Well in case you have not heard, Walt Disney World has bought the rights to Marvel Comics, at least in some ways. It’s a complex deal with many twist and turns. The biggest and most awkward part of it is the relationship with Disney’s competitor, Universal Studios. You see, Universal already had a contract with Marvel Comics to build theme park rides and market merchandise from the characters of Marvel Comics.

At Universal Studios Islands Of Adventure they have a whole section called Marvel Super Hero Island. It features the Incredible Hulk roller coaster, The Spider Man ride, Dr. Dooms free fall ride and Storm’s Force Accelatron ride. They also have The X men characters running around in costume. Those are all characters from Marvel Comics.

So how is that going to affect Universal Studios? Will they have to shut down their Marvel rides? Well for now the answer is,,, no. It seems that Universal Studio retains some rights from their earlier contract. One of them is that Universal can continue using the Marvel trademarks for as long as the attractions are in operation. It also ensures that no other theme park east of the Mississippi River — including Walt Disney World — can develop attractions based on the same characters.

So if your afraid of your favorite theme park rides at Universal Studios getting shut down by Disney, you can relax. They will stay open and everything will go on as usual. Walt Disney cannot make new rides in their Florida theme parks based on Marvel Comics characters. However they can, and I’m sure they will, at Disneyland in California.

However it is a very interesting deal, with Disney holding rights to some aspects of what Universal Studios can do. I’m sure they don’t like it one bit! Die hard Marvel Comics fans are upset that Disney will come out with movies based on the Marvel Comics characters as more “sissy” than Universal would make them, seeing as Disney is family friendly.

I guess all we can do is wait and see what happens. In the meantime nothing will change much at Disney World or Universal Studios here in Orlando Florida. So all the rides will still be going at Universal, and no new Marvel Comics rides will be going up at Disney. We just have to wait and see if a new movie will be coming out called The Hulk verses Pirates Of The Caribbean!