Will Disney & Marvel's Marriage Produce New Ideas?
Now we know why Disney announced it was producing its own Comic-Con like trade show! While everyone is still processing what this merger means (see today’s Essentials), I was most curious about how the comic book faithful were feeling about this new world order. My husband overheard one fan in our local comic book store speculating that Disney would “clean up” all of Marvel’s characters, i.e. no more cigars for Wolverine!
I spotted this post from my friend Robin Sloan, a big graphic novel reader/fan who blogs at Snarkmarket, lamenting the dearth of new characters from Marvel and speculating that this will continue under Disney. I thought it was an interesting angle on the story and asked a couple follow up questions…
Ypulse: In your post you argue that Marvel/DC haven’t come up with any new characters and have just been focusing on franchises for awhile now. How do you think the acquisition by Disney will impact this creative malaise? Under Iger they have been leaving acquired company’s corporate cultures alone, i.e. Pixar.
Robin Sloan: In pure corporate terms, the merger makes perfect sense. Disney has built a sophisticated machine for exploiting IP in all forms — music, clothes, merchandise, real-world experiences, everything. So, you apply that to machine to Marvel’s universe, and voila, lots of cool new stuff.
But let’s think about it from a consumer point of view. Yes, I suppose a really great Spider-Man experience at Walt Disney World could be pretty interesting. But I feel like what I really want, especially over the long term, is new characters and new stories — and those are things neither Disney nor Marvel has had much luck producing over the past few, uh, decades.
So that’s my concern. Disney’s been mining (and protecting) old IP for years. Acquiring Marvel isn’t a move to balance that strategy; it deepens it. The tagline for a combined Disney/Marvel might be:
“Finding new ways to sell you the same stories, again and again, forever.”
I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, because there are exceptions; the weird universe Disney has created on the Disney Channel is a big one. So who knows? Maybe one of the things that comes out of a Disney/Marvel team-up is a bold new character with real relevance to our time in history. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
YP: Is there an upside for comic book fans? i.e. with Disney’s reach, wouldn’t they now be able to attract a whole new generation of “readers” (or viewers)?
RS: That depends on your perspective. If you’re the kind of fan who simply wants more and more Spider-Man and X-Men comics — and there are a lot of those — then I think it means you’ll get your wish.
But if you’re the kind of fan who wants better comics in general — with new characters and more sophisticated storylines that appeal to different audiences — I think it’s bad news. It solidifies the market position of big, corporate superhero comics, and doesn’t do anything to build an audience for indie storytellers.
YP: What do you think Disney could do to ease fears/skepticism from the comic book faithful?
RS: I actually don’t think this is the biggest issue; the comic book industry has probably been too focused on the faithful for too long.
Rather, Disney should be — and probably is — focused on everybody who isn’t already a comic book fan. They’ll find ways to introduce them to the Marvel pantheon across multiple media and make fans out of them.
For my part — and I’m thinking selfishly as a consumer, here — I think part of their strategy should be to create new characters and new stories for the 21st century — not just rehash and repackage the same old superhero IP we’ve been staring at for the past 50 years.
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