Disney bought out Marvel

So the latest news of the week is that Disney bought Marvel Entertainment(read: Marvel Comics) for four billion dollars. Honestly, they got it for a steal. If you think about it, the Spider-man movies have collectively made over a billion dollars for Sony. The X-men movies have made close to that amount, and lets not even mention how many records Iron Man 2 will break.

Soooooo what does that mean, exactly? Will Disney now make all of the Marvel books kiddy? Will we start seeing The Incredible Duck, starring Donald Duck as the gamma-irradiated Duck? Goofy as the Iron-Goof? The Amazing Spider-Mouse, starring Mickey Mouse? Wait...that last one might actually be good...

Anywho, a lot of people are 'freaking' out over this in the blogosphere, and honestly its completely unwarrented. Take a look at Touchstone Pictures, ABC, ESPN, or Pixar. What do they have in common? They are all owned by Disney and they are all autonomous. Look at Warner Bros. and DC Comics. WB owns DC but they still get to do what they want. The only difference you'll probably see in comics is that Marvel will be able to keep a lot of their pet projects, the ones that are critically acclaimed but low-selling, on-going. DC, thanks to WB's money, is able to have books like Magog and R.E.B.E.L.S. on-going and last quite a while. They are least-known, and don't sell as well, but they keep going. You'll see the same now with Marvel I suspect. Also, you might see the Disney name in the fine print credits on the first page of each book.

The world shudders.

No, see Disney really wanted Marvel for the licensing. Disney paid four billion for Marvel, and that may seem a lot, but Disney is looking at the long term. With their marketing, Marvel licensing items could probably exceed 1-2 billion dollars in sales a year, and within a few years Disney will be making a sweet mint on their four billion buyout. Disney is well-known to be patient and cunning. I would suspect that within four or five years they will be able to wrestle the Spider-man license from Sony, and/or the mutants/X-men license from Fox. See, those two have perpetual deals. As long as they keep making movies within a certain time-frame, they keep the license. The news of Disney buying Marvel freaked Fox out so much they put the fast-track on a 'reboot' of Fantastic Four. The last movie underperformed, but Fox doesn't want to lose the license, so instead they will just keep going in hopes that the third time is the charm. I'd expect to hear from Sony soon about either fast-tracking Ghost Rider or giving it back to Marvel for some Spidey concessions or such, same with Fox and the Daredevil property.

Well, so that leaves out some major movies for now, but Marvel has a huge well of characters, so Disney won't be hurting too bad for the time being. Not only that, there is also the animation side. Think about it. Disney is one of the kings of animation. Lets see them do a few animated shows with Marvel properties. Put it on the Disney Channel, or Disney XD and the explosion begins!
Also, lets not forget the various action figures, folders, shirts, pencils, binders, etc., etc., etc., that Marvel puts out every year. Cha-CHING!

So in essence, comic fans have nothing to worry about. As Joe Quesadilla said, nothing will change when it comes to the comics. Instead, expect big changes within Marvel's movies, animation, games, and other licensing items. In fact, the only thing to worry about would be whether Marvel will get the autonomy they got filming Iron Man. Will Disney just let them do whatever? Otherwise, it will be just (big) business as normal for Marvel-ites everywhere!