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The end of the month of August brought news that Marvel Comics was being purchased by the Disney Corporation. I'm no financial whiz when it comes to this sort of thing, but I wonder what brought this purchase to the minds of both companies. Marvel probably needed the influx of cash after some of their movies have been hit and miss over the years as well as some of their comic titles not doing that hot over the past few months. Marvel has a wonderful cash cow in all the characters that they have built up over the years and with the Spider-Man movie franchise going into its fourth film as well as an Iron Man sequel being made they really don't need help on that end. On the other hand, there's Marvel's animated series and specials that could really use Disney's touch. The Ultimate Avenger's animated movies have not gone over that well and having seen them, the animation was a bit lacking. The only question that leaves in my mind is what is to be done with all the Disney/Pixar titles that are being made by Boom! Studios? Hopefully Disney will honor their commitment and let Boom print their titles until the contract is up. Nothing about this deal is set in stone yet because Marvel's shareholders have yet to approve it. Hopefully things will look up and Marvel will have a long life with the backing of Disney.
It's not like Boom! will be hurting for stuff to print. They have a new Die Hard comic based on the movie quartet. The comic is going to focus on John McClane back in the year 1976 when he was a rookie cop in New York. Like all the other Boom titles, this first issue will have four different covers. Boom also has comics like Farscape and other in house titles that the company makes, so even if they do lose the Disney/Pixar license, they will still have titles to sell.
Here's a link to an interview with Boom! Studios' J. Torres on how they handled the set up for the comic book version of Wall-E. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090928-Wall-E-Boom.html. I think it handles the creative process of taking something like Wall-E and converting it into a comic.
It looks like that after a good nine months of rumors floating around about who was going to pick up the mantle of WizKids Games from Topps, someone plunked down the cash and took it. NECA (National Entertainment Collectables Association) picked up the rights to produce all the games based on the Clix license as well as the collectable ships game Pirates of the . . . According to what I have read on various web sites, they are aiming to have the first expansion of Marvel HeroClix out in November called Hammer of Thor followed by a yet unnamed DC HeroClix expansion out sometime in February 2010. Here's a link at the ICv2 web site that'll give the basics of what is going on.
http://icv2.com/articles/news/15830.html. I'd almost buy some and try my hand at building a squad, but I'm not as competitive as most of the players are out there. That is why I don't get into things like Magic: The Gathering, or miniature games like Warhammer 40K. I really don't like the blind packaging on the HeroClix minis either, because that is what gets people hooked. If there are any figures out in Hammer of Thor that I feel I must have, then I'll go to the secondary market.
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