Your 2017 Predictions, Part Two: Bring It On Again.

§ January 15th, 2018 § Filed under predictions § 3 Comments

AND SO IT CONTINUES SOME MORE: more looking behinder to see aheader via your comic industry predictions for 2017 and checking who got it right, who got it wrong, and how good your pal Mike’s memory is. Part one of this series is right here, and if you want to participate in next year’s event, drop your 2018 comics predictions in the comments here.

Let’s jump right in!

Hulk It Up, Y’all! smashes through with

“Monsters Unleashed will be the first truly fun big ol’ Marvel crossover on a long time, which will be much needed after Civil War II”

Well, parts of it were fun, but the series as a whole didn’t seem to grab the same amount of eyeballs as the Civil War event. I suspect, however, it was a sufficient palate cleanser for those sampled it.

“Wonder Woman will be a big ol’ flop, thus further damaging movie studios’ faith in female led superhero movies :(. If that happens, I will not be happy.”

Never fear, Mr. and/or Mrs. Hulk It Up, Y’all! as the Wonder Woman movie was indeed a big ol’ hit.

“That FCBD Star Trek TNG Mirror Universe comic will be a big ol’ load of fun, and somehow less bleak than a certain movie that also has the word ‘Star’ in it that came out this year.”

I quite liked that Mirror Universe story…I don’t read too many modern ST comics, but I make the occasional exception and this was was pretty fun. It was, as you say, less bleak than that one “Star” movie.

• • •

Pelasgus’s Pal Jason Sandberg submits

“Marvel will move several flagship titles to a biweekly schedule. (The change might be implemented in the manner of Waid’s current ‘Avengers’ run with .1 issues).”

There wasn’t a deliberate and consistent effort to duplicate DC’s biweekly books at Marvel, aside from the occasional shipping shenanigans that resulted in consecutive issues being released close together. There were those .1 issues alternating with their parent titles, like you said, but that’s not quite the same as a single biweekly book. As it turns out, Avengers is weekly for a storyline in 2018, which is not something I would have predicted!

“DC will launch a ‘Bat-Man and the Justice League’ title.”

There is a new (biweekly!) Justice League of America title that is basically “Batman and the Justice League,” which was actually solicited in the same month you made your prediction, but my guess is that you may not have known about it. It’s not titled “Batman and the Justice League,” which…well, I kinda wonder how that would have improved sales?

“Boom! Studios will announce a December 2017 ‘Klaus’ one-shot from Grant Morrison & Dan Mora, this will become a beloved annual Christmas tradition.”

Indeedy-doodly. I hope, like you, they do this every year.

• • •

googum googumed:

“There were a lot of comics with Obama covers. Not expecting anywhere near as many Trump ones.”

There were quite a few Trump parody comics in the past year…I think he’s still behind in numbers versus the Obama comics, but hey, it’s only been a year, I’m sure Trump will catch up in the next seven years of his term. But anyway, like I said in this End of Civilization post a while back, there certainly is a different…tone to the Trump books, isn’t there?

“Even though the sales are better than most other books, Marvel still decides to shake up Star Wars; with a new number one and setting stories after Empire.”

I am surprised the main Star Wars book hasn’t been restarted with a new setting and/or focus yet. I bet they’ll do what you predicted here eventually.

“Next big comics death? I’m guessing Storm.”

Storm is still amongst the four-color living at the moment. In fact, did we have any big character deaths this last year? I mean big as in “anybody caring” or “it made the TV news because nothing else was going on that day.” I know a character or three died in Marvel’s event, but I’m pretty sure all that resulted was some shrugging and assuming the character(s) will be back in whatever the next event will be.

• • •

Harvey Jerkwater spills the following

“Marvel will continue its strategy of creating a second version of every hero as well as its strategy of making the original hero temporarily evil (e.g., Superior Spider-Man, Superior Iron Man, the Hydra-fied Captain America) and it will lead to at least one hilarious misfire that will prompt years of ‘can you believe they did that’ internet giggles.”

Honestly, I can’t think of anything that meets that criteria more than Hydra-Cap. And we’ll never be able to let that sink into the memory hole because I’m sure he’ll get dragged out as a nemesis for every other event series from now on.

“The temptation to create a Big Event where the original versions of the Marvel heroes fight the second versions will prove too strong for editorial to resist.”

Marvel did in fact do this with their “Generations” series of one-shots, with Wolvering Vs. All-New Wolverine, etc. It wasn’t so much an event as event-tangent, spinning off from Secret Empire.

“The Punisher will pick up a ‘Mr. Myxyzptlk/Bat-Mite’ style puckish magical imp called ‘Li’l Bang-Bang’ to bedevil him with fanboy questions and magical shenanigans during his relentless mission of vengeance.”

Will pray every day to any entity that will listen for this to someday take place.

• • •

Bob Stec goes this way with

“Trump will NOT appear on comics covers or interiors as President Obama did, instead, he will appear in stories as thinly veiled (but obvious) villains across the Marvel and DC lines.”

The ol’ Trumpeteer has been showing up in lots of indie comics, and he was, shall we say, prominently presented in an issue of Savage Dragon. He’s made a few appearances in recent DC books (noted here), and the Marvel wiki has a couple of not-very-flattering appearances listed here. Nothing quite on the level of Serpent Society Ronald Reagan yet.

“A Marvel Comics Bronze Age Christmas Story Omnibus will be published. Over-sized and re-colored for your yuletide pleasure.”

Again, I’m surprised they didn’t do anything like this. They’ve got enough reasonably good holiday stories to make for a solid omnibus edition.

“Batman ’66/Gilligan’s Island mini-series will be published. It will contain a scene where Sherwood Schwartz and Julius Schwartz meet ‘n’ greet. Written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Kevin Maguire! C’mon you know this would be awesome!”

I can picture this greatness in my head, and I hate you for making me want this thing that will never happen. Unless of course I start a GoFundMe campaign to collect enough cash to commission a story by these guys that only I can get to read.

• • •

Thelonious_Nick cuts in with

“As Marvel sales continue to drop, DC holds steady, and Image gains ground, we start talking of a ‘Big 3’ comic companies.”

As I noted in an edit to the last prediction post, market shares held relatively steady, even if actual monies made dipped. I don’t think anyone’s talking “Big 3” yet, but certainly nobody’s ignoring Image as a powerful player in the marketplace.

“Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Lego Batman movies earn ALL the money this year, Wonder Woman movie is too dark for parents to take their kids to see and fares poorly, Thor 3 seen as derivative and bombs at box office. Latest Spider-Man reboot and Logan stand-alone movie leave theaters after two weeks having barely made a ripple.”

GOTG2 did very well ($860 million), and Lego Batman had a good showing (about $312 million). But everything else you listed there did just fine, too! In fact, I think Logan was the second-highest grossing X-Men movie (behind Days of Future Past). Homecoming had a slightly higher box office than Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the other two movies you mentioned…well, you’ve probably heard how they’ve done!

“Following Life After and Exodus: Life After, the Life After will start its third series–Leviticus: Life After.”

Oh, you.

• • •

Simon says

“Retailers will start merging or collapsing.”

There were a lot of stories over the last few weeks about stores taking financial hits after a lackluster year…I’m sure we lost a few shops, but I haven’t heard of any specific shop mergers to, like, save businesses. Could start happening if problems continue…it’s an option that could be considered.

“Publishers will keep merging or collapsing.”

There’s certainly been some cooperation…Marvel teaming with Archie to get those Spider-Man and X-Men digests into grocery stores, for example, and IDW is still packaging high-end reprints and special collections for other companies. There was stuff like Netflix buying Millarworld’s stuff, but that’s not quite the same. I can’t think of any companies literally merging into one company in our industry, but I do have a bad memory for that sort of thing. Let me know what I missed and I’ll add it in here.

“A mainstream comic mag may launch.”

I get what you mean, but I can’t think of any U.S. publications that would match what you’re probably thinking of. There are plenty of mainstream graphic novels that are doing gangbuster business, like DC Super Hero Girls and anything by Raina Telgemeier, but there isn’t any regularly published comics mag that gets on all the newsstands and in the grocery stories that’s widely bought by folks who don’t normally buy comics…well, maybe Mad, but even that’s not what it was. Hey, maybe someday.

• • •

That’s the end for today…come back soon for part 3 of your 2017 predictions! And, of course, a big thanks to everyone who participated!

3 Responses to “Your 2017 Predictions, Part Two: Bring It On Again.”

  • David Alexander McDonald says:

    Black Widow bought the farm in Secret a Empire, didn’t she? Also, Rick Jones, not that we care.

  • JD says:

    Marvel did make several of its titles biweekly without much fanfare : X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue, Guardians of the Galaxy (the last of which has already been cancelled for a retooling).

    I think Deadpool is still on its “at least 18 issues a year” schedule, but that’s not the same thing.

    I’m pretty sure the only reason Amazing Spider-Man isn’t biweekly (like they actually did for a while after Slott took over full-time) is that Slott has trouble handling that schedule (hence the frequent co-writers) ; that may very well change with the new writer incoming soon.

  • Paul Di Filippo says:

    Regarding “a mainstream comic mag may launch,” not sure if you’d conside these 2 items relevant. One an actual launch, one an announcement:

    http://www.fantagraphics.com/now1/

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/41834867/full-bleed-the-comics-and-culture-quarterly