For those that spent yesterday living under a rock (or otherwise occupied), Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment for a whopping $4 billion. I’m feeling some mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, we’ll likely see a lot more Marvel Comics movies… the kind that are made with serious funding… which is, in theory at least, a good thing. On the other hand, Disney is already so very, very big.

…and while they have historically happily harvested harrowing tales and humorous homilies (Excelsior!!!) from the public domain, they are the fire-breathing, flesh-rending leader of the battle against the public domain with their never-ending battles to extend copyright terms here in the States and abroad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer in the concept of copyrights to allow the artistically inclined to be able to profit from their works and support their families, but Disney’s extensions have reached the point of obscenity and far exceeded the original intents of copyright law. Oh well, the battle rages on, I suppose…

So, I’ve not read any comics since the story was announced, but I strongly suspect there will be a lot of these sort of strips today. I almost passed, but my sense of whimsy got the better of me. The moment I read the story, I had a picture of a bloody Mickey/Wolverine rending flesh from the bloody corpse of Jeffrey Katzenberg… and it made me giggle. Had to tone it down a bit though, as I try to keep Slightly Off-Topic family-friendly.