[Lucien21]

The deal actually make a lot of sense from a business point of view. Similar to when it purchased Pixar.

Marvel are currently doing pretty well with their movies, but the extra funding and support from Disney can make further inroads into that market (and offset the risks that a flop would put Marvel back into the bad old days). It also opens up the theme park market to Marvel to promote their characters to a new young audience.

From Disney's point of view, it is pretty good with the young female market (Hanna Montana, Jonas Brothers etc) but is seen as weak in the young male market. The Marvel characters give them leverage into that market and also allows them to use the characters etc to promote their theme parks etc where income has been falling recently (Except in Florida where Universal has the licence to the Marvel characters)

Like the Pixar deal I see Disney largely staying out of the day to day running of Marvel. The creative side of the comics shouldn't see a huge difference.

The problem is that most of the huge Marvel IP are already committed to films with other studios that Disney can't break (and Universal in Florida would stop Disney using them in their main parks), but it might be interesting to see Disney try to promote some of the lesser known characters and how much would Pixar love to get their hands on Marvel movies.