeing ads for those Marvel themed Universal rides all over Orlando.

    (I had to go down there for work. Don’t judge.)

  9. I suspect Disney is actually trying to broaden their focus. Their image as a kids-only studio is a millstone around their necks when they try to tap into the adult market. This may be a way for them to get some adult cred.

  10. Thank Goofy! Now our 75 years plus 17 year copyright extension for copyright on works belonging to Disney can apply to all the parodies of Superman!

    Even if it was supposed to be 17 years. Period. Max. In the US Constitution.

  11. On the one hand, it will give Marvel more coin and capital to extend their reach and exposure. All the firepower that DC Comics has to get their stuff out there in more aspects because of Time Warner is now available to Marvel, and Disney is more adept in that than Time Warner.

    On the other hand… I worry about editorial/content changes long term and the safety valves that DC often seems to have in an unspoken manner, to keep a status quo, and toe some magical line of corporate compliance.

    The differences between the Marvel & DC panels were the most telling at Emerald City Comic Con this year.

    Marvel: free and relaxed, and tremendously fun (and funny).
    DC: corporate and a bit staged, and not nearly so fun (or funny).

  12. @10 corporate copyrights exist for 90 years, it is only works created by individuals that last for 75 years, and that clock starts from the death of the creator.

    This does not change Marvel’s copyright issues in any way.

    BTW the constitution merely states that copyrights and patents must be for a “limited term” not explicitly 17 years.

  14. @12 – tell that to the Constitution-hating lawyers working for Disney.

    Corporations used to have no rights.

    None.

    They aren’t people, and the Constitution gives them zero rights.

  15. @14 you sound like Clarence Thomas using the plain words of the constitution to try and resolve arguments that didn’t exist until 1880s and 1970s.

    The constitution doesn’t give a definition for what “legal persons” are. Supreme Court decisions define that, constitutional law goes beyond the formal words of the written document.

    The Supreme court (unfortunately) ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft 537 U.S. 186 that the more recent copyright terms are formally consistent with the requirements of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US constitution.

    This means that we have to lobby congress to change the copyright terms to a more modest period of time. No just to scream irrationally about the unconstitutionality of modern corporate and IP law

  19. @16, no, I agree with the substance of your critique (what little there is) I was merely attempting to correct your misinformed ideas about copyright law.

  20. In the future we will be amazed that back in the day the Pirates of the Caribbean ride didn’t have Jack Sparrow fighting Namor at the end of it.

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