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Disney just announced plans to buy Marvel. Can’t wait to see how this marriage goes and what the kids look like. Whether Marvel and Disney characters can make friends remains to be seen. As far as combining characters and plots, Disney villains might want to keep their distance from Marvel super heroes. In turn, Disney heroes ought not to piss off Marvel villains. Imagine Aladdin against Venom. Or Peter Pan against Silver Surfer. No contest. Here’s the details:

The deal was announced by Disney president and CEO Bob Iger at an investor’s conference call, where details of the new Marvel emerged a bit. Iger said buying Marvel made sense for Disney because “Marvel has done a good job of understanding its characters and story lines. What was attractive to us about this deal was that it was about acquiring writers who know these chraracters and story lines well.” Marvel’s chairman and principal stockholder, Ike Perlmutter, will remain in charge of Marvel’s operations, and Iger stressed that the current Marvel management team has been doing a great job and would be allowed to continue doing it.

Scripts have leaked that Disney and Marvel have drafted in the months before announcing the deal. A grime outlook for Disney. Consider these concepts:

First – Insertion of Donald Duck into the next X-Men Origins. Several drafts of said concept exist, and producers on both sides have fought a lot. In one version, Donald follows Wolverine through the underground world of mutant criminals and vigilantes like a miniature Jar Jar Binks. Executives have pushed to transform Donald from a cartoon into a CGI character with his own claws. The US Government kidnaps the duck halfway through one version and attempts to hold him ransom. Marvel screenwriters have had trouble thinking up Wolverine’s motivation for saving anything other than babes, and so they’ve proposed that Donald should die pretty fast. Disney execs balk at this proposal because 1) it would make Logan look heartless, and 2) kids would cry and parents would boycott the film.

Second – Magneto in Wonderland. Ian McKellen’s character chases a small, rabbit-like mutant down a hole and winds up in a magical world full of mystery and wonder. In Disney’s preferred version, Magneto meets Alice under the Cheshire tree and together they search for a way home – only to realize at the film’s end that they don’t want to go home. Marvel has suggested that happiness would appear out of character for their super villain – that instead he should use metallic objects like tea spoons and cushion pins to enslave Wonderland and have his way with the White Queen. Disney’s answer: “we can always bring in Peter Pan.”

Third – Magneto in Neverland. Same concept. Except Marvel wants Magneto to kill Captain Hook by turning his own claw-hand against him. This project hasn’t lifted off quite yet since everyone at both companies realizes Peter Pan would last about five minutes in this movie. “I can fly. Wait. Shit, I’m wrapped in metal.”

Fourth – The Foiled Prince. Prince Charming dares to rescue a Marvel babe from Mr. Sinister, only to wind up fighting the X-Men out of misunderstanding. Cyclops accidentally vaporizes him. As a result.

Fifth – The Professor’s House. Professor Xavier drops by most of Disney’s classic fairy tales and untangles all of the evil step mothers’ neuroses. Snow White’s step mom treks out into the woods and apologizes for banishing her, for example, and then they reunite. Xavier then wakes up Sleeping Beauty as well before convincing the wolf in Red Riding Hood that he’d much rather eat some other girl or go drown in a well.

Sixth – Mary Poppins. She shows up and finds out the two kids she has to babysit are young Logan and Victor Creed. After three crazy nights she quits, opens her umbrella, and flies off. Or she would fly off. But they’ve shredded her umbrella in their rough housing. Boys will be boys. Except they’re mutants.

Novel update. This Friday I read in Salisbury and then head straight to Atlanta for the Decatur Book Fest. If you haven’t seen the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s review yet, it’s online now.