Surprising I wasn’t on the ball in hearing about this one. I saw people making weird name mash-ups on twitter of Marvel and Disney characters, and just thought it was something stupid like usual. Once I heard about it a second time from my friend Terry I thought to maybe go check out the news. What a surprise I was in for when I found out at Comic Book Resources, that Disney had acquired Marvel Comics.

So what exactly does this mean for Marvel and Disney? Disney has stated they’re taking a hands off policy, but hope to help promote and market Marvel properties, and Marvel now has financial security, and backing of one of the most powerful companies in the world.

This isn’t the first case of acquisition in the comic book industry, considering DC Comics has been owned by Warner Bros. since 1969, and it’s this case that is really the best comparison for Marvel Comics. From a consumer point of view there really doesn’t seem to have been a lot of influence in DC Comics other than from film and television franchising options. Occasionally there is a call from Warners to not kill comic book characters they’d like to use, but honestly when is the last time a comic character stayed dead?
I see Marvel/Disney forming a large film and television franchise that will reach an ever increasing global market. The comic aspect of the company I believe will stay relatively unchanged. Comics are having trouble across the field, and being bought by Disney is not going to help it. Though one major headache will be the large number of existing business relations Marvel has in Film, Video Games, and other aspects of its marketing or distribution. Secretly I’m sure Disney would love to bring all aspects in house to control all flow of money, but that kind of change could take years. Also there is a severe chance of conflicting rights to characters being used in other mediums now that they are all owned by Disney. With any luck they may be able to avoid large scale fiascoes like the fight going on over the Adam West Batman series, which involves no less than Warner Brothers, Fox, all music rights owners from the show, and all celebrities and their likenesses that appeared in the show. As a result the red tape and pride has prevented this show from doing anything other than languish in reruns, and fuel black market DVD sales.

For the sake of Marvel fans I hope this change is for the best. Though I think its going to be much more difficult than everyone really anticipates.