Dear Marvel Comics

The last super-empire is finally falling to the Magic Kingdom... SMH

via The Guardian:

The Walt Disney empire is to buy the superheroes stable Marvel Entertainment for $4bn (£2.5bn) in a star-studded Hollywood deal that unites family names such as Mickey Mouse with lucrative characters including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men.

Disney hopes to put Marvel's 5,000 characters to work on its television channels and in video games, theme parks and movies. The agreed takeover is for a mixture of cash and stock, with Disney shares accounting for roughly 40% of the buyout price.

While Disney has traditionally been known for its wholesome family creations ranging from the Little Mermaid to Lion King, Hannah Montana and Pocahontas, the purchase of Marvel adds an edgier, more violent element – it recently scored a box office success with Iron Man, a movie starring Robert Downey Jr as a billionaire inventor who creates a hi-tech suit of armour to battle evil.

I suppose the recession had to hit every sector in some way. It's just a shame when its an entity that doesn't need it. Marvel, for over 70 years, you've blessed my preteen fantasies with images of superhumans in the most human of situations. It's been nothing short of fantastical how comic books shape young men. Even if comic books and their sharp decline in sales were the reason for your bankruptcy in 1996, I still see the genius in your art. What I can't see the genius in is being sold to Disney. Though economic pundits (who are basically speculators) write the move off as brilliant, I can't help but thinking the Magic Kingdom and the Marvel Universe wouldn't be able to coexist well. By that I mean, if Zac Efron shows up in the next Iron Man movie I will burn any Disney or Marvel paraphernalia that I've ever owned. I'm serious. And if Tobey McGuire breaks into song during the next Spiderman, there will be riots. No, I'm not prophesying that Disney will take the hotness that is Marvel and turn it into a superhero-laced High School Musical, but it's a far stretch for Disney to venture into this lane. Hannah Montana's secret identity seriously cannot compete with that of Bruce Banner, nor should it have to...