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The big news of the day is Disney buying Marvel. Disney is reportedly paying $4 Billion for the comic-book company.

So far, reaction from "serious" financial types have trumpeted the wisdom of the proposed deal. For example, Arvind Bhatia, and analyst with Sterne, Agee and Leach told Reuters, "My initial reaction is that this is a positive. a win-win situation for both companies. On the surface, it looks like a great merger." And Jason Bazinet of Citigroup wrote in a research note: "We think deal makes sense strategically...It will help Disney target the male demographic aged 18 and 35 years old, a group that it currently has limited appeal to. Disney will also be able to monetize Marvel's brands across its entire ecosystem (TV, parks, movies, consumer products, video games, etc.)"

So Disney is going to make money, and Marvel is going to make money, but how will the deal affect you, the consumer? Will we be seeing Iron Man show up in the next Kingdom Hearts game? Will Goofy the Dog-Thing be appearing in the next issue of Spider-Man? Will Iron Man 2 feature a princess-oriented subplot? Take a deep breath, everybody -- it's not going to happen. I don't think Disney is going to do anything to "water down" or taint the Marvel line at all.

Disney's press release pointed out that Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's Chief Executive Office, will stay on to manage Marvel's properties, so, initially, it doesn't seem like there's a huge push for change in the Marvel strategy. The film rights to the Spider-Man and Iron Man franchises, the two largest Marvel film series right now, are already owned by other studios (Columbia and Paramount), so we won't see Disney-produced versions of these series any time soon.

In spite of these details, Disney could still significantly change Marvel's output, but if you look into the precedent Disney has set in the past, as well as its likely rationale for the purchase, I doubt the company plans to Disney-fy Marvel. 

In 2006, Disney purchased Pixar animation. There was fear at the time that Pixar movies would henceforth feature pop-culture-wiseguy sidekicks in the vein of Disney animation movies, and that Pixar films would creep toward the Disney formula and eventually all be stories of self-empowered princesses. But if you look at what Pixar has produced since then (Wall-E, Up), that's almost the opposite of what's happened. If anything, Pixar has been allowed to be more creative, adult and less "Disney" over the years.

Disney has a long history of buying "edgier" companies that dates back to the early 90s, when it bought Miramax, leading to fears among fanboys and film-geeks that Miramax's cutting-edge content would be censored and watered down. It didn't happen, and I don't think it's going to happen here.

Disney's many holdings and film companies are strong in appealing to many demographics -- they have young girls, and young boys locked up with various kiddy properties, and teen girls with all that Hannah Montana stuff-- but Disney is weak in appealing to young men/teen boys -- that 15-25 demographic that runs the box office consistently. No one knows the future, but I think it's very, very unlikely that Disney will do anything to to significantly change the proven success Marvel has shown over the last few years at appealing to that segment of the market. Basically, it aint' broke, so I doubt Disney is going to fix it.

Disney has always been incredibly good at keeping their brands from being watered down: They seem to know exactly when it's appropriate to invoke corporate synergy, and when it would be lame. It's part of the Disney culture that goes back to when Walt himself was in charge. So it's cool. If anything, I think Disney will mostly just do a better job of distributing Marvel entertainment to an even bigger audience.

Let us know how you feel about it in our comment section below.