Recently, the news broke that Spider-Man had been loaned out to Disney by Sony Pictures for use in the cinematic universe.

This is truly a monumental event, and one of the best things to happen to both studios since, well, they both started making Marvel movies.

What does this mean for both studios? A few things:

Now we can have a proper “Civil War” movie

People who read comics know about the “Civil War” event, one of the biggest comic events to happen in a long time, and have a lasting effect. We also know that Spider-Man played an integral part.

After some untrained heroes inadvertently caused a school to be blown up, Iron Man began pushing for a registration act, while Captain America opposed him by valuing heroes’ secrecy.

Being pulled on by both Iron Man and Captain America, Spider-Man was the wild card that both sides needed to further their goals. Eventually Peter Parker even unveiled his identity publicly in one of the biggest suprises of the series.

And with the next “Captain America” movie being dubbed “Civil War,” Disney really, really needed Spider-Man to give this event the full effect of the comics. Simply put, there is no character in the storyline that Disney previously owned that could fill Spider-Man’s gap.

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours

Despite how you may feel about the last movie starring the web-slinger, it’s reception was pretty lukewarm. And even though Spider-Man has had a rocky road as far as movies go in the last decade, he remains one of the most universally used characters around the world.

By letting Disney use Spider-Man, their movie franchises will undoubtedly get a boost in appeal. After all, do kids want to be Hawkeye for Halloween?

So what does Sony gain from this? Free publicity, for starters.

Letting another studio use their character gives them some cross-promotion, which will without a doubt translate to larger sales. Sony just doesn’t have the collection of characters that Disney does, and now they can attempt to get the public eye back on some of their properties. This will also gain Sony Pictures some more popularity with movie-goers.

People may have wanted to see a Spider-Man crossover with X-men, but what more fans want is to see Captain America and Iron Man fight alongside Peter Parker.

Collegian A&E Geek Beat Writer Dom Lopez can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @DominiqueLopez.