For decades, young MBA's have stepped off the Greyhound with little more than an attaché case and a dream — a dream of making their fortunes by turning a moribund 1960's comic book character into a gazillion-dollar international film franchise. Today that dream just fell out of reach for many young dreamers.

The news that Disney has shelled out $4 billion to buy Marvel comics means, for all purposes, the ownership of America's beloved cartoon characters is now in the hands of two companies — Disney and Warner Bros.

Of all the issues facing Washington now, superhero rights no doubt fall low on the list, but what will it take for the government to step in with anti-trush legislation and let these animated citizens enjoy the full pleasures of the free market?

Facing off each other across from opposite ends of Burbank now, America's cartoon titans stand amassed in two armies like The Legion of Doom and The Teen Titans.

Serving now on Disney's payroll:

The classic Disney characters; Mickey, Minnie and the Country Bears

The Pixar Universe - from Buzz Lightyear to Up's formidable Carl Fredricksen

The Muppets

And now Marvel's Spiderman, the Moon Knight, Kingpin, Captain America and the Human Torch.

Here's what's in the Warners camp:

The DC Universe from Batman right on down to Mr. Mxyzptlk

The hangdog but never to be counted out Hanna-Barbera world — including Scooby Doo, a Tom and Jerry film in production, and the perpetually unquenchable demand for updated versions of the Jetsons and Flintstones, not to mention a little outlet known as the Smurfs.

And how could we forget Bugs Bunny and the Warner Brothers cartoon empire

Which leaves very very little for the other studios to pick over.

In fact, if one looks at Empire Magazine's list of the Greatest Comic Characters of All Time, Art Seigelman's holocaust allegory Maus stands as the lone member of the Top 20 not now in the Disney or Warners camps. Of the complete Top 50, the ten remaining free agents are a fairly motley collection of satirical characters (The Tick), untranslatable imports (Astro Boy) and edgy "alternative" characters (Harvey Pekar). When Steven Spielberg's work-in-progress Tin Tin finallys hits the screens, it may be a brave last stand for independent comic book characters, free from the iron chains of the Disney/Warners duopoly.

But ultimately, the greatest losers on this historic day are certainly the other studios whose coming summer slates are heavily dependent on help from their Marvel friends. Sony's Spiderman franchise, Paramount's Iron Man films and Fox plans for a thousand year reign of Avengers origins and team up films are now dependent to some degree on the good will of their friends at Disney.

And all that assumes the winds don't pick up and the fires raging in the hills don't consume us all in flames sometime before tea time today.

1) Where's The Classic Foursome Shot?: Yes, SJP is the star (and one of the EPs) of the series. But to feature only her on the poster is not only a slap in the face to her co-stars, each of whom are reduced to credits only, but confirms those rumors that SJP "demanded" that only she be the face of the poster. So congrats, Sarah Jessica. We get it. Kudos. You just didn't have to (literally) shove that fact in our face, k?

2) The Font's Angle Wouldn't Give Us A Headache...If We Were Stoned: How edgy! The credits, the title, and even SJP's stance is all wonkily crooked to the point where any effort we might have taken to read the small script would require tilting our heads to the side and squinting. Which really isn't fun at all. What's the point? New York is like, wild? Something more profound, like the girls are teetering on the edge of adulthood (a stage we're pretty sure we reached by Season Two)?

3) Pat Fields Has Officially Reached The Height Of Tackiness: From time to time, SATC costume designer and notoriously eccentric stylist Pat Fields has come through with a killer ensemble for the leading ladies. Sure, no "normal" girl could pull them off, but cinematically, they worked. And yet. We don't care if that blue smock is made of the purest crushed blue sapphires sourced straight from Burma; all we see is a shaggy shapeless rug. And don't get us started on the black fishnets. Really? No, really?

[Photo credit: WB/New Line via Firstshowing.net]

• EXCLUSIVE: FINAL 'SEX AND THE CITY: THE MOVIE' POSTER [FinalShowing.net]

That was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later..."

Despite his assurances and excuses, he has bigger fish to fry than bloggers and their readers; Slashfilm is also reporting that Things test screenings are scaring the kiddies! After hearing feedback from their target audience, the "extremely unhappy" execs at Warner Brothers are reportedly pushing the film's release date to 2009. What could be so scary that kids are crying and begging their parents to go home mid-film? Said one tester, "The things are not cute. Max comes off a bit weird and off-putting. He slaps his mom! And he seems confused and not charming at all." Stranger still, IMDB has an actor named Max Records listed for the role, which may explain all the tears. Apparently Records once "led a protest for vegetarian options at his school cafeteria" at 8 years old. Now that is scary.

[Photo Credit: SlashFilm]

• SPIKE JONZE RESPONDS TO 'WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE' VIDEO CLIP [SlashFilm]