Disney to Buy Marvel Comics

Family-friendly media titan Disney has announced plans to purchase Marvel Comics for a whopping $4 billion.

The House of Magneto will be joining the House of Mouse, reports MarketWatch, in a deal valued at four billion USD – that’s about $50 per Marvel share, in case you were curious. With Disney, Marvel gets a parent company exceptionally skilled at the promoting and licensing of its various properties (some might even say too skilled), and Disney picks up a stable of over 5,000 characters – including some of the most iconic in comics.

“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories,” said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney.”

Now, the first thing that comes to mind is the potential for absolutely hilarious crossovers – we’re talking “Archie Meets the Punisher” level here – but, when you dig deeper, there’s… okay, really, there’s mostly the potential for absolutely hilarious crossovers. Hannah Montana is revealed to actually have mutant genes and joins the X-Men! Dr. Doom and Maleficent fall in love and have a supervillain wedding! Spider-Man is a secret character in Kingdom Hearts III!

Actually, that last one might be kind of cool. I’ll reserve judgment for now – or at least until we see Marvel publishing a comic based on Warren Spector’s Epic Mickey.