It’s almost official. Comcast has dropped out of the race. Now only Disney remains in line to acquire 21st Century Fox. Disney is now one of the largest conglomerates in the world, owning billion-dollar franchises like Marvel and Star Wars. With Disney buying Fox, it could mean a lot of changes ahead for Marvel games. Have you ever wondered why the X-Men and Fantastic Four have been strangely absent from Marvel games for the past several years? It’s a complicated subject, but if Disney buys Fox, we could be seeing the Children of the Atom and Marvel’s First Family in games again.
Earlier today, CNN reported that “Disney has won the war for 21st Century Fox.” Comcast has dropped its $65 billion bid, effectively ending the bidding war between both companies in acquiring Fox’s movie studio. However, things aren’t set in stone yet. Disney shareholders will still have to vote next week in order to finally confirm the acquisition. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said: “I’d like to congratulate Bob Iger and the team at Disney and commend the Murdoch family and Fox for creating such a desirable and respected company.”
The last time that we saw both the X-Men and Fantastic Four in a major Marvel game was Lego Marvel Superheroes in 2013. To be fair, that hasn’t been many major Marvel titles since then. However, we should point out that recent titles like 2017’s Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite have been devoid of any X-Men or Fantastic Four characters. This could be part of Marvel or Disney’s corporate commands but things look like they’re going to change very soon.
Despite all that, the X-Men and Fantastic Four have been slowly re-emerging in Marvel games, albeit in recent mobile titles like Marvel Contest of Champions and Marvel Future Fight. These indicate that Disney and Marvel are willing to start featuring the X-Men and Fantastic Four in games again. Let’s hope that the Disney is successful in acquiring Fox, which would mean that there would be no more barriers to bringing both of Marvel’s much-beloved IPs back in gaming. In other related news, the upcoming Spider-Man PS4 exclusive will soon be officially part of comic book canon. Insomniac’s version of Spidey will appear in an upcoming comic book crossover called Spidergeddon.
