If you’re a film and comics nerd like me, watching the power struggle between Disney head Bob Iger and Marvel’s reclusive owner Isaac Perlmutter, now Disney’s largest shareholder, has been fascinating.
Why do you care? Because, as weird as it sounds, Marvel is trying to take over the House of Mouse.
No, seriously. Kevin Feige, who you know as the head of Marvel Studios, might be up to run all of Disney, although there are plenty of other nominees. And Perlmutter runs Disney’s consumer products division now, in addition to Marvel. We’re assuming his first step was to give the entire division one bathroom to share.
Why should we care? Because pride comes before a fall. Yes, Perlmutter is the biggest Disney shareholder right now, but Disney bought Marvel, not the other way around, and Disney has a level of control freak insanity that Perlmutter can only dream about. And they’re starting to pick fights with Pixar, which is a really, really bad idea.
The reality is, as much as publishing vets seem to believe Perlmutter is invulnerable, what he’s really doing is giving Disney every possible reason they could ever want to gut Marvel as a company and move everything to their own publishing operations. After all, Disney publishes comics; right now, whether Perlmutter realizes it or not, Marvel’s comics publishing are essentially a budget redundancy to Disney.
We’re not saying that Marvel Comics is at risk of stopping publishing any time soon. But we are saying Marvel, as a company, is being put at risk. As much as we rag on their comics, the people at Marvel are dedicated professionals and don’t deserve to be jerked around by executive suite peen-measuring. We sincerely hope that doesn’t happen.
image courtesy Forbes