Tacoma: Man wearing Spiderman mask robs 6th Avenue pizza joint

A man wearing a Spiderman ski mask robbed a pizza restaurant at gunpoint Monday night.

Disney completes $4 billion purchase of Marvel

The Walt Disney Co. completed its $4.24 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. on Thursday, bringing Spider-Man , Iron Man and 5,000 other characters under the same roof as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck .

Marvel shareholders approved the acquisition earlier Thursday as expected.

Marvel chief executive Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter , who owned 37 percent of Marvel stock, will oversee the Marvel business and report to Disney CEO Robert Iger .

Spidey joins Mickey: Disney buys Marvel

LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. is punching its way into the universe of superheroes and their male fans with a deal announced Monday to acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion, bringing characters such as Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and “Toy Story.”

The surprise cash-and-stock deal sent Spidey senses tingling in the comic book world. It could lead to new rides, movies, action figures and other outlets for Marvel’s 5,000 characters, although Marvel already was aggressively licensing its properties for such uses.

The deal won’t have benefits right away, and Disney stock sank on the news. Disney expects a short-term profit hit, and Marvel characters from X-Men to Daredevil are locked up in deals with other movie studios and theme parks. But Disney’s CEO, Robert Iger, promised an action-packed future.

New tourist thrill: No lines at California theme parks

LOS ANGELES – We scooted quickly to the front of Indiana Jones Adventure, Disneyland’s herky-jerky thrill ride designed, I’m sure, by a chiropractor looking for business.

We hopped right on Knott’s Berry Farm’s Sierra Sidewinder, a newfangled roller coaster that not only zips you along the traditional up-and-down track but also allows your four-person cart to spin. We could have ridden it again and again without much wait if my queasy stomach hadn’t kept me grounded.

We shuffled through the queue for maybe seven minutes to hop a tram tour of the back lot at Universal Studios Hollywood. I wanted to see the damage from a massive June fire that wiped out acres of old street facades and buildings that served as sets for movies including “Transformers,” “Back to the Future” and “Spider-Man 2.”

Sony Pictures to lay off 450 as DVD sales fall

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., the studio behind the "Spider-Man" movie franchise, is laying off about 450 people and eliminating 100 open positions to cope with declining DVD sales.

The layoffs represent about a 6.5 percent reduction in the 6,800-strong work force at Sony Pictures, which released the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It" and cataclysmic "2012" late last year. The studio also recently pushed back the release of "Spider-Man 4" by a year until 2012.

Most of the cuts at the studio, which is based in Culver City, will occur by the first week of March and will be in the home entertainment and information-technology units in the United States.