Your 2017 Predictions, Part Five: Fight to the Finish.

§ January 22nd, 2018 § Filed under predictions § 2 Comments

Previous installments: one two three four

Covering: your 2017 predictions

Enter: your 2018 predictions here

LET’S CONTINUE:

Gareth Wilson volleys

“A high-schooler teacher on a Marvel movie or TV show will irritably demand to know where Kamala Khan or Miles Morales is. Not necessarily the Spider-Man movie.”

Well, a little Googling and Wikipedia-ing reveals that, yes, there was a deleted scene from the Spider-Man: Homecoming film that references Miles Morales. Can’t seem to find anything similar for Ms. Khan, but both Ms. Marvel and the Miles Spider-Man have made direct appearances in cartoons, so, you know, there’s that.

“A new Marvel or DC character will be introduced who is white and from a working-class rural background. They will be firmly established as not racist, sexist, or homophobic.”

Can’t think of any specific examples, but sure, why not. I don’t know that they’d have been established as not having those traits, but, y’know, so long as they’re not explicitly shown as mocking Norwegians, chasing secretaries around desks, and hatin’ on gays, that’s at least something.

“Some kind of Green Lantern adaptation – comic, movie, or TV show – will emphasise the Lanterns as law enforcement officers, and implicitly criticise other superheroes as irresponsible vigilantes.”

Well, the Green Lanterns as space cops thing’s been in the comics for a while now, but I can’t recall any kind of in-story comparison/conflict/reading that pushes the GL Corps as being superior to superpowered vigilantes. It’s probably come up at some point, but don’t recall any major storylines of late where that was a plot point.

• • •

Michael Grabowski hands off

“Full frontal face-to-face interaction between Watchmen and DCU characters within the DCU continuity, but then the characters will be back to separate universes with new ongoing Watchmen-related comics.”

“Full frontal,” indeed…I see what you did there. The Doomsday Clock series is just barely underway, and the meetings of characters are only just beginning. Well, there was that Batman/Flash “The Button” story where Reverse-Flash seemingly meets Dr. Manhattan, but that was all off-panel. I think the real meat of this crossover has yet to be rev…er, maybe I should rephrase that.

I do expect follow-ups on Doomsday Clock with Watchmen characters, but totally in DCU continuity. C’mon, they’d have to be, for no other reason than to drive people crazy.

“President Trump, or presidential characters inspired by him, will play a significant role in the present-day continuties of both Marvel and DCU comics.”

Pretty much avoided ol’ Trumpy in their comics. Like I said in a previous installment of these Prediction posts, indie comics seem to have it covered.

“The 40th anniversary of Cerebus the Aardvark #1 will result in renewed interest in the character and the restored editions of the trade volumes in spite of Dave Sim’s ongoing awkward and amibivalent approach to promoting his work.”

There have been several Cerebus-related comics this year…all reprints of his webstrip Cerebus in Hell, featuring Our Favorite Aardvark in essentially clipart form, pasted over Gustave Doré illustrations from Dante’s Inferno. I don’t know if there’s been increased interest in Cerebus of late…I’ve only sold a few volumes since I’ve opened my store, period, though I’ve seen some chatter about it online here and there. At least it’s still being discussed, 15+ years after it wrapped up!

• • •

Dave Carter has Yet Another set of predictions

“DC’s summer event, which will feature the Watchmen characters (or some derivation thereof) interacting with the DCU. will meet with derision and general condemnation by fans online, yet still sell very well.”

The actual event, Doomsday Clock, didn’t start ’til almost the end of the year. but it is selling very well despite negative online reaction. In-store reaction has been mostly positive. The same goes for the earlier mini-event “The Button,” which was closer to spring than summer, but sort of had the same reaction.

“Ms. Marvel collections will continue to be one of Marvel’s best-selling items, with a huge portion of their sales (at least 50%) coming from outside comic shops.”

A couple of articles on Marvel’s slumping sales (early in the year, and later) both emphasize Ms. Marvel’s high trade sales…how much is from outside the direct market, I’m not sure, but it’s likely a not-insignificant amount.

“A third-tier comics publisher will attempt to jump on the Trump bandwagon by publishing comics designed to appeal to the so-called alt-right.”

There was some talk and fundraising along these lines, but it was pretty late in the year and so nothing’s out quite yet. You can read a little about it here.

• • •

Tim B. supplies

“Geoff Johns’s New Years Day tweet with the close up of Dr Manhattan actually relates to his 12 issue magnum opus entitled Northampton that involves an up & coming comic book writer going mad touring the Midlands and encountering a lot of characters from the works of Alan Moore in a biting criticism of mass market pop cultures as a distraction against the random chaos of the universe. Moore’s grumbling can be heard from the International Space Station…”

Alas, Geoff Johns’ LARGE DIGITS did not see the light of day.

“The DCEU films will continue to make mistakes that they rectify in the next film, only to produce new, different mistakes attaining an asymptotic relationship to the platonic ideal of super-hero films.”

Well, in my opinion, the Justice League film addressed the criticisms that previous DC films were too dark by giving us a fun adventure. But yes, it had its problems…nothing new, just the same old “villain is evil because he’s evil” motivation. Whether that problem can be fixed in the next film is more an issue with big-budget action movie production as a whole than just DC superhero movies. We’ll see.

“The Inhumans continue to not be a thing, for the 52nd year running…”

(sigh) Yeah….

• • •

Adam Farrar goes too far with

“DC doesn’t think to put out a comic to capitalize on The Lego Batman Movie. Maybe some cover variants, but no comics.”

No comics, or even variants…unless you count the variants from a couple of years ago that fooled some people into thinking they actually were Lego comics. There were a few kids books, at least.

“Neil Gaiman & Mark Buckingham’s Miracleman comics start coming out again.”

That would have been nice. Been waiting for a follow-up on that cliffhanger for decades.

“Kurt Busiek & John Paul Leon’s ‘Batman: Creature of the Night’ finally comes out.”

Indeed it did, just under the wire!

• • •

Jeff R. wraps up today’s installment with

“We get a Legion book back this year, finally. (Also, the Legion will have a huge role in the CW-verse(s) fall 2017)”

No Legion of Super-Heroes comic yet (though it appears to at least be a gleam in DC’s eye at the moment). The Legion did begin their involvement in the CW superhero shows in the episode or two of Supergirl“Still no Fantastic Four Book in 2017.”

As answered previously, there’s like half an FF book, with the Thing and the Human Torch in the Marvel Two-in-One series.

“We will get at least two things on this list: New Frank Miller Sin City, A Fourth Scott McCloud nonfiction book, all of Gaiman’s Miracleman: The Silver Age, Matt Wagner’s Mage III, and/or a trade paperback collection of Foglio’s Buck Godot: The Gallumaufry.”

You got one of those things (the Mage III comics) and you’ll like it, mister!

• • •

Okay, next time will be the end of the predictions, so hang on just a little bit longer, everyone!

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