PR via Nikki Finke:
Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: MVL), a global character-based entertainment and licensing company founded in 1939, announced that at a special meeting held this morning, Marvel stockholders approved the adoption of the Agreement and Plan of Merger entered into by Marvel and The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), which provides for a merger in which Marvel will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. Marvel anticipates that the merger, which, based on the closing price of Disney’s common stock on December 30, 2009, has an estimated value of approximately $4.3 billion, will be completed today after the close of the market.
The completion of the merger is subject to satisfaction of remaining conditions disclosed in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus filed by Disney with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Rule 424 on December 2, 2009.
Ah, Marvel, we hardly knew ye. I will miss your stock filings, your earnings forecasts, your heritage from Timely on. Welcome to the Mouse House. Welcome, 2010.
Oh, good. Now the fun begins.
Marvel is a “a global character-based entertainment and licensing company”?? I thought they made COMIC BOOKS…
Just get John Lasseter in the room with Marvel, man! From a creative point of view the Pixar connection could lead to some great comics and movies.
Now for the love of god FIRE JOE QUESADA!
I want to see Jim Starlin tackle Mickey Mouse, make him a bit more cozmic.
Marvel – R.I.P.
Spidey, the X-Men and company have found a good steward. However, the end of Marvel as a stand-alone company is the end of what Marvel meant as a publisher.
Odessasteps, give it a rest. Whatever you think of Joe, he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. He’s the EIC of a comic company that went from bankruptcy to being valuable enough that Disney bought them, all while he was at the helm. If you’d bought Marvel stock when Joe came aboard, you’d be rich right now.
I don’t love everything he does, but if I owned Marvel, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Chad,
I would rather that Disney shut down Marvel’s comics division entirely and focus on movies and cartoons based on the Marvel properties than have Marvel Comics continue down its current path: the annual company wide crossovers that are not limited to the Annuals and get in the way of stories that creators want to tell, creators leaving a title after one story arc instead of staying on for 30 to 50 issues, “decompressed” stories that go six or more issues when they could be told in two issues, characters appearing in a glut of titles (three Deadpool titles, Spider-Man as a weekly, three Wolverine titles, etc.) instead of limiting the character to one title, etc.
Disney CFO Thomas Staggs is currently scheduled to assume the reins of Disney CEO in 2014, he’s developed a reputation as a micro-manager who wields tight control over his divisions (he is currently in the process of liquidating the seperate Disney theme park management teams and placing them all under his direct control) and I fully expect Joe Q and company to be shown the door and for Marvel to be placed under direct Disney control once Staggs takes over from the more hands-off Bob Iger.
Better to watch it all burn than to continue to be bastardized.
this news seems like the sort of thing that would really piss me off, but i don’t care about Marvel. what i do care about is kids reading comics. unless they completely shut down all forms of publishing across the board, at the end of the day more kids will be reading comics.
that makes me happy.
There is inevitably going to be an ebb and flow in the quality of books published, in the types of stories and the arrangement of talent on books. Not everyone wants to write Spider-man for 7 years. While the mere thought of One More Day causes aberrant sparks in the rage centers of the brain, this was not any worse than the Clone Saga. The difference being however, that prior to CS, the most interesting that happened to Spider-man was Todd MacFarlane, where-as OMD had numerous stories of quality, wit, and readability preceding it written and drawn by people who wanted to tell stories involving a character they loved, and all of that happened under Joe Q.
If JMS, or Bendis, or Gaiman have a Spider-Man story to tell, and that story is only 4 issues long, I still want to read that story. Nothing anyone does can ever change my fundamental perception of a character beyond deepening and reinforcing the core elements of who these figures are.
You cannot deny the fact that Marvel is being bought by Disney for roughly 1/7th of what GE is selling NBC for. That is a stupid ratio, and something I never, ever would have imagined being possible.
As long as there are good Marvel stories coming out, I will keep reading, and when there aren’t good Marvel stories coming out, there is still some 800 years worth of literature from across the planet that I haven’t tackled yet, so I’m sure I can keep busy until the next Runaways or Immortal Iron Fist comes along.
just wanted to point out that the “odessasteps” poster above is not me.
maybe i’m being a conspiracy nut, but it’s funny how marvel is ending (more or less) it’s “bendis/millar/jms company wide/all books included” era with the “seige” crossovers, returning the marvel universe (more or less) to the status quo of before the above writers took over just as disney is coming in to put their stamp on things. or maybe it’s just one big coincidence. as for joeQ, who know ? when one company takes over another company, it sometimes can be hard to say who’s gonna stay and who’s gonna go. just guessing , but hiring and firing will probably depend on the direction that disney wants marvel to go in. guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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