Disney's empire gets even bigger

Click here for live updates on this deal from CHUD.com's Devin Faraci. Forgive him for his salty language.

The Walt Disney Co. will acquire Marvel Entertainment in a $4 billion cash-and-stock deal, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A company that already controls an enormous chunk of the world's iconic characters -- not to mention an enormous chunk of our lives -- will soon own Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, all of the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Thor and about 5,000 other comic-book heroes and villains.

If you thought you were sick of superhero movies now, just wait until Disney starts milking them for all they're worth.

I would assume that current film licensing deals would be honored to the end of their contracts, so Sony would still be on track for the fourth and fifth Spidey flicks, Paramount would still have the Iron Man and Avengers films, Fox would still have the rights to the X-Men franchise, and so on; perhaps Disney will become a partner in those productions. But what does this mean for Walt Disney World's main competitor, Universal Studios Florida? Some of that resort's most popular rides are Marvel licenses, but I can't imagine Disney would allow their new property to compete against them. (Maybe this is how Disney plans to combat the forthcoming Harry Potter attractions at USF -- with some kind of Marvel park.)

Now I don't think we have to worry about Disney ruining Marvel -- it's an established brand that people seem to really, really like, so why mess with it? You haven't seen Pixar's output become more Disney-ish since they were acquired; in fact, it's been quite the opposite, with "hard sells" like "Ratatouille," "WALL•E" and "Up" on the release schedule. So we shouldn't expect to see Donald Duck showing up in the latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. (This partnership could allow for a very interesting new version of Kingdom Hearts, though ...)

What I am expecting is to never want to see a superhero again. The Marvel characters have loomed large over the film world since the first "X-Men" flick in 2000, and their over-saturation had become unbearable by the time we were already getting a "Hulk" remake five years after the original. But now, with the promotional power of Disney behind them, we may never make it through another day without seeing Peter Parker or Tony Stark.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not already daydreaming about what cool stuff you could do with an Iron Man ride at Disneyland ...