No New Comics Coming For Big Hero 6

The upcoming Disney animated Big Hero 6 movie is only very loosely based on the Marvel comic series Sunfire & Big Hero 6. Even the term “based” is probably too strong. It takes the name and the very general concept of a team with the character Baymax on it, and that’s about it.

Of course if the movie proves popular, Marvel could always follow it up with comics featuring the on-screen team, but it looks like that’s not in the cards. Newsarama did the logical thing and just straight up asked Marvel about that possibility, receiving a pretty definite denial:

"Marvel tells Newsarama that there are no plans to feature the characters of the film as part of any upcoming comics projects – neither as guest stars, in their own series, or even reprinting earlier stories that inspired the movie."

Sure, the animated film is set in a fictional location that doesn’t exist in the Marvel Universe, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a Big Hero 6 series set in its own continuity. Marvel already does that for its books based on the animated shows it has running on TV.

Maybe this will turn into a wait and see thing where Disney and Marvel see how successful the movie is first. Or it could be that the film is such a departure from the comics that “inspired” it that there would only be confusion if the name was used again in print.

Whatever the reason, it’s a little surprising to see a property make it from comics to screen with no plans on returning to its roots.