Marvel and Disney: The Day After

I was on Twitter Monday morning at 9 am when the news broke.

My initial reaction was: Holy Crap! This is big news (which it was).

My second reaction was: Why?

My third reaction was: How will this effect Marvel and Disney Collected editions?

My fourth reaction was: It probably won’t; at least for a long time.

In order to analyze Reaction Three further, we must analyze Reaction Two. Why did Disney buy Marvel for 4 Billion? Simple: Money. Disney will now get license fees from a number of different properties including the movies and even the theme park rides like the Spider-Man and Hulk roller coasters that are located at Disney’s rival Universal Studios in Orlando.

Disney also will get to showcase Marvel’s 5000+ characters in different areas including the theme parks and on Disney XD, a competitor to Time-Warner’s (Turner) Cartoon Network. But most of all it looks like Disney will want to expand the Marvel licensees in to new areas. For the time being the movies will remain in production. After the two Iron Man sequels, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, and The Avengers we will see changes.

As for the comics, themselves, I’m sure Disney will let everything run as they are now. I don’t see some Disney executive coming in demanding, “This, that and the other thing”. But, there is the question of Boom! Studios and the Pixar line of comics. I think Boom! and Mark Waid will be left alone. After all they just announced The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck HC at Comic Con and I think they’ll do a fine job with it. But I could see Disney and Marvel bringing in Tron from Amaze Ink/Slave Labor Graphics – but they would have to do it fast. Tron: Legacy is sure to be one of the blockbusters of Summer 2010 and I’m sure Disney would like to have that one done in house.

As for the Collected Editions, again, not much will happen. But if the department was smart they should make a play. The Disney/Marvel deal will be finalized by December 31, 2009 and revenue will start adding to Disney’s earnings in fiscal 2012. When that happens, the CE personnel should propose that Marvel start publishing classic Disney Comic Books. For a number of years Gemstone had the Disney licenses, but recently they have fell on hard times. Marvel should try there best to get, not only new comic books into print, but also the classics such as the Gemstone proposed Complete Carl Barks Collection, a 10-Volume Hardcover set. FYI: the long awaited Don Rosa Library Volume 1: 1987-1988 is slated to come out from Gemstone this December. Should Disney/Marvel pick up the now defunct EC Archives? I say no. Dark Horse is the logical choice. They have shown with Eerie, Creepy and the Boris Karloff series of reprints that they can not only take care of the restoration process, but also market the products – something that Gemstone seemed to have trouble with (only 12 Volumes out of a proposed 44 have been published).

In all, this is an exciting time for comic book fans and competition and quality will grow because of it. DC Comics and Time Warner will surly make a push to do something…anything. My guess is that we’ll see concrete news on not only Christopher Nolan’s third Batman movie, but also a new Superman movie by the end of the year. Perhaps Justice League and Wonder Woman will get on the fast track, too. Smaller publishers may see the benefits of mergers, too. Devil’s Due and Dynamite would seem like a good fit and anyone looking Top Shelf as an investment these days would probably make out just fine. I wonder if anyone at Viacom (Paramount and Dreamworks) is eying IDW? After all, they do have the Star Trek, GI Joe and Transformers licenses.

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Tags: Disney, merger