"Make Mine Disney" Doesn't Have The Same Ring To It

As you may or may not have heard, Marvel Entertainment - the company that owns Marvel Comics - has been purchased by The Walt Disney Company for the sum of four billion dollars. That's "billion" with a B. The purchase apparently hasn't completely gone through yet, since I think it still has to pass an antitrust review and get approval from stockholders. But I'm sure it'll go through, and Marvel will become the official property of "the House of Mouse."

A lot of comic book fans have gotten their panties in a bunch over the news. They've immediately started assuming that Marvel will have to bend to Disney's every whim, and water their products down so they can cater them to the Jonas Brothers/Hannah Montana crowd. But that doesn't have to be true. Who's to say that Marvel can't just go about business as usual, only with a Disney bankroll? It could be like the Disney/Pixar deal, where Pixar goes and does their own thing and Disney releases the final product. Besides, Disney owns Miramax Films and used to own Dimension Films, and neither of those brands are strangers to R-rated movies. So there's no reason automatically assume the worst.

And theoretically, this could put Marvel in the same boat as DC Comics. Now that Marvel is owned by a large media conglomerate, its movies already have a guaranteed distributor. But the details of the sale to Disney does specify that the movie rights that have already been sold will stay where they are until those deals expire. And whenever the rights revert to Marvel (and thus, to Disney), I hope they start incorporating characters into the universe that Marvel has started building in anticipation of the Avengers movie. And they'd be smart to do it, too. A crossover between some of these characters could make crazy money if it were done right. But hey, we'll just have to wait and see.

"Wait and see" is probably the outlook we'll have to take on this whole Disney/Marvel sale anyway. I know the super-nerds are acting like this is some kind of grievous offense, but is it? So what if Disney owns Marvel? If, a year from now, Marvel is doing "Spider-Man and Wolverine vs. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" or something stupid like that, I'll agree and say that the sale sucks. But if it's business as usual, then it's no harm, no foul. I'm actually curious to see just where this will go.

And is it wrong to hope for a Donald Duck/Howard the Duck crossover now?