By now all of you have heard the news that Marvel was bought...lock, stock and barrel by Disney for an obscene amount of money, $4 billion dollars to be exact. I saw this purchase/business deal as both an intelligent person that understands the future ramifications and as a Marvel fanboy that grew up on Marvel characters. The distressing part is that more than 5,000 characters dating back to the Timely & Atlas Comics days of the original Human Torch are now property of the evil Disney Corporation on some "all of your base are belong to us" type shit. Since one of my biggest dreams is to work writing for Marvel it sucks knowing that I'll really be toiling for overlord Bob Iger.
Don't get it twisted, I know that Steve Jobs is also a major shareholder of The Walt Disney Company. I also know that they managed to stay out of the way of Pixar Studios and they don't often interfere in ESPN, Touchstone Pictures or Miramax Films' business. The biggest issue to me is that Marvel Comics built itself into a powerful brand and dominated the comic book/superhero film genre at the box office until it started it's own film studio. They had built all this up themselves after 48 years of continuous brilliance just to allow themselves to be acquired to have a bigger hold on the marketplace or ensure they they can further dominate with the resources & influence of The Walt Disney Company.
As Joe Quesada said on Twitter earlier today: @JoeQuesada: Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy. @JoeQuesada: If you're familiar w/ Disney/Pixar's relationship, you'll understand why this is a new dawn for Marvel & the comics industry. I understand why it's a good business move for both parties involved it's just sad to think that everything is for sale now. Is there nothing or no one that's willing to look at a world where everything is a subsidiary of some huge corporation and say "I am not for sale"! Think about it, the old American dream was to come up with an idea, build it up from the bottom and grow into a big business. Now it's come up with an idea, grow it up until a huge corporation decides to buy it from you. Then take that money and come up with another idea.
It's interesting to see what this deal will do for Marvel's future endeavors especially as far as merchandising & film projects go. I've always been selective of what projects I undertook and I've turned down more people that wanted to pay me to not do what I currently do or even have me "tone it down". Eat dick and die. Why should I sell out? Why should I compromise my own integrity or sanitize my own thoughts? Because you're paying me to not be myself? If I can't say what I truly feel about something then why write about it at all? This blog is predicated on my passion or hatred for certain things and if I took money to say something was good when it wasn't or to not go as hard on it as I'd like to I'd one myself.
It's important that anyone that's feeling uneasy about this deal not panic. This will actually ensure that Marvel can go forward and do the things they planned to execute from now throughout 2014. Think about the potential great things (or huge clusterfucks) that can be put into motion now that wouldn't have been possible before without a partnership of some sort. I knew something big was happening after that announcement Marvel made with the digital comicbooks coming to the iPod and iPhone. Not too long after, my brother showed me a Spider Woman digital motion comic on his iPhone. It looks like they want to pull of a Secret Invasion of their own, huh?
Everyone on the internet knows that Dart Adams can't be bought...I AM for hire, though. Somebody has to have some goddamn integrity around here. We'll see how the whole situation plays out, Lord knows fanboys and fangirls don't stay quiet when things happen in the comic book world that they don't like. So...has anyone heard that "The Blueprint 3" leaked? I can't believe it. It's not even September yet! LOLOne.
3 comments:
I'm not sure how I feel about the whole situation. On the one hand, I've never ever been a Disney fan since I became aware of their shit business practices. On the other hand, it will hurt me not to invest in Marvel products, including going to see the new movies. I'll have to wait and see how it pans out, I guess.
It's a damn shame if you ask me. Actually I pretty much boycotted Marvel years ago when they started running ads for the Army, Navy, etc. "You too can be just like Captain America!" I don't support real violence, just action in comics. Strange, eh?
@ You Are The Answer: Timely/Atlas/Marvel started 70 years ago when WWII began and finally found an audience by writing pro-American WWII comic books & continued to do so during the Korean War and to a lesser extent during Vietnam & the Gulf War, etc. why would they all of a sudden STOP supporting the Armed Forces when they read the books, too?
*Shrugs*
One.
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