Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter solicited the thoughts of Ben Schwartz on Disney's impending purchase of Marvel. I've linked the entire column for you all to read for yourselves, but I still felt like posting my favorite quotes from the article below:
The Comics Reporter - Ben Schwartz On Marvel/Disney Deal
[...] One aspect of their problems with Disney, and vice versa, is that Disney is very sensitive to putting out material that draws boycott action from advocacy groups. That is, when someone wants something from Disney, they will look at Marvel material (let's say, a violent Wolverine comic with some gore) to paste on the news and say,
"Disney sells this to kids." Pixar doesn't create a problem that way, but
the pregnant Mrs. Hobgoblin in a recent Spider-Man arc might.
[...] Disney is a creative company, and
superhero books in general could use a shake up. No loss, in my opinion,
if they did get involved. Marvel's line has been a angry version of Weisinger-era Jimmy Olsen concepts lately (suddenly, everyone's a zombie; suddenly, everyone that was bad is good and was good is bad ...).
After all these-post Miller/Moore years of "dark" and "edgy," ie, angry and adolescent, maybe Marvel moving towards pop light isn't a bad idea. The pop-culture Kirby/Lee/Ditko-era was Marvel's creative peak, while 2009 is its financial peak from movies, TV, etc, (but
not in comics).
They need something.
[...]
The Spectacular Spider-Man animated show is better than the comics. The
X-Men and
Spider-Man movies are, too. As I mentioned above,
the guys running the comics division live in the past and their sales are mediocre. The people making the comics into movies are the ones connecting to the public in a big way,
that's actually made Marvel fun for me again. Does anyone still buy the idea that the comics are where new concepts are generated that get turned into movie and television? The newest idea in comics-to-movies is the Claremont/Byrne
X-Men vibe of the early '80s in the
X-Men movies.
Over the years, many, many people have complained about Disney for lots of reasons. I know a number of parents who don't want their kids exposed to the Disney version of favorite fairy tales and books. I get that, and understand why. On the other hand,
I can't think of a company that would benefit right now from that more than Marvel.
I pretty much agree with every single word written above.
