Disney Grows Bigger--Buys Marvel Comics

The Disney company is already one of the top media giants in the world and last week increased their size with the purchase of Marvel for $4 billion last week. That's a Hulk-sized chunk of change.

Disney already has been acquiring many of our childhood favorites of the years, including Winnie the Pooh and the Muppets, as well as creating a plethora of new characters for us to love in its collaboration with Pixar (Buzz Lighyear, Wall-E, the Incredibles, Nemo, etc., etc.).

Now Disney gains access to a library of over 5,000 Marvel characters, including Spider-Man, the X Men, Iron Man, Hulk, and Fantastic Four--all of whom already have superhero-sized box office earnings.

As the New York Times points out, Marvel has already been doing a pretty great job of turning their popular superheroes into cash cows, but the muscle of Disney is even mightier. Now all of your favorite superheroes can be on TV (remember, Disney owns their own cable channel, of course, but they also own ABC), as well as at all of its theme parks, Disney stores, etc.

In addition, owning Marvel gives Disney some greater traction with an important demographic--young boys--who have not been particularly star struck by Hannah Montana or the very popular Disney princess collection.

But you need to stop and ask: do so much media need to be owned by one company? This is the complexity of media consolidation. It may be good for Wall Street, but is it good for democracy?

Lastly, nearly as soon as the ink was dry on this deal the Blogosphere erupted with Disney-Marvel mashups. They are quite fun, I'd say, and you can see more here.