The Marvel-Disney buyout's major problem isn't necessarily creative, but one of flexibility and the further ghettoization of comics. As a comic company not previously owned by a large media conglomerate, Marvel was allowed a considerable degree of creative autonomy. Unlike DC, who have always been more conservative in promoting new ideas due to their ownership by AOL Time Warner.

In 1933, a ragtag bunch of comic book professionals banded together to form what eventually became Marvel Comics-- a company that has been at the forefront of the comic book industry since its inception. Unfortunately, Marvel hit the skids in the early 1990s due to a series of editorial miscues and financial mismanagement that cost the company a fair chunk of money. Worth just shy of $100 million in the late 1980s, Marvel ran out of money and declared bankruptcy in 1996.