Dishney: Disney Seeking to Acquire Marvel Comics in $4 Billion Transaction

Flickr user KingKong21

Nemo finding Doctor Doom.

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Just this morning, the Walt Disney Company released a press release announcing their intention to purchase and acquire Marvel and its portfolio of 5,000-plus characters--including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four and more--for $4 billion.

 "Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses," said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's Chief Executive Officer. "This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world."

Both the Boards of Directors for Marvel and Disney have approved the transaction, but it is waiting to be cleared under the "Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, effectiveness of a registration statement with respect to Disney shares issued in the transaction and other customary closing conditions." Marvel shareholders will also have to sign off on the transaction.

Of course die-hard comic fans are seeing this like it's a sign of the apocalypse. But for good measure, it should be known that DC Comics was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1969.

So, does this mean we'll see more Kingdom Hearts-y collaborations in the near future? Darkwing Duck and Spidy team up to take out Doctor Octopus? Snow White and the Fantastic Four?

After the jump: A nostalgic look back at one of our favorite Disney superheroes...