Kids love Disneyland. They also seem to love strange men running around in tights. But the investors of tomorrow should balk at the purchase of Marvel Entertainment by Walt Disney. It is more a cartoon about the follies of dealmaking.

There are all the classic characters: the megacorp lusting after the company of the moment; a cast of comedy managers justifying a huge premium with financially redundant concepts such as “revenue synergies”; sycophantic analysts on the conference call preceding their questions with “Great deal guys!”