Disney to acquire Marvel Comics

[YdoUwant2know]

Considering Comicon is just coming to a close, I thought this relevant.

It was announced today that Disney is buying majority share of Marvel comics for 4 billion USD paid in the form of Disney stock and cash.

http://www.examiner.com/x-14077-SF-Comic-Books-Examiner~y2009m8d31-Disney-to-acquire-Marvel-Comics

http://www.reuters.com/article/americasDealsNews/idUSTRE57U3VO20090831

[grimdc13]

oh, great I can just picture Marvel's heroines as Disney Princesses! Princess Rogue and Jean? :P Beast vs Beast! Nightcrawler and Belle? imagine the cross over possibilities..or try hard not too. Universal though has the license on the theme park Marvel's Island of Adventure, that's fun.

Or it could be like Kingdom Hearts..Marvel vs. Capcom vs. Disney= the Neverland Tournament ! oh that would be a fun minicomp! Design characters or environs for a marvel vs Disneyfighter game. Or dress your favorite Disney character up as marvel or vice versa. In the cosplayAllstars someone did Mickey as Wolverine.

[JeremyK]

Yikes! Yeah, I heard the news from my co-worker this morning. I don't what to think but Belle in yellow spandex? Hmmm....

[Oluseyi]

I saw the headline either yesterday (Monday) morning or Sunday evening. I haven't quite processed it. I'm trying to figure out what the strategic advantage is to Disney, from a pure business perspective.

Marvel's profitable. Even the comics division on its own is profitable, unlike DC - Time Warner looks at the comics as a loss leader to generate ideas primarily for film and television adaptations. On the one hand, Time Warner's relationship to DC Comics suggests that Disney owning Marvel can work out just fine creatively, but on the other hand it makes me nervous. It's clear that Disney bought Marvel to muscle its way in on Marvel's licensing business and especially on its box office action. My concern is whether Disney is going to give Stan Lee and Avi Arad the same kind of creative freedom that Pixar gets, or if it's going to try and bring them "in line" with corporate.

Yeah, I'm nervous. Principal photography on Iron Man II is already finished, so other than a distribution tussle that film should be fine, but it's the stuff that hasn't started shooting I'm worried about - Thor, Captain America, Avengers... The Wikipedia page for Marvel Comics contains a funny bit of vandalism:
CEO of Disney - Mickey Mouse stated in a press conference that he has plans for Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers to be in all upcoming Marvel movies starting with Spiderman 4: The Quest for the Purity Ring.
*shudder*

[NiGHTS2o06]

It could be an interesting mini-comp to follow Comicon...

Take a Disney character and dress him up as a Marvel superhero....

[grimdc13]

From what I remeber before the spiderman and Iron man movies, Marvel wasn't doing so well. They were in a slump, now they are a hot Commodity.

[KEDavidson]

it's profitable for Disney because it means they go from having no fans over 12 yrs old, to having every fan over 12 yrs old. according to the article on IGN Disney has no plans to break any existing deals as they have already proven to be profitable. that means if there's a deal in place for Iron Man 3 it'll stay in place. on an interesting note, in the same article Disney has expressed intrest in using Pixar to develop animated Marvel properties:think:

and on a side note Stan Lee is purly a figurehead these days so his "creative" imput is unlikely to effect much of anything...

[Ace-Angel]

Disney has Pixar, several teen singer/actors, as well Marvel now and another franchise my mind is skipping.

Disney brings in the cash and business decisions, and plan on giving 'dead marvel heroes' such as Aquaman and other ones the revival treatment.

This mean if you like a hero in which marvel later on killed either by lore or simply didn't continue the franchise, they're being revamped and brought back to life from the B list of Superheroes...meaning, people will get to know more heroes then Batman, Superman, etc...

So yeah, Disney isn't going to mess up anything, more then anything they'll be fixing up stuff here and there. Marvel isn't in a bad situation, but considering that Disney has no plan to 'disturb' the Marvel world and simply wanted to tap into another age demographic, I say kudos to them.

Consider them the Autodesk version of the Entertainment world...minus the half assed output.

[Oluseyi]

From what I remeber before the spiderman and Iron man movies, Marvel wasn't doing so well. They were in a slump, now they are a hot Commodity.
Yeah, but Spider-man came out in 2002... Marvel's been doing good for nearly a decade now.

according to the article on IGN Disney has no plans to break any existing deals as they have already proven to be profitable. that means if there's a deal in place for Iron Man 3 it'll stay in place.
Bloomberg reported otherwise (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aU_kuPju0Ngo). For instance, Universal has a licensing deal in place with Marvel to use characters like Spider-man at its theme parks. Disney probably will not renew that deal when it expires, and will instead start using Spidey et al at [Euro]Disney[Land/World].

]on an interesting note, in the same article Disney has expressed intrest in using Pixar to develop animated Marvel properties
That's interesting, though note that Marvel has never released an animated feature in theaters. The majority of Marvel animation has been for television, with the rest being direct-to-video. Having Pixar work on features would probably create competition with the live-action business. That said, I'd love to see it! :)

and on a side note Stan Lee is purly a figurehead these days so his "creative" input is unlikely to effect much of anything...
Hmm. I got the impression he was at least marginally instrumental in the development of the film deals, though Avi Arad did the heavy lifting. Interesting information, thanks for sharing.

Disney brings in the cash and business decisions, and plan on giving 'dead marvel heroes' such as Aquaman and other ones the revival treatment.
I'm sure you mean Namor the Sub-Mariner, since Aquaman is a DC property. :)

All I'm saying is that I don't trust Eisner. It's not like the Marvel division is going to be under a real fan[boy] like Lasseter.

Heh. Over on Cartoon Brew, sentiment runs both for (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/artists-bless-the-disney-marvel-marriage.html#comments) and against (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/disney-buys-marvel-comics.html#comments). Some great mashups in there, too.

[grimdc13]

Eisner is no longer in charge of Disney..Roy Disney and the share holders fired him after a vote of no confidence.

[Oluseyi]

That's true! I totally forgot that.

Well, let's see how it turns out. Could definitely make for some interesting concept competitions. :)

[cookepuss]

Yeah, but Spider-man came out in 2002... Marvel's been doing good for nearly a decade now.
Yeah. The 1990s nearly killed Marvel.

Way too much speculation by supposed collectors caused back issues to be needlessly overvalued. These same "collectors" were also what fueled Marvel's variant cover craze. Back then, Marvel was putting out as many 5 versions of the same issue, all polybagged. Some had metal foil covers. Some had holograms. Others had lenticular cards. Still some had other weird gimmicks like collectible trading card inserts or mini-CDs.

These poseurs calling themselves collectors were eating it up. Scarfing up all of the issues and then selling them back at outrageous prices. Because of this, Marvel thought that they had genuine hits on their hands. Individual issues sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Marvel's own sense of self-worth became over inflated.

At the same time, Marvel had the weird idea of self-distributing instead of using 3rd party channels such as Diamond Comics. This turned out to be disastrous. Marvel comics totally disappeared from the racks of places like 7-11 and local candy stores. Their licensing deal with Toy Biz wasn't much better.

More over, Marvel made some really bad licensing deals when it came to their TV and movie departments.

For all of you who hated the Fantastic Four movies.... Watch the 1990s Roger Corman version. They make the Tim Story ones look like masterpieces. The Corman version was so bad that it might as well have been produced by college students with a home camcorder. Properties like Hulk, X-Men, & Spider-Man were all stuck in development hell for over a decade.

They didn't fare much better on the TV front. While their animated efforts have always ranged from enjoyable to pure bliss, the live action TV stuff was usually craptacular. 1990's "Death of the Incredible Hulk" capped off Marvel's live action trilogy of idiotic Hulk TV movies. Anybody looking for proper versions of Thor or Daredevil would certainly have to look elsewhere. Not in those steaming piles. The, of course, we have "The Hoff" as Nick Fury in 2 hours of the silliest drivel ever put on film. The less that is said the better. Generation X wasn't too bad, but was hampered by its meager budget and some miscasting.

On the editorial end, "excess" was the word of the day. Marvel took good ideas like the X-Men and overexposed them. Back in the 80s, there were maybe 4 major X-Men related titles. "Wolverine", "Uncanny X-Men", "New Mutants", and "X-Factor". By the end of the 1990s, there must have been 3x as many monthly titles and 7x as many limited series. It was just crazy.

This excess extended beyond franchise expansion. Marvel nearly destroyed Spider-Man with the notoriously reviled "clone saga" storyline, which revealed Peter Parker to be a clone and the "real deal" to have been missing in action for 20 years.

The story itself wasn't too bad, but they turned what would have been 4 issues into 12+ of twists and turns. Of those turns, included the resurrection of the 20 years long dead Green Goblin, the "never mention her again" and maybe she'll disappear daughter of Peter & MJ, and Peter's b**ch slapping of his wife. Now THAT is how you drive a franchise into the ground.

Even more, Marvel now valued style over substance. Tony Stark became an evil murderer, and supposedly had been for decades. He was then turned into a hipster teenager. All of the women started dressing and looking like crazed silicone filled porn stars. All of the men had to be dark and disturbed, to the point where it was the gun that made the man. The more guns the better. The bigger the better.

Editorial's questionable decision making ultimately drove lots of talent away from Marvel. The mass exodus of creators such as Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Wilce Poratio, Mark Silvestri, & Jim Lee left Marvel in a major position of weakness. Their loss became the rest of the industry's gain, as Image Comics came into being and characters like Spawn.

Marvel's real turning point was in 1999 with Blade.

Just as Marvel's bankruptcy nearly claimed it forever, Blade proved that Marvel could do its characters justice on the big screen and make money. Remember, this is right after comic movie audiences had been permanently scarred the abortion called Batman & Robin. Suddenly Marvel stepped in and was able to take advantage of DC's mistakes.

2000's X-Men cemented Marvel's new role as comic movie king. Also around this time, Marvel editorial changed hands too.

Longtime Marvel artist Joe Quesada was promoted to Editor-in-Chief. He streamlined just about every book. The X-Men did a total 180, creatively. They ditched their costumes and took a grittier approach, much like the successful movie. JoeQ ordered titles to have distinct reasons for existing or they were gone completely. No more X-title for the sake of an X-title.

The non-mutant characters were given new roles and once again reinvented. They were sent to a new dimension and came back totally stripped down to their core traits - the ones that made them successful in the first place.

Marvel went back 3rd party distribution. Combined with writing around the concept of trade paperback compilation, this also helped Marvelmake their way into retail outlets like Barnes & Noble. Instead of just the specialty shops.


Is Disney's deal a great one? Questionable. On the surface, it seems like win-win, but there's something else to consider.

Marvel is beginning to repeat nearly ALL of the mistakes of the 1990s. All of the stuff that led to their initial bankruptcy.

- Instead of the X-Men.... In addition to the X-Men, the Avengers line of books has become the latest victim of franchise over expansion. There are as many Avengers' related books now as X-books. They're way too overexposed. characters like Deadpool, who can be fun, now has 3 books. Wolverine now had 3. Spider-Man runs almost weekly. The X-Men are back up to their 12+ book count and with more on the way.

- Everything is once again gritty, too much for the all-ages market. There's DARK X-Men, DARK Avengers, DARK Wolverine, and the countless "Dark Reign" tie-ins that have been going on for the past year+.

- Variants? Had enough of them? They're baaaaaaaack. Even the hologram ones. There are sketch variants, zombie variants, monkey variants, B-covers, etc.

- Marvel is pricing themselves out of the retail market. Comics are no longer the candy store type impulse purchase. The average book costs $4 and has 10-12 pages worth of advertising. Their upcoming Christmas issue, which should be targeted at the mass market, is being priced at a hefty $10. Worse yet, their sales people have essentially said "what the market will bear." IOW, "We'll keep driving up prices as long as you keep on buying."

- Instead of Spider-Man having a clone, Wolverine now has one..... and a son who is nearly as overexposed as Wolverine himself.

- Want to confuse readers? How about rebooting titles every 12-18 issues just for the quick sales boost of a new #1 issue? How about renumbering books which now sit at #50 to the #200 they would have been had they not been rebooted years ago? Now about retitling familiar books like "Incredible HULK" as "Incredible HERCULES" or "Wolverine" as "DARK Wolverine" instead? Try it. It's fun. NOT!!!

- Want to confuse readers AND and expand lines? Look at Hulk. He's got an illegitimate son (Skaar) with his own book, an illegitimate daughter (She-Hulk v2) with her own mini, a 2nd Hulk series staring a RED Hulk, the upcoming existence of the RED She-Hulk, the mutating of long time sidekick Rick Jones as the new Abomination (A-Bomb), and the yes/no/maybe status of the pre-existing She-Hulk. Oh, yeah. Banner is once again NOT the Hulk anymore.

- Want to make readers spend even more money? How about a summer crossover event where every tie-in is required reading if you want to understand the story that the main 7 issues should have told, but didn't? A modern Marvel crossover event can include up to 50+ tie-in issues and cost $200-$300 just to get the story. On top of THAT.... Every crossover event will usually spawn a half dozen new ongoing series and more than a dozen minis or one-shots.

The cherry on top? Marvel has redefined their universe's status quo 3-4 times in the past 5 years. Constant crossovers have prevented the characters from evolving properly or the after effects last "event" from even settling in. Just as one event ends another one is gearing up. House of M finishes and redefines the mutant world. How do we process that? Easy. Move on to Civil War? Can we see the after effects? Maybe after World War Hulk. Can we see how this has impacted the heroes in Hulk's path? Maybe after the Skrull's Secret Invasion. It NEVER ends. Even the current Dark Reign story is a super event that has simply been decentralized (ie. no main Dark Reign mini.)

Constant crossover events plagues books and hampered them in the 90s too. The 80s had lots of big events too, but none that forced you to buy 50+ tie in issues.

- Want something that'll anger fans more than the infamous Clone Saga? How about "One More Day" and "Brand New Day." Marvel literally had Spidey and his wife MJ make a deal with the devil. It eradicated all 20 years of their marriage from continuity. Now, Peter is once again single, never been married, quite the loser again, almost none of his classic bad guys appear, and his long time dead best friend Harry is "shockingly" alive again. Oh, yeah. Put this (now) garbage pile of a comic on a near weekly schedule. Yeah. Because bad writing once a month isn't good enough.

AND THE WORSE PART.......

- Marvel is no longer selling that many copies of individual issues. An X-Men related book used to sell 200k+ copies a month, in the USA. Today, the average book sells about 30k-40k. A book is considered a HUGE hit if it breaks that 100k mark copy mark.

Marvel's money is no longer made from comics. In reality, if Marvel's movies had never existed the company would probably be out of business thanks to the combination of low sales and editorially mandated bloat. This Disney deal wouldn't exist without the movies. The movies have made so much money that Disney sees the power of the license.

I wholly expect Marvel, under Disney control, to dump 1/2 of their books. Titles that were just skating by on the good will of the EIC will likely die. Marvel currently puts out 100+ titles a month. 2/3 of them are B-quality books.

In time, Disney will probably pare that 100+ number down to a svelte 40 or so. Count on it.

It won't happen overnight, but it WILL happen. Marvel makes almost no money from publishing. Disney considers Marvel Comics as a means to an end. The comics are simply the life support system for the license. To keep the licenses evolving, Marvel Comics must publish some comics.

However, those "less valuable" licenses will likely be deemed as dump worthy. 3rd tier comics like Avengers Initiative or Incredible Hercules will probably be canned faster than you can say "Irving Forbush." As a licensing machine, Marvel is a goldmine. Contrary to how it all appears, as a publishing operation itself, the Marvel Comics is a doomed operation.



I like the idea of a Marvel-Pixar collaboration, but the rest is total shite.


Hmm. I got the impression he was at least marginally instrumental in the development of the film deals, though Avi Arad did the heavy lifting. Interesting information, thanks for sharing.
Avi hasn't really done the heavy lifting in nearly 2 years. I'm pretty sure that Arad's role changed and he's no longer at the helm of these deals. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's the case. Joe Quesada, the current EIC, actually has fairly big consulting role with Marvel related movies lately.

As far as Stan Lee goes, he's like the Queen of England. *ducks* He smiles and waves a lot, but other people really do the rest of the work. *ducks again* Stan does, however, write the occasional issue or two every year. They're usually cute nostalgia type stories that rely heavily on a retro feel. He also writes the occasional 4-8 page bumper story in annuals.

Stan does a lot of promo, but doesn't do much writing. His style is quite dated nowadays. Too much exposition (like this post), too many though balloons (which are barely even used anymore), overly simple plots, and 60s/70s slang.

This has quickly become the problem with aging writers. Artists can draw forever. Unless their style fails to evolve to meet the demands of the current market. Writers rarely evolve. Stuff that made Christ Claremont's writing style revolutionary in his 1980s X-Men run now make him look tragically unhip or cliche ridden. Writers like Tom Defalco, former EIC, are usually pigeonholed into books that practically nobody sees. Spider-Girl has been around 12 years and has been written consistently well, but Defalco's old school style has been deemed TOO old school for the mainstream. That's why the book has gotten rebooted or retitled so many times, even though the creative team has never changed.

Stan, though a legend, is a relic of the silver age.

It's not like the Marvel division is going to be under a real fan[boy] like Lasseter.
Which is good. Lasseter is a tool. I respect Pixar's technical skills, but Lasseter himself is about as grating and overrated as Steve Jobs.

[KEDavidson]

... wow, the fall and rise and fall of Marvel Comics by Cookepuss.
summing it all up like that really puts things into perspective, as i got into and then out of regular comic reading during the first fall and followed Jim Lee and Mcfarlane over to Image (who really didn't wait to long to overproduce their own titles).
i think you've done a really great job of summing up all the problems with Marvels buisness model but there's one thing i don't get:

Is Disney's deal a great one? Questionable. On the surface, it seems like win-win, but there's something else to consider.

you followed that with another 40+ paragraphs on Marvels bad decision making. and then capped it with saying Disney would likely cut the fat... so what are we considering? aside from not getting monthly Hercules?

oh, and props on the Nick Fury mention, i used to know the guy that played the evil twin brother, and i don't remember him being to thrilled with the film either;)

[cookepuss]

you followed that with another 40+ paragraphs on Marvels bad decision making. and then capped it with saying Disney would likely cut the fat... so what are we considering? aside from not getting monthly Hercules?

It seems like win-win, but there are some kinks. Disney wants Marvel because they're a licensing goldmine. After all, Marvel has 5,000+ characters. For these characters to remain valuable they need constant, or at least consistent, exposure.

Marvel, on the publishing end, is making so many of the same old mistakes that they're digging their own grave. Disney will cut the fat, of which there's a lot, and Marvel will ultimately have to reinvent/streamline themselves once again.

This means that if (eventually) a large percentage of the Marvel's publishing schedule gets the axe, which is possible, most of these 5,000+ characters will no longer have a home. Their value will decrease.

Not that this would ever happen, but how popular would Wolverine be if every one of his titles got canceled and X-Men was trimmed down to one book for all 200+ mutants? Wolverine's role in the Marvel universe would shrink drastically and his inherent value would diminish.

Let's put that into a more reasonable situation. Marvel has Dr. Strange on their development slate for potential films. Let's just say that Disney comes along and, thanks to Marvel Comics continued ineptitude, slashes 33% of the line.

Now, Marvel's down from 100 books a month to 67. Totally possible. That just cut Dr. Strange's potential visibility level down to 2/3. That sucks, especially since he doesn't already have his own ongoing title. His value just shrank.

I may still think that Strange is a good character. You may think so. Marvel may think so. All of the creative types may think so. At the end of the day, the ones with the power are going to be the ones looking at the numbers.

Number crunchers don't get payed to care. They get payed to deal in raw data. How likely do you think it is that they'll make a Dr. Strange movie now that he's 33% less valuable? ... .... About 33% less likely. That's the number cruncher view.

The whole win-win is a knee jerk reaction because it is entirely dependent on the continued success of the publishing end. Marvel may make very little money off of their comics, but they need them to keep the properties valuable and prominent.

So, you say that many of Marvel's comics now only reach 40k readers a month. What does that matter? Most people aren't seeing them anyway. Their global exposure through comics stinks as it is. Well..... That's not quite true. Marvel double dips.

They'll turn these same "floppies" into trade paperback compilations. These won't have the limited exposure afforded to them by the direct market channel of comic stores. The trade paperbacks will make their way into nationwide chains like Barnes & Noble or international online retailers like Amazon. Through trades, Marvel's exposure become huge - even if sales don't always reflect it.

Disney needs to stay hands-off. Marvel needs to find a balance between quality and quantity. This is the supposed reason why it'll be win-win. Naturally, neither one will do that. Disney is still a major corporate power. They'll "tweak" and ultimately disrupt. Marvel will, until an editorial shift in power takes place, continue this 90s backslide.

It's a win-win if every player does what they should do to make it so. If they what's in their nature to do instead.... Somebody's going to lose and its not just the fans.

[JacqueChoi]

Thanks for a thorough analysis Cooke. The triple holographic die-cut tin foil walk your dog covers at $5 were pretty much what killed off my enjoyment of comics.

It's actually one of the only reasons the only Comics I continued to collect several years after the big Image Comics debut were Spawn and the Sandman (neither bought into any of those silly trends).

Back when I was REALLY into comics, (Late 80's early 90's I had over 50 monthly comics on my file). I really enjoyed that there was a MAIN story arc (X-Men/Amazing Spider-man), then a once a year Annual, or mini-series featuring 1 Character or side character.

By the early 90's it seemed that the spin-offs gained enough notoriety, and popularity, that they were given their OWN main series, which started to really convoluted the shelves (especially when the sidekicks and villains from those comics would get their own mini-series or annuals).

By introducing so many brands and characters, and villains, and story arcs, they lost out on newcomers to the series. When I started reading Spider-Man, There was only 1 series (Amazing Spider-Man). When I stopped, there were at least 5 monthly Spider-Man titles (Which didn't include drastic time-space-continuum shifts like Spider-Man 2099, and Ultimate Spider-Man, and Venom's silly comic).

Not only did that made it impossible to follow, it made it impossible to get any friends INTO the series. There ARE no self contained stories anymore. You can no longer pick up a single comic, read it beginning to end, and have a story arc, with a climax, action and closure. You need to have a detailed backlog of the past 20 comics, possibly 20 other crossover comics, and a general knowledge of who the villains are, and why they were there, then collect the 10 issues that span the story which will usually result in more questions than closure.

When I stopped collecting, I ended up finding more enjoyment getting the TPB of the higher-end self-contained stories (usually more mature) and that's pretty much where I'm at today.



As a medium, I found that it requires too much hardcore dedication to even follow, and that's what killed itself. Lets hope video games doesn't do the same to itself.

[Oluseyi]

Cookepuss, that was an epic analysis of what ails not only Marvel, but DC as well!

I rented Green Lantern: First Flight from Netflix last week. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and as it was a Blu-Ray disc it was choc-full of bonus content - the "Green Loontern" episode of Duck Dodgers and five episodes of Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. However, it also contained promo interviews for the Blackest Night and Public Enemies "events" - and that's where the problems occur.

Where Marvel seems to rely on book proliferation, DC loves to create these "epic" crossovers that draw in characters from a bajillion titles, which may or may not be canon. At this point, you need a spreadsheet just to keep the continuities straight.

What I like about the film adaptations of comic books is that they effectively pare down the various incarnations of characters to a single, coherent representation - and this is coming from a life-long comic book fan! These days I only read/buy trades, because they collect a single narrative into a convenient volume regardless of which mish-mash of titles it was originally strewn across. Marvel and DC, in effect, no longer target anyone but the hardcore with their publication strategies on individual books.


I agree on Lasseter being a tool, actually. He's a fanboy - did you see his gushing of Miyazaki at Comicon? - but he also has taste issues. Pixar has been much better served since other people (like Brad Bird) took over direction responsibilities for their major projects.


Anyway, like you say, there's the potential for a win-win in this Disney-Marvel acquisition, but the probability of such is low. We'll see. Whatever happens, it should at least provide interesting :)