It’s not the biggest media merger ever, but it may be the most intriguing one: The Walt Disney Company has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Which means that Mickey Mouse, Goofy, the Amazing Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Pinocchio, the X-Men, Gus and Jaq-Jaq, Kermit the Frog, Captain America, the Little Mermaid, Ghost Rider, Buzz Lightyear, the Dazzler, Dr. Strange, Hannah Montana, all 101 Dalmatians, and both Donald and Howard Duck will work for the same company.

I’m reporting on this here mainly because it seems like a safe bet that Disney is putting down its four bil in part because of the potential it sees for Marvel characters in digital form: in games, on the Web, via digital distribution of movies, on mobile devices, and more. But I’m also covering this because I felt like doing a T-Grid. After the jump, a quick comparison of two legendary characters who will surely meet before too much time has passed.

Corporate icon	Mickey Mouse	Spider-Man
Age	81	47
Creators	Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks	Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
First appearance	Steamboat Willie	Amazing Fantasy #15
Superpowers	Preternaturally cheerful	Radioactive blood provides amazing strength and Spidey-Sense
Hometown	Burbank (or, in more recent stories, Mouseton)	New York City
Secret identity	Mickey Mouse	Peter Parker
Fights evil	Sometimes	Frequently
Wears shirt	Sometimes	Usually
Significant other	Minnie Mouse	Mary Jane Watson
Archenemy	Pegleg Pete (aka Black Pete, aka Pete)	The Green Goblin (aka Norman Osborn)
Pet	Pluto	None that I know of Ms. Lion, at least kinda
Memorable quote	“Arithmetic is being able to count up to 20 without taking off your shoes”	“With great power comes great responsibility”
Memorable theme-song line	“Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?”	“Spider-Man/Spider-Man/does whatever a spider can.”
Portrayed by	Walt Disney, Jimmie MacDonald, Wayne Allwine	Nicholas Hammond, Tobey Maguire
Met Superman	No	Yes
Met Bugs Bunny	Yes	No
Met Howard the Duck	No, but now he can	Yes
Met Kermit the Frog	Yes	Yes, but only when Kermit was an infant
Wears gloves	Yes	Yes
Subject of Orlando theme-park attraction?	Yes	Yes
Popular subject of wristwatch design	Definitely	Yes, actually
Star of long-running newspaper comic strip	Yes	Yes
Star of videogames	Yes	Yes
Popular in Japan	Yes	Yes

 
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