As a kid, the Marvel comics title "What If...?" was a personal favorite. It brought together two impossible worlds: "What if... Dr. Doom had Became a Hero?" "What if... the Hulk had the Brain of Bruce Banner?" "What if... Disney bought Marvel comics?"
It appears we will soon know the answer to that last "what if...", with Disney's announced purchase of Marvel comics — a deal worth $4 billion (just slightly more than a mint 1938 Action Comics #1).
The deal covers thousands of Marvel characters and titles, and includes bankable multi-platform (film, game, print) hero brands like Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Spider-Man and recently buzzed about names Green Lantern and Deadpool. Disney-Man, also known as mild mannered CEO Robert Iger, said in his super-powered brandspeak:
We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation.
Marvel’s takeover by Disney, the real-world equivalent of Marvel's Galactus, eater of planets, has been met with great interest by comic book fans. On the comic book blog Hero Sandwich, Scott Slemmons writes, optimistically:
I know that this definitely solves what I always saw as one of Marvel’s weaknesses against DC — DC has been owned and supported by Time-Warner for decades, while Marvel was mostly on its own, despite all of its successes. Marvel now has Disney’s considerable economic and marketing clout to fall back on, if necessary.
Slemmons also predicts, somewhat cynically, an "inevitable Wolverine/Mickey Mouse team-up." Indeed. But there is reason to think a Disney-run Marvel is nothing to fear. In 2006 Disney acquired Pixar, yet the animation studio has remained independently awesome. And as for worries that Disney involvement might sabotage marvel characters by leveraging them into horrendous profit-driven projects that crash and burn, just look at pre-Disney award-winners Elektra, Punisher (all three!), Ghost Rider and... gah!... Howard the Duck.
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