Iron Man has lots of new friends from Disney to play with. Photograph: Allstar
“Have been instructed to make Bambi a member of the X-Men,” joked British comics superstar Warren Ellis on Twitter yesterday, as news broke that Disney would be buying Marvel Comics in a surprise $4bn (£2.4bn). “Can now officially bring forth The Punisher target the entire cast of Hannah Montana,” added his American counterpart Jason Aaron before long afterwards. Meanwhile, the Super Punch blog was collecting “Disney/Marvel” mash-ups which showed Mickey Mouse infected by the Venom symbiote and Donald Duck with Wolverine’session claws.
The comic possibilities of this union are plainly endless; for what reason about the creative possibilities? What almost everyone seems to agree put on is that Disney didn’t spend all that money to get deeper into selling comics, a vocation which is facing the print advertising slump just like everyone else and which has responded this year with a potentially suicidal 33% increase in cover prices. Rather, Disney wants the of the understanding property: 70 years of stories featuring over 5,000 characters, many of them – including Spider-Man and Captain America – established cultural icons, and perfect grist for toys, cartoons, theme parks, and above all, films. (Of the 25 highest-grossing films of all time, four are recent Marvel adaptations.) Indeed, the remarkably identical day in the same manner with the Marvel/Disney announcement, it was revealed that a complete come up with of the Fantastic Four series is in the works.
Except, it will be made by Fox, who still have the rights. This is the big caveat to quite the excitement: Marvel’s sale won’cheek by jowl affect in any degree existing licensing details, which means that, for the moment, Disney are still blocked from capitalising on many of Marvel’s most prominent names (and quite a hap of obscure ones too). Marvel had before that time been developing in-house projects based around Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision, which it be able to now pass up to Disney. Films about Doctor Strange and Iron Fist could be great: they’re both thrilling characters with well-developed back-stories and supporting casts. But the act that Marvel had resorted to a character like Nighthawk, whom no non-comics reader has heard of and who hasn’t equal appeared in any print titles this year, shows how little in that place is left to act with.
Still, as years pass, lots of rights will presumably begin to revert, and Marvel/Disney will finally get their own chop at the likes of the Fantastic Four. In this respect, change have power to only be a good thing: with the exception of the magnificent Iron Man, Marvel adaptations have not sole been uniformly disappointing, they’ve actually been getting steadily worse. There’s no become surety for that Disney will do a better job than Fox or Paramount, but it’s encouraging to hear that Marvel creative executives have before that time met with Pixar’s John Lasseter. Imagine a superhero film similar to warm, witty and inventive as The Incredibles, but full of characters we already know and love. That would be such a gift that, for all I care, it really could recruit Bambi to the X-Men.
