What do Snow White, Monday Night Football, Jimmy Kimmel, and now Spider-Man and Iron Man all have in common? Give up? Well, as of this morning, they’re all owned by Disney. Yes, it was announced today that Disney has bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion in cash and stock. This is Disney’s biggest acquisition since it bought Pixar for $7.6 billion back in 2006. Why such a purchase, now, in this economy, in which Disney actually paid quite a premium to own the Marvel brand? Reuters says it’s all demographics.

“This helps give Disney more important exposure to the young male demographic that they have sort of lost some ground with in recent years,” said David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. Indeed, Disney has long been a blockbuster brand with girls thanks to characters such as “Hannah Montana,” “Cinderella” and “Snow White,” but has struggled to achieve the same kind of success with boys.

And, just think of the marketing power Disney has that Marvel couldn’t tap into. With ABC, ESPN, cable channels, theme parks, distribution rights, and so forth and so on, Disney has the power to push Marvel further into the general population (you know, in case you missed those indie Spider-Man flicks). As noted in the New York Times, this is not a merger of necessity, but of opportunity.

“This deal is not principally driven by cost saving or redundancies,” [Disney CFO Thomas] Staggs said. “What really drives this is the opportunity for synergies over time.” [Marvel chief executive Ike] Perlmutter said in a statement: “Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses.” Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney’s global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel’s properties.

So I see this as in line with the Pixar merger: Marvel gets to keep doing what it’s down, but the paychecks will just be cut somewhere else. Disney, meanwhile, will reap the branding and license benefits, as well as increase its demographics. Personally, I’m excited to see what Disney does with the Marvel brand. Here’s to hoping that in Iron Man 2, Robert Downey, Jr. has to deal with his arch-nemesis: Donald Duck.

photo credit: bredgur’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons