It's The End Of The World As We Know It...

So I've had about 24 hours to digest the news that Disney has bought Marvel and I've come to the conclusion that this is a good thing - For DC Comics.

Opinion has been fairly mixed across the comics blogosphere, with die-hard fanboys weeping into their Spider-Man comforters and Stan The Man (currently on an exclusive first-look deal with the House Of Mouse) claiming, unsurprisingly, that it's great.

Arguments put forward by supporters of the deal include:

Disney own Miramax (producers of Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction etc) so clearly don't mind their subsidiaries producing adult-oriented content.
The financial security will allow Marvel to publish critically acclaimed but low-selling titles without worrying about the bottom line.
The deal gives Marvel a ready made pipeline to Pixar, making a CGI X-Men movie a strong possibility.

And so on...

But there are some very strong counter-arguments for each of those ideas.

Firstly, why would Pixar want to make an X-Men movie? The Incredibles already showed that you don't need 40 years of continuity baggage and (questionable) brand recognition to produce a great, family friendly superhero movie.

Secondly, the idea of Marvel continuing to publish loss-making titles is based on the assumption that Disney will operate the same way Time Warner does with it's subsidiary DC Comics, but that's not necessarily the case. Disney have bought Marvel at a time when there are literally dozens of comic book movies in production and countless more being pitched all the time. Warner bought DC in 1969, when the closest thing to a multi-media superhero crossover was the Adam West Batman series which had been cancelled three years earlier. Looked at from that angle, it's highly unlikely that Disney have bought Marvel because they want to expand into comic book publishing (they already have an existing deal with Boom Studios for that) - The House of Ideas is about to become The Factory Of Ideas, churning out comics which are little more than illustrated spec scripts. The recognised, iconic characters will be packaged and pitched as potential movies. Follow that up with action figures, lunch boxes, branded babygrows and a thousand other merchandising opportunities, then ask yourself - Who wants a Captain Britain Happy Meal? Fool Killer underpants? Nextwave flavoured vitamins?
(okay, I'd probably go for that last one, but I don't think I'm Disney's target demographic...)
At the end of the day, Warner bought DC and let them get on with it for 9 years before they finally made Superman The Movie. For every Dark Knight there's at least two Schumacher abominations, a Quest For Peace for every Watchmen. Warners have no clue what to do with the characters and have let countless opportunities slip through their fingers over the years (anyone remember when Clint Eastwood was rumoured for The Dark Knight Returns?), right up to Whedon's amazing disappearing Wonder Woman. By now, DC is so autonomous that Warners probably forget they even own them. Disney will be a completely different kettle of worms though. You don't pay $4bn for Alias and Kabucki, and every new title will be seen as a dry run for the eventual movie. If it can't even pull in the fan boys for $3.99 a month then it will never be a worthwhile investment for the big screen. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. Kill it. Move on. If anything, lower tier titles will probably get canned quicker than ever.

And finally, The Tarantino Defence. My favourite of the bunch, and the reason I think we'll soon see a whole bunch of creators heading to the Distinguished Competition. And it all boils down to one thing - The Disney Store.
Yes, Disney owns Miramax and was therefore behind the distribution of Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, Heavenly Creatures and a host of other movies about matricidal lesbians, transvestite terrorists and smacked up hitmen. They also (allegedly) bought foreign films to keep them off the market, forced cuts on Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Michael Moore for political and moral reasons and practically buried Dead Man when Jim Jarmusch refused to make the cuts requested.

Leaving all of that aside though, the one thing all of those films had in common - Reservoir Dogs, Dogma, Fahrenheit 9/11 and the rest - is that not one of them had a cuddly doll sold through the Disney Store. There was never any chance of Little Johnny buying a Chuck Heston NRA Forever duvet cover and going on to see the film, or of Cindy Lou wanting to snort heroin because her Mia Wallace Styling Head looks so great with a ruptured septum. But over at Marvel, things are not so clear cut. Every month, they produce a range of all ages titles, wherein Wolverine goes to a theme park with Thor, Captain America and MODOK open a pet store and Doctor Doom's latest scheme revolves around making Ben Grimm the perfect birthday cake. Those cute and cuddly characters will be stacked high in every Disney Store worldwide.
And then every month, those same characters appear in the other Marvel comics. The ones where Wolverine castrates rapists, Thor pounds his enemies to a bloody paste with his hammer and Captain America demonstrates the best way to beat up a semi-comatose post-Hulkout Bruce Banner is with a kick to the head.
These books appear in the same format, often alongside each other on the comic shop shelves, and if Sweetpea wants to read about the X-Men then there's a fifty - fifty chance that he'll pick up the wrong one (hell, at 8 I would have flicked through them both and gone for the one with the highest booby count, so it's probably more like eighty - twenty). You can't have characters on sale in plush form at the Disney Store discussing genocide, much less commitiing it in the name of truth and decency. The first time that happens, the balloon will go up, there'll be screaming headlines about Disney corrupting the young and a massive public outcry. Disney can't afford that (remember how scared they were by the rumours of a naked Jessica Rabbit?), so they will be drawing up a list of proscribed phrases, scenes, situations and poses right alongside that exclusive merchandising rights deal. Let's face it, on a slow news day, a flash of MJ's side-boob will get headlines. Once the mouse gets involved, it will be massively overblown.

So, Marvel will be de-fanged, effectively neutered by the mouse, before they see a penny of that fat movie cheque. And that will have a massive knock-on effect for DC. Previously, for both of the major companies, the biggest names have pretty much all followed this route; Take a second or third string character who is either out of print or on the verge of cancellation, turn the book around and gradually push the edges of what is acceptable as you build up a small but vocal fan base and a strong critical reaction, then take on something bigger, better and more adult that will make your name. That's Miller with Daredevil, Morrison with Doom Patrol, Ennis on The Demon, even Moore on Swamp Thing (about to be cancelled for the third time when he took it on, remember). With no room for poorly performing books, those new creators wil have to jump straight to the major leagues, with little or no time to develope and grow. Anyone who does find themselves riding a wave of success will soon find themselves stifled by editorial interference ("No Grant, you can't annihilate Genosha." "Frank, we can't show sais in the book. What about some sort of rubber sap for knocking people out?").

So with no opportunity to do stretching, adult work like that, the brain drain will soon begin, and DC / Vertigo is the obvious place to go. We'll lose the edgier superhero books that Marvel does so well, but we could get the next Sandman, Preacher or Transmetropolitan, so on balance, I think I'm glad that Disney bought Marvel, and the sooner they drive them into the ground the better.