Mystery artist “dR g0Nz0” was oddly prescient when he submitted fan art of Mickey Mouse as Wolverine to the Wolverine Daily blog about a year ago.
Unless you have no access to any kind of media (and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this), you’ve probably heard that this morning Disney announced its intentions to acquire Marvel for around $4BN in cash and stock.
Now, I’m going to guess that there wasn’t a lot of rumblings in the market about this deal beforehand, as most news outlets are still just rehashing the press release and not providing a lot of opinion. But I’ve scoured the internet (read: googled it) to bring you some of the early thoughts and opinion from around the interwebs.
- Disney and Marvel held a joint press conference shortly after announcing the deal. Comics Worth Reading provided the best summary I could find about that call.
- The news is so fresh that not many news outlets have made the connection to the Warner Bros. acquisition of DC forty (!) years ago. Kudos to the iPhone Blog of all places for reminding us that a Disney and Marvel would be better positioned against Warner Bros. and DC.
- Gawker’s Defamer blog also gets points for mentioning Warner / DC, with the realization that with the Disney / Marvel combination, those two powerhouses had their hands in every major movie tentpole this summer. “What a tangled web” indeed!
Everyone knows that this deal is about the movie business, but what about the rest of the Marvel businesses?
- Comics fans, in addition to Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter keeping his job, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada checked in to let his Twitter followers know that all is well in the comics biz. “Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy.”
- MTV speculates about the video game possibilities. Marvel characters in Kingdom Hearts, anyone?
- BudgetTravel notes that this sets up an excellent twist in the Theme Park Wars, since Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, featuring Marvel characters, is DisneyWorld’s biggest competition in Orlando.
- And what about the toys? As you might expect, there’s not a single mention that I could find anywhere, but MarketWatch points out what those who already read the fine print already knew – all existing licensing deals will be honored but will be reevaluated when they expire. For those keeping track, that means we still have two more years remaining on the Hasbro / Marvel deal. [Correction: I was reminded that Hasbro and Marvel re-upped their agreement at the start of the year, so their deal lasts until 2017.]
So, how are people reacting to the acquisition?
- Gail Simone tried to calm the twittering masses, saying “I have dealt with Disney several times in the last couple years. I think this will probably be a good thing for Marvel and comics.” in under 140 characters.
- Jonathan Berr at DailyFinance likes the deal, saying it gives Marvel the needed scale to compete in the blockbuster movie business. He also owns Disney stock.
- But the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Corkery makes the suggestion that Disney overpaid, reminding us that a couple of weeks ago, Marvel was fairly valued at $40 a share, while the Disney deal values Marvel at $50 a share.
- Some, like GlobalNerdy‘s Joey deVilla, despise the combination, thinking a High School Musical / X-Men crossover is a foregone conclusion.
- Update: The guys at Woot list out the Marvel / Disney crossovers they want to see. My favorite is “Esmerelda vs MODOK: Can a hideous creature designed only for killing discover the beauty in himself through the love of a gypsy girl designed only for compassion?”
How do you feel about the Disney / Marvel acquisition?
