Monday, August 31, 2009

Disney Buys Marvel 3... ...and Swinebread's Thoughts



Disney buys Marvel and the pop culture world shakes… Some folks are upset, some think it’s great, some are wait and see. Me? I’m feeling a little worried about it as Disney can be quite a hog when it comes to pop culture. Plus, the house of mouse has an image that doesn’t exactly appeal to the average male. On the other hand Marvel has been screwing up most of their characters lately so why not. Disney could sure use the help too because it’s all but tapped out when it comes to creativity. The idea of Marvel and Pixar working together gets the fanboy similes going regardless.

The weird thing about all this for me is that it completes a setup of the big 2 comic companies that I think is backwards. DC has been a part of Time/Warner for a while now but you know what? It never sat right with me. Superman and Batman don’t belong with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck imho. DC has always been the goodie two-shoes universe and so they belong with the goodie two-shoes Disney characters. I’ve always thought the nebulous morality of the LT cartoons lent them selves better to the angst ridden Marvel Universe. Warner has done some great things with the DC animated shows so my bias has been tamped way down but with the sale of Marvel to Disney it jumped back up to the forefront. Spiderman and the Hulk with Mickey and Donald? Yuck….!
And since Disney owns the Muppets too I just know they will come out with Muppet versions of the Marvel Supers too, although that’s not so bad.

Ultimately all this probably means nothing except that the Marvel Superheroes will eventually get overexposed and Marvel might get much more litigious.

I do have one caveat to all of this in that it was pretty cool when Duck Dodgers joined the Green Lantern Corps. Maybe will see Super Goof join the Guardians of the Galaxy?


-Swinebread

4 comments:

Don Snabulus said...

With the big two tied up in the media power structure, maybe it is time for the mid-bigs (Dark Horse, etc.) to start a revolution of good, strong characters to retire the tired old Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk stuff. This new set of strong characters, whoever they might be, could bring a new sense of originality to a new generation, with new Stan Lees and Alan Moores to take us all to the next level.

I think the art form could use it myself.

Thomas Fummo said...

What Don Snabulus said :-)
stirring words, not too often said, unfortunately.

Arkonbey said...

I've hated Disney since they fought to have Mickey's copyright extended.

Jerks.

I agree with Snab.

Outside of the superhero genre, in the realm of sequential art in general, the continuing success of the Flight books is very heartening.

Arkonbey said...

just read a terrifying thought from Mark Evanier:

"Down the line, I suspect the word 'Marvel' will become about as unimportant to the Fantastic Four as 'Hanna-Barbera' is now to Scooby Doo"