Marvel Gets Vicepresident from Sony

Marvel, a company best known for superheroes like Hulk (who is getting an Edward Norton starring movie) and Iron Man (who is also getting a movie, starring Robert Downey Jr.), has announced that Ira Rubenstein would be its new Global Digital Media executive vice president. The move signals a desire by the comic book giant to expand the reach of its business. Digital media is a fast growing sector which attracts more and more young people, who are also the primary audience for comic books. It makes perfect sense for Marvel to create new digital products that will target this consumer segment.

Rubenstein has important experience in management, serving as Sony Pictures Digital's executive V. in charge of mobile games, casual games and promotional partnerships.

Marvel stated the importance the new executive will have in the process to "maximize the Marvel Universe across all digital media". Marvel.com, MarvelKids.com and Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited will be the main elements of the company's strategy to expand into the digital space.

Rubenstein said that "With a world-renowned library of characters to tap into, I am very excited to join Marvel and ultimately develop valuable digital assets that resonate with consumers and beyond. This is a tremendous opportunity and I look forward to extending the reach of these iconic properties across a whole new Marvel universe".

To try and translate a bit, he is going to try and use the impressive intellectual property assets that Marvel has, primarily its best known superheroes, to create games and other sources of revenue that can complement Marvel's primary business in creating comics.

As the videogame industry searches for new and interesting intellectual properties that it can exploit and as the comic book industry is trying to find new outlets on which to create value based on its well known superheroes and villains, it's pretty much inevitable that we'll see more and more games based on comic books together with more cross promotion efforts for games. Currently, Prototype and Dead Space are getting a comic book tie in while Midway has announced that the new Mortal Kombat game would feature heroes from he DC Universe.