I am Kyle's self-indulgence

The Internet is abuzz today with the news of Disney buying Marvel Entertainment, and what that could mean for Marvel Comics. What I hear a lot of is concern that Disney will water down the the content, make it more kid-friendly, get rid of the MAX line, yadda yadda yadda.

I think people are confusing the Disney company with the Disney brand.

The Disney brand is the stuff people usually think of when they think of Disney: the cartoons, the children's channels, the amusement parks, and the endless merchandising.

What people often forget is that the Disney company owns a lot that it doesn't attach its name to, most notably Miramax Films, which has produced such family favorites as Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting, and No Country For Old Men.

Then, of course, there's Pixar, which lies somewhere in between. Disney is very active in the distribution of the films and the merchandising of the characters, but they give Pixar total creative control of the films themselves.

So what kind of relationship will Disney have with Marvel? It's not clear. The press releases talk mostly about merchandising and adaptations for TV and film. This actually sounds a bit like the Pixar arrangement, in which the subsidiary company has control over the primary product (in this case, the comics), and the parent corporation uses the characters in other media.

Here's how I predict this deal will actually affect Marvel on the consumer end.

The comics: No change. I think Disney's only interested in the characters for their marketing potential. They shouldn't have any interest in the actual stories being written with them. The biggest comics-related change we'll probably see is with BOOM! Studios' comic adaptations of the Pixar characters. We can expect that after their contract is up Disney will move those properties over to Marvel.

The merchandising: Little change to the consumer. Marvel properties are already made into cartoons, toys, clothing, video games, amusement park rides, lunch snacks, bedspreads, and much more. All that's going to change is there will be more of this and it will be owned by Disney.

The movies: Unclear. Up until now, Marvel has been free to work with whoever they want to make their movies, which has worked very well for them. Sure, they've had a few clunkers, but with the Spider-man, Hulk, Iron Man, and the first two X-Men films, their track record has been better than DC/Warner Bros over the last several years. Is this going to change under Disney? Nobody knows, but I'm going with a definite maybe.