Disaster! Red Alert! Armageddon! The world of Marvel is coming to an end faster than The Watcher could have ever guessed! Soon Wolverine will be telling kids the dangers of running with scissors and the fantastic four will be renamed the fabulous four as they take to a Broadway sing and dance routine ala high school musical. Fan boys beware, your only bastian of hope lies with DC. Or, at least that what the knee jerk response to the Disney buy out of Marvel comics would have you believe. The question is, is that a reasonable response? The answer? It's impossible to tell at this point. However, I would venture to say that this move is both beneficial to BOTH Marvel and Disney, and yes, even you comic book fan boy.

Now, when we all think Disney, we automatically think of that high pitched mouse wearing pants and gloves and the other things associated with him. You know, magic kingdom, bubble gum, hopscotch, jazz hands, heart stopping song and dance performances of animated show tunes. What we don't tend to think of is a movie like, oh, Kill Bill. "What? What you say! Andy, Kill Bill had nothing to do with Disney, it is the complete antithesis of Disney. It's got blood, and weapons actualy being used... and Quinton Tarantino directed it!" Ahh, but Kill Bill was produced by Miramax Films, which is a subsidiary of... you guessed it, Disney. That's right, that movie will all that blood and gore was the baby of a Disney controlled studio. Miramax is currently ran by Daniel Battsek, who reports directly to Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It was under this current regime that There Will Be Blood was released by Miramax. Fear not comic book fan, your violence appears to be safe.

So why would Disney be interested in acquiring Marvel? Let me rattle off some titles for you: X-men, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, Iron Man. I know the Dark Knight is owned by DC, but my point is all of these movies are super hero movies. And the combined gross of these four movies during their world wide theatrical run (so this is just money brought in by the movies) was over 2.703 billion (with a b) dollars. Do you seriously think Disney, being the savvy movie makers that they are, didn't sit up and take notice when super hero movie after super hero movie was being produced and raking in the green backs. Super hero movies are instant cash cows. Problem is before one makes a super hero movie, one must have rights to super heroes. So, why get in a bidding war with people over Marvel's hero rights when you can just buy them. Boom, now when half of the super hero movies come out, your seeing a chunk of that profit.

Here's another item to note. Universal Studios Theme Park in Orlando has one of their Islands of Adventure themed after marvel super heroes. Think that's going to stay open for long? I would be willing to put dollars to radio-active-spider-filled-donuts that once the government approves the buyout, Disney will have their team of highly paid lawyers looking into to shutting that area down. Who knows, they may even be looking into adding their own super hero themed area in the now Disney Studios (the theme park formally known as MGM).

Ok, so that's how Disney benefits, but what about Marvel, and you, the lowly fan boy? Here's the thing, Disney bought Marvel for 4 billion. The fact that Disney has the financial funds to slap that kind of money down on the table like that should say something. Disney is a media Juggernaut (get it, like the Marvel character). They have movie studios, cartoon studios, theme parks, TV stations, radio stations, consumer products, the list goes on. To put it simply, the assets that Disney has at their disposal is unfathomable compared to Marvel. So you remember when that last bad super hero based movie that came out and you said "gee, I wish Marvel had their own studio to produce their own movies"? Guess what. Even if Marvel doesn't get their own studio, they are owned by the same people who own a few studios themselves. They have a staff of award winning writers just waiting to take on the next money maker (Your up, Captain America). I would not be suprised in the least if Marvel movies started to be as well crafted as the Dark Knight, or Pirates of the Caribbean.

Granted, all of this is just a hypothesis, just a guess as to why and what will happen. Doesn't mean it's going to. But Disney bought Marvel to appeal to an audience they were missing. So do you think that they are going to buy something that audience likes, and change it? I just don't see it happening. If that was going to happen it would have happened with Miramax or Touchstone already. Fear not, your comics are safe.