Disney Goes All Galactus On Marvel

That's right - for $4 billion dollars, Disney acquired Marvel Comics. Ate the entire Marvel World and is sitting pretty, just waiting for those movie bucks to start rolling in. The only real problem is that $4 billion capital outlay. Maybe Disney can get a bridge loan from Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne.

Some people have asked me what I thought of the deal, and I have to admit, I am somewhat indifferent. It's been a while since I have actively followed Marvel (or comics in general), so I don't have a real feel for this in the sense of the here and now.

Is it the worst thing that has happened to Marvel? Not likely. And I'll skip the silly, obvious jokes about Mickey Mouse teaming up with Wolverine. That's pretty sophomoric and trite, and, frankly, beneath me. Hahahahaha! Better to avoid it simply because that ground has already been covered. And besides, there's already been an Archie/Punisher comic book, so how bad could a Mickey/Logan team-up be?

Actually, this could be a good thing for Marvel. I think it's been a while since they were the company that was publishing the kind of comic books that got me interested and - more importantly kept me interested - in comic books in the first place. A lot of the characters that I grew up reading are so radically different now, it's like they are different characters.

The Hulk is red. Captain America is dead. Spider-Man is unmarried and single. Who are these guys???

For me, the trouble all started when Marvel forced Peter David off of the Hulk. It was a well-written, very enjoyable comic book - one of the few Marvel had at the time - and they forced Peter David off, to make room for a reimagining of the character by John Byrne. Which lasted all of 10 issues and had very little impact. The Paul Jenkins and Bruce Jones stuff that followed was moderately interesting. But then David was back for a few issues. What gives??? Forget that his run was long, never lacking for interesting ideas and never should have been halted...why did they feel it was the right thing to do to bring him back???

Then along came what I think was the the turning point for me and my love of comic books - Ultimate Spider-Man. At first, it seemed innocuous enough. It was a refreshed retelling of the Spider-Man legend with a new, contemporary take, complete with snappy dialogue and a revamped/bolder Peter Parker character. Kinda like what Man of Steel did except that it was written better.

So Brian Michael Bendis changed a few things, but essentially retooled a character's history that didn't need to be retooled. Among the changes was the removal of Gwen Stacy from the developmental years and the idea that Mary Jane Watson knew from an early point that Peter was Spider-Man.

The influence of the Ultimate series can be seen in the Spider-Man movies, as the canon created in Ultimate Spider-Man was the underlying schema used - as opposed to the original Stan Lee version which was the lifeblood of Marvel's flagship character for the 35-odd years prior to the movies coming out. Forget about all that crappy history - and the fact that Amazing Spider-Man was still ongoing and building on that history - we want the clearly superior (sarcasm heavily implied) Bendis version!

But I digress. I started out talking about Disney buying Marvel and have ended up covering old ground about some things I dislike about the current state of comics. Although perhaps this rant is somewhat pertinent here. I wonder if things would have been different if Disney had bought Marvel about 10 years ago instead?

Perhaps Disney would have recognized the value of that rich history that goes along with all of the great Marvel characters. They'd probably have steered away from such storylines as the Peter/Mary Jane marriage problems (which was painfully boring to have to read), which would have, in turn, steered us away from some of the half-baked plots that marked the post-renumbering Spider-Man issues.

Yeah, that's the ticket. At least, that's what I can tell myself. I can only hope that Disney's influence will help stabalize what was once a great world of characters. That the comics that will be produced now will maintain the connection to the past, rather than trampling on it and changing it at every turn. Perhaps this is closed-minded of me to prefer no changes, but I just want to enjoy - I mean really enjoy - reading comics again.

And it seems that the only way I'm going to be able to do this is to re-read older comic books.

And don't even get me started on my issues with DC Comics. That's fodder for another curmudgeonly post.