The CHIMES

Issue date: 9/18/09 Section: Lifestyle

Mickey joining the new plethora of heroes and villains now under Disney. This deal will allow the Walt Disney Company to utilize over 5,000 unique characters. Image courtesy of The Cinema Source.

Internet fanboys seem to be particularly good at two distinctly connected trades; overreacting and bitching online about their overreactions online. It is said overreactions and bitchings that I have had to deal with ever since it was announced that Disney was purchasing Marvel Comics for the hefty sum of approximately $4 billion.

Immediately began the complaints of Disney dumbing down Marvel comics, making the Punisher less of a sociopath and having Wolverine less prone to popping out a claw now and then. In reaction to this tsunami of overreaction, I feel that an explanation must be given as to why the House of Mouse buying the House of Ideas is not, in fact, the worst thing ever.

First off, the facts of the case. On Aug. 31, it was announced that The Walt Disney Company would be acquiring Marvel Entertainment, Inc., bringing Marvel's stock of over 5,000 unique characters under the Disney banner. On the day of the acquisition, Bob Iger, President and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, was quoted as saying, "We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation."

On the other side of the fence, Marvel's CEO Ike Perlmutter said, "Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses. This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world." So, Marvel's happy, Disney is happy, everybody is happy, right?

Ah, but you don't know the Internet. Newsrama, the popular comic book web site, was immediately flooded with comments when this story broke. Here are some gems: "That's horrible news..." "OK... I hope I'm wrong, but this seems like the worst news in comics history." "Hulk can't smash anymore, he'll be on prozac." And so on. Now granted, it wasn't all bad in the Newsrama comments. However, looking through scores of other sites has shown a lot of similar comments. So, let's break the situation down here.

Continued...

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