![Walking through the tunnel created by the cheerleaders and Celebrities, senior Frances Tran smiles as the soccer team is sent off during DEN for their playoff game against Rouse tonight. Tran said the wins against Smithson Valley and Alamo Heights gave the team a morale boost to take on the Raiders tonight. “I know we were not 100% confident in those games,” Tran said. “But, Rouse is a big opponent for sure. We’re definitely going into tonight with a lot of morale [because of the previous wins].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/frances-tran.jpg)
![Holding a bucket of materials in one hand and a roll of tape in another, anatomy and biology teacher Tyler Terry prepares for a lab. Terry said his proudest moments are when his students are happy to see him. “When I take my wife to a football game or something and a bunch of students want to say hi to me or they like to smile and wave and it just makes me feel good that the students are really kind and supportive of me,” Terry said. “[I’m also] proud when I see students perform really well in their extracurriculars because I can see how hard they’re working in my classes, [so] when I see that they’re also working so hard in other things. Like they’re winning band competitions or they’re getting awards for their theater productions, or I see them put on their choir shows, that’s like, wow, you guys are incredible.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rags-6.png)
![Catching a ball, junior Alivia Robinson plays at the Cedar Park vs Glenn game. Having played since she was 5 years old, she is dedicated to softball and has committed to UTPB for softball. “When I got my offer it took me a very long time to decide where,” Robinson said. “Softball has always been my dream for college, and UTPB is my fit. When [I committed] I knew I was going to be loved and supported.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lilly-Adams-3.13aliviaedit-901.jpg)
![Holding her dog, Nova, senior Ariana Balakrishnan poses for her senior pictures while Nova wears a bandana with her college decision. Balakrishnan applied to 18 colleges in total, but she decided on Columbia in the end. “Right before I clicked the button to open Columbia’s letter, I literally looked at the camera and go ‘This is just gonna really suck because I wanted it so bad,’ and I clicked it and all of a sudden you hear trumpets,” Balakrishnan said. “There’s a video that plays when you open it and I actually didn’t watch the video, I just watched the screen go black, because every day of December before ED [Early Decision] I would go on YouTube and watch the acceptance video to manifest it, so immediately when the screen went black, I started screaming and jumping up and down. And my parents in the video are like ‘What are you doing, where’s the letter,’ and I was just screaming ‘I got in, I got in.” I just started crying, and it just felt like everything in the world came together.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ariana-2-300x217.jpg)
In a surprise move at the end of August, the Walt Disney Company announced that it was going to buy one of the largest comic distributors in the world, Marvel Comics. At $4 billion, the company will be sold for full asking price. Because of this, Disney now owns the rights to many superhero favorites, including Spiderman, the X-Men and the Hulk. Besides use of the characters, Disney also acquired the right to deny rival companies use of the Marvel superheroes, a very strategic move on Disney’s part.
This announcement is slightly reminiscent of a previous buy-out announced by Disney where in 2006, they bought out Pixar Animation Studios for a hefty $7.4 billion. Similar to the Pixar acquisition, this will provide Disney with many profitable rights, and while the benefits aren’t reported to be immediate, stock experts predict that Disney will see the profits of the merger to roll in by the 2012 fiscal year.
While this may seem a bit scary for fans of the masked superheroes, Disney has made a promise to keep the original design and direction of characters. Disney Corp. is also keeping Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter in charge of Marvel to ensure this happens. So, luckily for fans of the dark heroes like Iron Man and the Hulk, none of these characters will be teaching young children how to spell “cat” anytime soon.
The merger isn’t immediate, as many issues about the full rights of Marvel characters and brands are now coming to the surface. Marvel had previously made a deal with Universal to allow the exclusive use of its characters in Universal theme parks and attractions, leading to the Incredible Hulk Coaster and other rides in Universal Orlando. Disney has announced that they intend to honor these rights, but will also be receiving the profits from the attractions that would have normally gone into Marvel’s pockets.
While Disney has gained the rights to create Marvel attractions now, it has stated that no superhero rides will be built in their Orlando attractions. Instead, Disney CFO Tom Staggs has said that Disney will be looking at building Marvel-themed rides in its other theme parks around the world.
Besides roller coasters, many movie studios also held claim to the use of the Marvel characters before the Disney buy-out. The Sony Corporation owns the rights to the Spiderman franchise, and already has a May 2011 release slated for Spiderman 4. 20th Century Fox also owns movie rights to a large stable of Marvel superheroes, such as the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Since these contracts guarantee rights “in perpetuity”, they will only lose their rights when they stop making movies for their said franchises. Paramount Pictures also has a five-movie contract with Marvel. The first of these will be Iron Man 2, which will be releasing in May of 2010.
Disney has stated that they will honor these studio agreements as well and, at expiration of these licenses, will possibly extend any profitable ones.
Many speculate that the purchase of Marvel was due to Disney’s recent loss at the box offices. While movies like Up! were a moderate success, they had trouble competing with the blockbuster epics like Star Trek and Transformers. Disney itself has stated that they intend to use this merger as a method to re-acquaint themselves with the males of this generation (Disney has already made great investments in appealing to females with princess movies and TV shows). Disney CEO Robert Iger describes the Marvel heroes as “right in the wheelhouse for boys”. Marvel TV shows are already shown on the Disney XD channel intended for young boys. Hopefully with the edgier addition of heroes like Wolverine, it will provide a pleasant alternative to Hannah Montana for many young boys.
While movie-goers may not see Mickey and Spidey teaming up to fight the Green Goblin and Ursula anytime soon, this sudden purchase may yield significant profits for both companies. Stock market experts are already predicting a rise in Disney stock, a healthy change for the company after reporting a significant amount of debt. So until the dust settles and the companies begin working on integrating the two franchises, dreams of Spiderman hanging from the Magic Kingdom castle and the Silver Surfer circling Space Mountain will have to satisfy for now.
