by Thom Pratt
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In a somewhat surprising announcement, IDW has announced that they will be publishing comic books based on the animated version of Disney’s Big Hero 6.

While it’s not surprising that IDW is publishing yet another comic based on an animated series, Big Hero 6 is a bit of an exception.

You see, Big Hero 6 originated as a Marvel superhero comic; a spinoff of X-Men, featuring Sunfire as the team leader. Although the IDW version will be based on the feature film and accompanying Disney XD series, it does set a precedent for a licensee to handle outsourced Marvel superhero properties.

And it’s completely possible that if all goes well, Disney will let more and more licensees handle Marvel superhero books. Will a day come when Marvel doesn’t actually publish its comics in-house? We’ve speculated before that this is a very possible scenario, as Disney currently lets licensees handle all of its other IP and Marvel Comics is reportedly hurting these days.

For Disney, it may just be easier to shut down the comics publishing arm of Marvel and focus on movies, television and theme parks while letting potential licensees pay Disney for the rights to publish tie-in comics.

IDW Publishing currently publishes a number of Disney comics, such as Uncle Scrooge and DuckTales. They also publish the all-ages Star Wars titles, which is another interesting move by Disney as Star Wars has consistently been one of Marvel’s biggest sellers.

Time will tell how this all plays out.

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Originally published at http://thekingdominsider.com/idw-publish-marvel-comics-big-hero-6/

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Originally published October 12, 2017.