So the news all over the interweb yesterday was that Disney had tendered an offer to buy Marvel. I can’t say I was very amused by this, but that’s pretty much because I’m not a fan of corporate juggernauts. I think that in general they’re a very bad thing. Others, however, were less concerned with the corporate juggernaut angle and had to spend a lot of time shaking their fists in nerd rage. Those of you paying attention probably know what comes next.

Dear fanboys: shut the hell up.

Let’s take a look at what the two most common responses I’ve seen to this announcement have been, shall we?

Disney is going to disrespect/fuck up the Marvel properties.

Clone Saga, anyone? Brand New Day? House of M? Alcoholic Tony Stark is revealed to be Kang’s buttpuppet and is replaced by a teenage version of himself? The psychic imprint of Professor Xavier’s evil twin sister, whom he devoured in the womb, manifests in the world, proves to be nearly unstoppable, and kills a whole bunch of folks? Xorneto?

Are any of these ringing bells yet? Because Marvel, like any comic company, has had more than its fair share of nonsensical, bizarre, out-of-charater, and generally unexplainable moments. Already the fanboy sacred cow is starting to look like Hamburger. Mmmm… hamburger.

Disney is going to “kiddify” Marvel.

Yeah… probably not, fanboys. Disney is a huge corporation, and while they are best known for their kid-centric branding, they have their fingers in a lot of pies. A wh0le lot of pies, and not everything produced by its various subsidiaries or corporations it owns a controlling interest in are directly related to their iconic branding. So I won’t say their won’t be any changes made, but I find it highly unlikely that there will really be any change to the storytelling/presentation “ethos” of current Marvel comics. As a postscript I would like to remind people of the Gargoyles cartoon. Sure it has its poor moments, but overall there is much geek love for that cartoon. Who made that cartoon? Yeah, it was Disney.

There is also the fact that this could ultimately prove beneficial not only for Marvel, but for comics in general.

Remember the first Spider-Man film? Remember how all of a sudden everyone was all “Holy shit! Comic book movies can actually not suck!” Yeah… that film languished in rights hell for years. While Marvel hasn’t had that problem recently, Disney has been producing films, both live action and animated, for a long time now. Which means not only is a situation like that unlikely to crop up again, but Disney likely has the infrastructure and experience to penetrate the market in ways that Marvel just hasn’t been successful at, including giving Marvel’s recent attempts at animated films a much-needed shot in the arm. True, Disney does have a habit of doing direct-to-video sequels that don’t have the quality or power of the original film. Marvel, on the other hand, has the habit of putting shoddy movies (X-Men, its sequels and spin offs) and bad sequels (Spider-Man 3: Toby Goes Emo) directly on the silver screen; so maybe this means that we’ll be saved from some of the sub par crap going to theatres now. And with Disney owning ABC etc. while I don’t know that the possibility for more Marvel cartoons/TV shows is likely, I think they’re a hell of a lot more likely than they would be if Disney doesn’t acquire Marvel.

Even if Disney does prove me wrong and transforms the Marvel Universe into a kid friendly version, or takes the smart path and gives the kid/all-ages books Marvel has already been trying and gives them a push, this is a good thing for comics. You can only go so far by relying on selling to your existing audience, or relying on movies, video games etc. to try and convert new readers (and a lot of those conversions might not make it to regular reader status, and might well not make it beyond buying a book or two – while this is a boost to short term revenues it doesn’t help you play the long game). Disney has a huge fucking built in audience, and if they can market comics to that audience and convert even a portion of them to long term readers that’s the kind of boost that comics needs. Because at least some of those long term readers are likely to branch out to other comics, meaning that not only does the MarvelMouse profit, but other companies eventually profit as well.

So just like when Warner Brothers bought DC, which ultimately allowed DC to strengthen its position and exploit new opportunities, I really don’t think this is going to be the death of Marvel or of comic books in general. I could be wrong, and obviously I’m not privy to any details (Dear Mouse Overlords, please hire me to write Deadpool) but I don’t think that I’m too far off the mark.

So I shall close in the manner in which I started.

Dear fanboys: shut the hell up.