That was my feeling as well, when the news about Disney & Marvel broke (and with Star Wars as well, honestly, although I'm not sure how litigious Lucasfilm was about this stuff). So far it doesn't seem to have come to much, but there's no guarantee that won't change.

Right?? If nothing else, it's a fascinating demographic shift. (When I was doing research for my Yuletide story this past fall, it was something I got to thinking about a whole lot ... how the infamous "asking your fans to pay for new iPods and lip gloss" sort of thing has transitioned to it being absolutely normal to have tip jars and links to Amazon wishlists in people's profiles. Which is all part of a larger cultural landscape, of course.)