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=DISNEY / MARVEL: Corporate Growth vs. Artistic Integrity? =

In August of 2009, **The Walt Disney Co.** officially acquired ** Marvel Entertainment ** in a $4 billion deal. This acquisition stirs great debate with respect to the creative control of Marvel content, and how it will affect the comic book franchise.

From a business standpoint, the acquisition appears to be beneficial to both parties involved. Stan Lee sees a promising future for Marvel Entertainment and puts his trust in Disney:

“Nobody can produce and market franchises better than Disney, and //nobody has the extensive library of characters that would make great franchises that Marvel has//.”
The Walt Disney Co. is geared towards “family-friendly” entertainment, and by buying out Marvel, they are branching out to additional genres and audiences and diversifying their brand. Disney is one of the biggest companies in the entertainment world and they are attacking the market with an aggressive approach: rather than producing new content, they are buying out everyone else’s content. **This allows them to increase their brand power and control the market.** In doing this, Disney is well on its way to monopolizing the entire entertainment industry using the classic approach of manifest destiny, in which //one super power becomes stronger by acquiring smaller powers//.

However, the concern here is the artistic integrity of Marvel Entertainment. **Will Marvel content be compromised as a result of corporate growth from Disney?** By having deeper pockets, Marvel can now saturate the market with miscellaneous products via Disney’s resources which can potentially water down the original content and alienate the loyal fan base.

Here is a video created by some fans in response to the Disney- Marvel acquisition followed by a link to the article. media type="youtube" key="uyYb_r4cZHE" height="385" width="480"

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