At New York Comic Con this past weekend, IDW Publishing announced plans to publish a comic adaptation of Disney XD’s upcoming Big Hero 6 animated series, which is based on the movie of the same name, which in turn was inspired by a comic book published by Marvel.
Let’s take a second to get our heads around that.
Not a lot of details were given, but based on IDW’s established relationship with Disney, it isn’t too surprising if you follow the breadcrumbs. IDW publishes a bunch of Disney-related comics already, including those featuring the “Fab Five” of Mickey, Donald and company. They’ve also recently published comics based on two other Disney TV shows, DuckTales, the reboot of which recently debuted on Disney XD, and Tangled: The Series. Big Hero 6 has a lot in common with the latter, starting as an animated Disney feature film and then becoming a cartoon for one of Disney’s networks.
So why isn’t Marvel doing the comic? Marvel hasn’t done anything with the original Big Hero 6 team since the film came out — and more interestingly, they didn’t do anything when they film came out, which E-i-C Axel Alonso talked about at the time.
“The characters and stories that have appeared in our comics are very different from what they are in the film. Releasing material that would be viewed as movie tie-in product would be a disservice to filmgoers,” Alonso told CBR back in 2014. “We wanted the Disney folks to be able to create their own unique style and story, unencumbered by those older stories.”
IDW’s announcement can be found below:
Disclosure: The author of this post also writes for Marvel.com.
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