Disney, parent company to Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment is one step closer to owning the world. As announced by the website IGN today, both the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise, two wildly popular science fiction properties, are leaving Dark Horse Comics and making a new home with Marvel Comics.
It is not entirely surprising that this would happen. While Dark Horse has been publishing both Aliens and Predator as comic book series since the late 1980’s, the cinematic side of each was with 20th Century Fox. In March of 2019, the Disney and Fox merger was finalized, bringing all of those properties, and a host of others under the House of the Mouse umbrella. So, it was only a matter of time that this would spread to other media as previously existing publishing and distribution contracts drew to a close.
C.B. Cebulski, Marvel’s current Editor-in-Chief commented on the news to IGN; “There’s nothing more thrilling than a story that will keep you at the edge of your seat, and Alien and Predator have delivered that time and time again!”
Indeed. There is nothing to say that these two alien species will find their way in to Marvel’s 616 universe, the potential there is exciting and it’s hard not to imagine them battling Avengers or X-Men or meeting their distant cousins the Brood. In 2018 Marvel reacquired the publishing rights to Conan the Barbarian, can you imagine Conan fighting off hordes of aliens? As I said, the possibilities are very exciting. But, even if they remain their own pocket universes within Marvel Comics, akin to Star Wars for example, it appears that Marvel is poised to honor what has come before and expand each of these properties in to new, exhilarating and unexplored territories.
“As a visual medium, comics are the perfect place to build on those moments, and we here at Marvel are honored to begin telling these stories for fans everywhere,” C.B. also commented in the same news release.
Marvel’s comic book editor Jake Thomas also commented “The incredible legacies of both franchises offer some of the most compelling and exciting worldbuilding in all of science fiction. It is a thrill and an honor to be able to add to that mythology and continuity with all-new stories set within those universes.”
It will be a lot of fun to see where Marvel takes these two franchises now that they will reside with the House of Ideas, a house I suppose, now run by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
