So, the huge news that’s hitting today is that Disney has acquired Marvel Entertainment— to include Marvel Comics and the Marvel stable of characters. When someone told me Marvel had been bought by a corporation, I’ll be honest, Disney was like the eighth guess (briefly wondered if the apocalypse was here and Time-Warner– owner of DC Comics– had done it). It makes a certain amount of sense, given that the old Marvel cartoons like Spider-Man, X-Men, et al are all airing on Disney XD (formerly Toon Disney) and have been for a decade or so since migrating from Disney-owned ABC Family. Still, it seems like such an odd fit.

A lot of attention and– dare I say?– excitement has been made over the possibility that Pixar could do a Marvel movie. Maybe I’m just being a stick in the mud, but that doesn’t excite me at all and, in fact, would seem to signal the end of Pixar for me. Would they do a fantastic job? Of that I have no doubt. But it wouldn’t be Pixar. The studio’s strength is in transporting us to wholly original and fantastic worlds, each with their signature stamp on it. Be it Woody and the gang in Toy Story, Marlin and Dory and the Nemo gang, the Parr family in The Incredible, or even WALL*E… each one is undeniably Pixar. Stick a Spider-Man movie into the mix, and Pixar isn’t working its magic, it’s leasing space from someone else. And I’d rather not have that.

Of course, the thing giving me the most pause is how the comic characters will be folded into Disney proper. Yeah, there are still pre-existing licensing deals (including with Universal Studios… ouch) so it won’t happen overnight, but it’ll eventually happen is the point. How out of place will people dressed up as Iron Man and Captain America look walking around Disneyland with the likes of Goofy and Donald Duck? How about the tone of Marvel comics? Will Disney ask them to tone it down? (Probably not at first, but I think it’s naive to think after a $4 billion investment Disney wouldn’t exert some control in the future.)

And I keep flashing back to Marvel E-i-C Joe Quesada constantly using the fact that Time-Warner owned DC Comics as a weapon to bludgeon the competition– derisively insisting on calling them “Time-Warner Comics” (or “AOL Comics” back when AOL was still in the picture). Will he follow suit and start calling Marvel “Disney Comics” now?

I dunno. The news pretty much shocked me because the success of Marvel’s films has allowed it to grow into an Entertainment Media company in its own right. And as Chuck Dixon mentioned on Newsarama, Spider-Man alone is worth more than $4 billion, so the entire company was sold downright cheap. The news floors me. I’m left with more questions than answers. We’ll see what happens.

(Is this really the first comic book post I’ve mustered? For shame, Emtrey, for shame.)