As the whole world will now know, Disney has bought Marvel Entertainment Inc for $4 billion. My first thought was alarm – Marvel has spent the last 10 years moving forward away from a corporate owner who had rabidly emasculated it. Marvel Comics at least under editor-in-chief Joe Quesada since 2000 has rediscovered what made its characters cool, be it Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch’s Ultimates, Ed Brubaker’s Captain America or Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man – does the Disney deal now put all that at risk? Quesada himself thinks not:

If you’re familiar with the Disney/Pixar relationship, then you’ll understand why this is a new dawn for Marvel and the comics industry.

It’s a salient point I think. And I think that those of us in our thirties and forties regularly forget the danger which comics find themselves in this decade – they simply aren’t replenishing their market. We may like that Quesada et al have pandered to our needs for the last decade, but the kids the business needs in order to survive into the next few decades simply aren’t there. Will Disney provide the means for that to happen? If so then this really is a good thing. As Film School Rejects say:

4. Disney is a brand machine. From a film marketing standpoint — and for that matter, a brand marketing standpoint — Disney is a powerhouse. Pirate of the Caribbean, the films of Pixar and all the way down to television with shows such as Lost via their ownership of ABC, Disney knows how to sell a brand. And selling the Marvel brand means more Marvel fans, more recognition in the mainstream and for those of us keeping score, more money down the road to make Marvel movies.

Despite initial alarm, I’m now cautiously optimistic.