"As I said elsewhere.....  I'm curious to see how all those men who work for Marvel in any way, whether freelancer or not, will adhere to Disney's no facial hair policy. The only exception being a neatly trimmed moustache ala Walt Disney."

That's not a Disney Company policy.  It may be something specific for certain business units (like the parks), but it's not company wide.

Well, the Playstation 2 game Kingdom Hearts showed that it was possible for wildly different franchises (like the Disney characters and those from Square-Enix's Final Fantasy games) to work well together, so a Disney x Marvel project has potential.

However, I think KH's success was mainly due to the Square-Enix creative team, and the current incarnation of Marvel (both the state of characters and the powers-that-be) does not inspire the same sense of confidence in me. 

If this deal makes Marvel comics back to all ages intelligent comics, it is a good thing, and if it eventually makes them easier to find ( general stores,...), it's even better.

Minnie disagrees with Mickey, and sides with Donald. Goofy initially sides with Mickey, but sees the error of his ways when the Goof Troop is forced to register. Mickey sends Chip and Dale after him, but Pluto comes to his rescue. Donald dies. Huey, Dewey, and Louie take his place, each wearing a different take on his iconic sailor shirt and hat.

Goofy becomes an outlaw, and joins a team including the three duck nephews, Jiminy Cricket, Grumpy Dwarf, Ariel, Belle and Sleeping Beauty. They call themselves the New Toons. Incidentally, the latter three get featured on a hentai-porn styled cover which no one at Marvel OR Disney has ever heard of, or so they say.

Mickey stays on as leader of the victorious Toons, along with Scrooge McDuck, Chip, Dale in S&M bondage gear, Snow White, Jane, Cinderella, and recently-retconned into Disney Bugs-rip-off "Happy Harey"

After months of in-fighting, it's all revealed to be a plot by Monstro the Whale, who, after all these years thought dead from the fire in his belly, has come back to seek revenge on characters he never interacted with in his initial appearances.

Monstro's Dark Toons, including Gaston, the Magic Mirror on the Wall, those f****d up pink hippos from Fantasia, Cruella DeVille, the Headless Horseman, and the Fire That Killed Bambi's Mom, all impersonate members of the New Toons. Cruella DeVille dresses up like Ariel, for instance, and the Pink Hippos dress up like the duck nephews. The Fire That Killed Bambi's Mom looks like a dead ringer for Grumpy Dwarf, except for the different claws on their hands.

Edited by Brad Krawchuk on 31 August 2009 at 11:18pm

Disney has their own video game studios and publishing arm. This might be more about video games than it is about movies and TV's and comics.

or not.

There are a lot of potential externalities that make this a very serious matter. It is a sad thing when people lose their jobs.

But I admit that my very first thought (a selfish, angry, overly optimisitic, and vindictive one) was to relish the idea of a much deserved  'scouring of the shire' and a righting of the ship that would give these characters back to the 7-12 years olds and stop the seemingly endless vomiting up of mass murders, betrayals, the agony of jock itch, divorce, abuse, drug addiction, dick jokes, rapes, out of character demonic bargaining, senseless gore, redefined origins, totem discovery, or whatever else the akward, relevance craving, emotionally stunted, hard R, crowd is supposedly clamoring for.

I am angry and tired of seeing the retreaded and upscaled crisis du jour that has stood so long in place of what super heroes used to be. I am bitter about the twisted, cackling throngs of wretches that worship it and fight about who worships it more. 

But...I'm not in line of fire for this either. I'm looking at it as a mentally scalded and pissy sometimes consumer and thankfully the powers that be aren't silly enough to think that I deserve a vote, beyond how few comics I've bought since last summer, when DC showed me that they thought it would be cool if Wonder Dog ate Marvin and put Wendy in a coma, and Marvel let me know that Iron man was builing homocidal clone Thor's, and contemplating putting Captain America in a space gulag for life, while Captain America was looking to possibly overthrow the US government with violence.

The idea of some supposedly cutting edge/ fan favorite creators being told in a short teleconference meeting that they are not rockstars in the House of Mouse, that they are going to have to choose between the Disney Way and the Highway real soon, and that no amount of phone calls or petitions will change that seems pretty sweet to me.

It's a bit hard for me to be sad if Disney says "  Oh hai! I burned down ur treefort. Srry! Why don't u blog about it? Lol K Thx bye! "

On the other hand I don't want Mr. Byrne to lose a valuable source of income and enjoyment. I don't want to see Marvel comics stop being comics altogether(unless that really is the ONLY way to fix them...the Ol' Yeller solution) .

So I guess I don't really know what to think right now.

That's not too unusual though. 

WOW...

I mean... WOW!!!

Nope, I am not in amazement over the news that Disney bought Marvel. I all ready commented about that in this thread. No, I am talking about the overwhelmingly negative reaction the news is getting that I have read.

I run the MySpace page for the makers of the "TRUE BELIEVER: The STAN LEE Documentary" film, and I have to repeatedly clarify for people that are on the friends list for that page that it is not Stan Lee's personal MySpace. This, despite the fact that the text on that page makes that clear, and I make sure everyone I correspond with through that page knows this. Heck, a simple check of the "friends" list will reveal that Stan Lee does have his own MySpace page for those that are confused.

Well, anyway, earlier yesterday, I posted a bulletin through that page about this Disney/Marvel deal, and I checked in on the comments just a short while ago. Three pages of comments that were all very negative about this matter. A person even said that Marvel has lost a lot of fans due to this situation. Of course, many comment as if I am Stan, and say that Marvel is a sell-out!

I also posted a video vlog on my YouTube channel about the same time I posted the bulletin over on MySpace, and when I came back and saw the comments to that video, there was all ready nearly 70 comments, most saying things like "RIP Marvel Comics" and "I am now a DC fan," and the like. The most positive comments were people saying that they are concerned, but optimistic (which, I confess, is where I stand on the matter). I even had a video response from a young fan who thinks that Stan Lee is the one who sold Marvel to Disney (I had to let him know that Stan never did own Marvel, and is now with POW Entertainment).

WOW!

I wonder, will this greatly affect Marvel's comics sales in the near future, or is this all just hot air from fans still reeling over the news?

No telling what the future may hold with this merger, but for now, this is delicious. Honestly, neo-fanboy embarrassment tastes like a scoop of rainbow sherbet.

Yeah. The KIDZ (snort) might have to go to DC for their character rapes and murders and crazy seasonal death stunts now.

Sad face.

Like I said above I am probably being way too naively optimistic and vitriolic about this to properly see it for what it is. But part of me feels like the Swat teams have arrived and they are FINALLY going to rescue the hostages. 

But maybe it's more like the big fish has just spotted the small fish that has been swimming funny for a while now and thought "Hey! That fellow looks yummy!".

Disney is counting on the current Superhero fad in movies to continue.  Sorry, folks.  It ain't gonna last.  People will, if they haven't already, grow tired of superhero films and Disney will be stuck.  I  think they're just trying to mess with Universal, so they can own Orlando outright.

It reminds me of when AOL, the shittiest of  on line services, bought Time-Warner.  The AOL morons ran the conglomerate so poorly they quickly changed the name from AOL/Time-Warner back to Time-Warner.

It won't be long before we remember the Punisher vs Archie fondly.