Disney Buys Marvel
 

For $4 Billion.

ABC and Miramax do fine under the Disney umbrella, so I'm not worried about "kiddifiying" or the insertion of other Disney-related aspects into the comics. At least, not as a result of Disney being hard-handed about it.

I'd be worried about business bureaucrats getting in the way of good comics, if it wasn't for the fact that Marvel's current comics have all been editorally-mandated slime. Quesada drove the creative force out of Marvel Comics completely, so honestly there's nowhere to go but up in that regard.

The most affect I forsee is Universal losing their Marvel rides in Florida, and Slave Labor Graphics not getting to continue the awesome Gargoyles comics ever.

...did not see that coming.

Saw that earlier. Sucks.. :/ Islands of Adventure in Florida won't be the same, the Marvel rides were the best part... (Especially the Hulk Roller Coaster...)

I think only time can tell as to how this will go.

So, should we now be holding our breaths for Disney vs. Capcom? If I can't kick Captain Commando's shiny metal ass with Goofy, I will be a sad, sad panda.

Oookay... interesting.

But think about it, Warner Brothers vs Disney, Marvel vs DC... now it's all one and the same!

Actually, I'm not all that surprised. If Disney were to create their own superhero comic series from scratch, I can imagine it turning out a lot like Spiderman at least.

For the sake of the fans, I can't see this being a good or a bad thing. I don't think it'll change.

And for Disney's sake, I don't think they would dare change anything. They wouldn't risk that kind of money!

As for the Marvel rides in Universal... well, I guess they will at some point all get moved to DisneyWorld. Heck, maybe DisneyWorld will even make an entirely new Marvel-themed park. (and the Disneylands of the world could at least come up with a few Marvel rides)

Basically, I don't think the fans have anything to worry about. For that kind of money, surely Disney are going to be sensible about this.

Wrong way round.

I don't know how well this will pan out, it may mean no difference or it may mean a lot of changes, either way it will be interesting to say the least.

Weisman & more
 

Heh. Speaking of Greg Weisman's baby, his recent project "The Spectactular Spider-Man" reverted to Marvel after some deal work concerning the live-action movie franchise remaining with Sony. I guess that means if the show gets picked up for a third season (and it runs on DisneyXD already), he's working for Disney once again.

Now they're one and the same. Honestly, I wonder what this means for the planned "Kingdom Comics" Disney announced a few months back.

It would be everything I'd ever dreamed...with the wrong show. Seriously, I love Weisman's work on Gargoyles, but Spectacular Spider-Man falls somewhat short of spectacular.

I think the smart thing to do would be to make it an imprint of Marvel, like DC's Vertigo. Put all the resources of Marvel behind it, with the Kingdom imprint working on Disney-related projects.

...no more killing for wolverine...this makes me sad...universal studios is gonna suck now

I wouldn't say that. Miramax works just fine under Disney, after all. Besides, Disney would come under ENORMOUS amounts of fire from Marvel fans if Wolvie starts using his blades to become a Benihana chef. I think they'd rather risk a handful of angry letters by the Fox News crowd.

Also, mind you, people actually DIE in TRON. Sure they sugar-coat it as being deleted, but basically they DIE. And apparently, in TRON Legacy, they can die in HORRIBLE WAYS. Decapitation horrible.

AND Disney own Miramax, who have adult content in their films so....

Coming to DVD this summer, The Jonas Brothers vs. Hulk.

I have to wonder if this has been in the works for a while and if it actually explains why they screwed SLG over with the comics licence. Kingdom comics may be the first part of their merger or a subsidery of Marvel? Makes sense to obtain a large publisher if you want to start producing your own comics after all.

I wonder what this means for the disney comics that got cancelled thanks to the slg thing. Will we get another series of Gargoyles? Or some more Haunted Mansion?

*sigh* Well, that's one more media type dominated by the corporate mega. They'd just better stay away from buying up big video game companies! I couldn't bear to play an M-rated title knowing it was owned and operated by Disney! *shiver, shiver*

Considering the art in the SLG Gargoyles comic was...um, inconsistent at best, it would be great if Disney would let Weisman do some comics with marvel. Really, all I was going into it for was his writing, which was excellent.

This is gonna be lengthy...
 

How so? I realize the airing of the episodes has been extremely odd for the US, but that's the only major complaint I've had (and it's actually becoming annoyingly typical - Wolverine and the X-Men has same problem).

I presume everyone commenting on the Gargoyles comic bough the second Clan-Building trade paperback and the Bad Guys: Redemption trade that just recently came out. If you haven't, say so and I'll avoid spoiling anything in this discussion.

I don't know about Kingdom comics being a precursor of the Marvel acquisition as I don't know how long this merger has been in the works. However, strictly speaking, the SLG comic wasn't really screwed over. Gargoyles was apparently one of the best-selling comic for SLG ever; the licensing fees just took a lot out of it, keeping it from being equally profitable. When the license contract expired, Disney wanted a higher fee - one outside of SLG's budget. It's more that Disney felt they weren't making enough profit (much the same reason they've never released the second half of Season 2 on DVD). Combined with the sporadic release schedule, the comic was having problems without Disney doing anything. Overall, most people admit the trade paperback format probably would have been a better choice than attempting to maintain (bi-)monthly issues.

As to the potential developments, Marvel actually did a short Gargoyles comic book run back when Michael Eisner was seriously considering buying the company to counter Warner and DC. It was canceled back when Marvel went through its major financial crisis in the nineties. However, while there is some history there, but it still looks like SLG founder Dan Vado is still the best bet for more of Gargoyles in comic form (though he doesn't think much of basically paying one of a Big Dog of Comics to license a title). Haunted Mansion I know was the other property SLG was still interested in (Tron and Alice were not going to be renewed - I think Tron at least was always planned as a six-issue series anyway).

A lot of the artistic inconsistency was due to having multiple different artists over the course of only a few issues. Bad Guys was better in that regard since all but one issue was done by Karine Charlebois (Greg Guler from the original series did the covers).

I simply don't like the series. When I watch it I feel annoyed by the characters, and the whole "feel" of it is just doesn't feel "Spider-Man" to me. It feels more like all of the stupid Disney shows Weisman has contributed an episode or so to since Gargoyles, and honestly it's just not something I enjoy to watch.

I have high standards for Spider-Man, but I can at least admit that the movies work fairly well as movies(even though I overall decide not to watch the Spider-Man films because they don't match the character). Spectacular Spider-Man is just painful for me to watch.

I understand the "why". The problem is that the art fluctuated from "pretty good" to "Oh god, where the hell was the editor for that pannel?!" I'm generally far more lenient on comic art than a lot of people(a certain infamous comic artist doesn't get much flak from me at all), but some of the art for this is just really bad.

The biggest effects will probably be video games, as many expect (including myself) Disney Interactive keeping the Marvel contracts when they expire with their current companies.