![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.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.
