In an act of outright heresy, Marvel Comics sold the rights to 5000 characters, including Spiderman, Iron Man, and the X-Men to Disney.

Nothing is sacred. Sure, business is business, and profit is king. When a beloved business is reduced to nothing more than a balance sheet, even a venerable creative force like Marvel loses its hard-earned luster.

This takeover by Disney represents a giant payday for Marvel executives and shareholders at $50 per share, but how will it affect the hundreds of writers and artists who helped build the reputation of Marvel?

I'm sure Stan Lee will make out fine. On the whole, this simply can't be good for the action-comics community at large.

Monopolies aren't exactly known for creating a "competitive" environment.

Professional creatives need look no further than the disastrous purchase of Macromedia by Adobe to have an idea how this will potentially play out. How can anyone argue that consolidating the biggest and best known comics powerhouse with the biggest and best known producer/publisher of children's nirvana will be good for the creative industry? Does it not stand to reason that compensation rates will fall and rights negotiation will become even more treacherous for the artist?

In our humble opinion, this is a sad day for super heros.