Does Disney Now Own God?
By Demon.
Who remembers Secret Wars?
Back in the 80s, Marvel comics published a series in which pretty much every popular superhero and supervillain duked it out in a glorious space battle. The series tied in with regular monthly issues of comics like Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four, so that to get the whole story you had to read dozens of different titles that month as Secret Wars spread through the Marvel catalog like small pox. The series was so popular (or perhaps to the marketing department, effective), that Marvel engaged in Secret Wars II less than a year down the road.
The first thought I had when I learned the Disney is buying Marvel for 4 billion dollars was, wow, wouldn’t it be great to see all of those characters in the Disney universe fight to the death with all of the ones in the Marvel one. Iron Man versus Mickey Mouse. Spider Man versus Donald Duck. Dr. Doom versus Johnny Depp. The Mighty Thor versus –
By my beard, Disney is not really going to own the Mighty Thor, are they? Owning a bunch of home grown mutants in leotards and caped pajamas is one thing, but laying claim to a god from the Norse pantheon?
Here’s the first thing that worries me. Any company that can afford 4 billion dollars worth of comic books obviously has a ton of dough, and Disney has never been shy about using men in suits (not the comic book kind) to protect their precious brands. How long until Disney copyright lawyers start seeing not just the dude with wings on his helmet, but entire width and breadth of Norse mythology as their sacred domain? Thor isn’t the only Norse god to bear the Marvel stamp, after all. Odin, allfather of the Norse gods, has made plenty of appearances in the Mighty Thor, while Balder, another prominent god of the Norse pantheon, even carried his own title for a while.
Will Disney lay claim to all things Thor and Odin, from new translations of the Eddas to the growing number of webcomics that have taken their cue from the religion of the Vikings?
Probably not. Despite Disney “titles” like Cinderella, there are countless Cinderella movies, books, comics, and stage adaptations alive and well in the mediasphere. Same thing the with the countless other fairy tales, myths, and legends that Disney has cartoonified over the years. Of course, one can still be paranoid, and expect the worst in judgment from the company that brought us Pirates of the Carribean III.
A more likely scenario is that Disney will eventually get around to committing the same injustice to Norse mythology as they have with countless other classical sources. In other words, make them dewy eyed and kiddy-fied, submitting them to the same rendering process they have used in the past to boil both the fat and flavor from Arthurian legend (The Sword and the Stone) and Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Cinderella). In the words of the brilliant but seldom-respected media critic Morris Pevensey:
These ghouls have taken every great work of children’s literature ever written – Alice, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Snow White, The Black Cauldron, The Sword in the Stone, The Rescuers, Winnie-The-Pooh – and ground them all into the same saccharine mush. If you don’t believe me, go and read the originals. Pinocchio in its original incarnation is a hilarious dark Grand Guignol morality play, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a surreal and satiric exploration of language and logic, The Black Cauldron an epic high fantasy with a Welsh flavor, The Rescuers a wholly believable suspenseful adventure story starring mice. Now watch the Disney versions and try not to retch. Disney sugars them all with its tiresome Borscht Belt sense of humor and scours them clean all hint of what made them distinctive.
One tiny ray of hope is that Disney, in a strange turn of fate, might not be able to sufficiently exploit all the properties gobbled below its bloated belt. Apparently Marvel has so many pre-existing deals with other studios that properties like Spider-Man, The X-Men, and yes, the Mighty Thor (currently in the hands of Paramount), will not be ready to join the other old horses at the Disney rendering plant for at least several years. Perhaps the Viking gods can rest in peace a bit longer…
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Ah wow Secret Wars was mindblowingly awesome when i was a kid, glad I am not theonly one remembers it! I am very hopeful that disney will get young kids into comics again.
Pretty soon Disney will own all the rights to every creative outlet that is distributed to the masses.