1. Disney putting out more of their own characters in comic book form, like the old Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge lines.

2. Disney being able to try out new characters and ideas in comic book form before investing the money on a full movie/show.

3. Disney properties getting the comic book treatment ala Buffy/Angel/Firefly. I could see Pirates of the Caribbean getting a good adult comic book / graphic novel treatment.

4. Marvel experiences in Disney. They did a good job with Twilight Zone/Indiana Jones/Star Wars without kiddying it up. Not sure how existing experiences at Universal will be affected.

As to Marvel properties being brought down to G ratings, I remember as a kid watching the Spiderman/X-men (and Batman:TAS on the DC side) cartoons at around the same age as the Disney cartoon blocks.

As Rodney stated, most if not all of Marvel’s properties will continue without being affected. By the time Iron Man 2, Captain America, etc. come out, I think we will largely not notice the Disney ownership, like Miramax being bought in 1993 by Disney, a year before they released Pulp Fiction, Clerks, and other non-disney type films.

I didn’t even know they let go of Toy Biz and sold to Hasbro. I still see Marvel Legends figures all the time. But I have also seen those smaller figures your talking about and wondered why they were so small and crappy looking, but also I just thought they were still made by Toy Biz.

So basically Marvel figures are now in the same boat as Star Wars toys. Small figures for the price of a large one. Only, why does the Star Wars figures look better then the Marvel ones if Hasbro makes them both?

Personally though I stopped buying Toy Biz figs a long time ago. Because they got good to a point, but didn’t get any better after that, like they simply reached their limit. I’m much more of a McFarlane Toys and Kyodo fan these days. With so much better sculpting and articulation on both, more so Kyodo most of the time, and much bigger figures, I feel like I get much more bang for my buck. Just wish McFarlane would stop making nothing but damn Halo figures already, LOL.

For years Marvel owner their own toy company, Toy Biz. For anyone who knows much about action figures, Toy Biz pretty much revolutionized the action figure industry in the early 2000’s. They raised the bar in terms of better sculpting, better articulation and better paint at an affordable price. Their Marvel Legends and Lord Of The Rings toys were phenomenal stuff.

Then about 2 years ago Marvel sold the rights to all Marvel toys to Hasbro, and folded up Toy Biz. Some people said it would be the end of good Marvel figures, and Hasbro with Toy Biz gone, would make more expensive, lower quality toys, since Toy Biz was gone. Others scoffed, saying that Hasbro would continue to do what Toy Biz had made so successful, ‘why else would they buy the rights?’.

Well 2 years later, and Marvel figures are now half the size they were, have less paint and less articulation. And are more expensive.

Hopefully we won’t see a repeat of that, and the concern will this time be for nothing.

I tend to agree with what you’ve said here Rodney, a lot of people are confusing this with a merger, and think it will have more of an immediate impact than it really will. But as a fan of Marvel comics, I hope we see some good benefits from this. The good news is this was a sale because Marvel is worth something to Disney right now, and it wasn’t bought because it was failing and needed to be saved.

So you’ve yet to see Mickey show up on ESPN… except for that time they dedicated an ENTIRE WEEK to Disney?!

Yeah… maybe not the best example you could have come up with.

Many of those contracts are open ended. Provided those owners continue to make films with those properties, they retain the rights.

Fox just has to make an X-Film every 3 years and it will never revert to Marvel.

And that is different from any other studio how?

If you think money is not the prime motivation for ANY film or studio out there, then you are dead wrong.