Behind a good product is a good marketing scheme.

Behind a good marketing scheme is the marketing department of a successful company. And in today’s continually globalizing market, there’s an even better chance that behind that company is a super conglomerate.

These companies just keep getting bigger, spreading their arms around the world like a giant, inescapable bear hug.

Take PepsiCo Inc., for example, the real face behind products you love like Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Quaker, SoBe and Gatorade.

Or Time Inc.’s merger with Warner Communications, giving them the buying power to acquire TBS and AOL, centering them in the media and entertainment world.

Walt Disney Company is another super conglomerate — if not the ultimate conglomerate. It has been the operating and programming force behind ABC Television since 1995, which also landed the super company an 80 percent majority share in the ESPN networks.

Looking to reach an even broader audience, a certain hungry company made its move on Marvel Comics for a mere $4 billion. Know who?

It’s Disney, of course. Who else has that kind of cash in economic times like these? So, now, add to Disney’s repertoire more than 5,000 characters in the Marvel Universe.

The undertaking was made official Aug. 31 in a press release distributed by both companies: “Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. in a stock and cash transaction.”

Is anybody else saddened by this reality?

I am. Some of Stan Lee’s greatest creations are now to be spearheaded by the same people in charge of Mickey Mouse? The Marvel Universe is a wondrous place where such a rodent’s nose just doesn’t belong.

But hark, there is hope — for Marvel fans, that is.

Last weekend, the world learned that the current chairman of Disney Studios, Dick Cook, was fired after 38 years in the business. Reports of his dismissal point to sub-par movie revenues. Interestingly enough, one of those named to possibly replace Cook is Kevin Feige, the current Marvel president.

The idea of a Marvel person in charge of Marvel — even while working for Disney — is comforting, especially since the idea of Hannah Montana popping up in a Spider-Man bout against the likes of Venom is really quite sickening. You can swap Hannah for the Jonas Brothers, too, if you prefer.

Some, like Chris Pellack, assistant manager at Mayhem Comics, are happy about the sale. “Marvel needs Disney more than Disney needs Marvel. They picked it up basically to get back into the 13 – 18-year-old male demographic,” he said.

In fact, Pellack also hasn’t heard many complaints from his customers. “The way things are going, it sounds like Disney is really going to take a hands-off approach. I don’t think the story lines will change, at least not in the near future.”

However, until things get rolling and the pieces start falling  into place, I am not so easily won over. How many times have we been inundated with Disney’s marketing propaganda at the grocery store, fast food restaurants and in clothing lines at the mall?

Disney is spoon-feeding us from everywhere. In order to get the product out there, it’s conceivable that story lines may be sacrificed and character images altered.

If this is the case, Marvel fans lose. We have come to expect a high-caliber product from Marvel, and given Disney’s marketing powers, that product could easily be manipulated to suit–profit generation.

Still, it’s only been a month since Disney acquired Marvel. Only time will really tell how the two universes will coexist and whether or not the distinction between the two divisions is a hard line or a blurred one.

Disney is all about the icing on the cake, but Marvel has built up layers and layers of history and culture in its pages since the ’60s, when it really began taking off.

This was no small feat, and it has involved violence, war, death, destruction, weapons of mass destruction, chaos, [mutant] racism and dark, sinister characters  — not just heroes and patriotism.

Disney bought the comics to target the teenage demographic. Will it find a need to clean up the messier sides of life inherent in some of their acquired titles to do this? 

At least with Kevin Feige at the helm we might stand a chance. One can assume he will have Marvel’s interests at heart.

But no matter which way you slice it, some people are going to be worried about what the future has in store.

A Disney-Marvel parody on YouTube in which “Doctor Doom believes in playing fair” and “Punisher is braiding Logan’s hair” in a sing-along has all manner of resistant comments posted by viewers. There have been more than 225,000 hits on the site since the merger was announced.

Will hard-core Marvel fans be stuck with direct-to-DVD sequels as lame as “Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea,” more action figures than they can shake a stick at and — heaven forbid — a travelling Marvel Ice Capades, complete with Wolverine on skates? If this is Marvel’s future, I don’t want a part in it.

True Marvel fans know and love their product, and if Disney changes it too much we may have nothing left to love.

So, Disney, you’d better watch yourself, bub. Snikt.

Erin Mastre is a graduate student in landscape architecture from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.