Today's Column: anybody want a Dark Claw movie?

This month's column went up early. Superheroes again. They keep me talking it appears.

Disney, koop DC alsjeblieft!

Of course the tone of this piece is meant somewhat sarcastically. Sure, I'd love to see a Dark Claw movie or any other feature related to the wonderful Amalgam universe, but it's definitely not gonna happen. Ever. And I don't think all movie studios owning superhero copyrights joining together, either out of their own volition or because they're bought up by a larger corporation, would be a preferable solution. One studio owning all the superhero franchises isn't a monopoly we would want. Say what you will about various studios owning various pieces of the various superhero universe puzzles, it guarantees some diversity. If Marvel hadn't sold the rights to Spider-Man and similar large, popular and well known properties, we likely wouldn't have gotten Iron Man, Thor or Guardians of the Galaxy, and seeing as how well that turned out, that clearly would have been a great loss. Now that Spider-Man has returned to Marvel's fold, we have yet to see whether he's not gonna reap too much of other characters' glory, even though the fact Marvel is still working on titles like Captain Marvel, Inhumans and Black Panther is reassuring to some extent, as they seemingly mean to keep the diversity flowing.

But what about the fanboys' dreams of 'interpublisher' crossovers between characters belonging not only to rival studios, but also to rival publishers? They'll stay dreams. I doubt that would change even if a major player like Disney managed to buy the rights to the DC characters after all. Which certainly isn't inconceivable, considering the various properties they bought up in recent years. It often feels with all these companies buying companies, you'll one day end up with one humongously big fat supercompany on top, controlling every franchise. Maybe that'll be Disney in the not too distant future (they don't own the business genius of Scrooge McDuck for nothing, you know). But seeing as how they have yet to do crossovers between Indiana Jones and Marvel, or between more similar brands like the Muppets and Disney's own iconic characters, I doubt they'd go so far as to do a DC/Marvel crossover, let alone Amalgam. (Then again, there already is a comic book which serves as a crossover between Star Wars and Indiana Jones, courtesy of Harrison Ford's presence in both of them.) But if it ever happened, would it be good? An Amalgam adaptation, maybe. It's hard to mess up a fabulous hybrid notion like Dark Claw. A giant crossover between the Avengers and the Justice League? No way, far too many characters and their assorted baggage to make for a sensible plot line. Only the hungriest fanboys would understand it completely, but general audiences couldn't make heads or tails of it all. Let's see whether DC knows how to join its own characters together with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice first. Not to mention it has yet to be determined whether Marvel can pull a similar trick with having more than one group share the screen, as will be the case when the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy join forces in Avengers: Infinity War Parts I & II.

And otherwise, let's just keep dreaming about these little fanboy fantasies of ours. I'm still dreaming of the release of more than only two Dark Claw comics...