Your 2017 Predictions, Part Six: Worldwide Cheersmack.
Okay, here it is, the last installment of looking back at your 2017 predictions (parts one two three four five)! Well, there’s still one more part looking at your reactions to the last few posts, but the national nightmare is almost over! Thanks for sticking with me through this annual trek of mine.
Also, if you want to be part of the adventure next year, throw in your 2018 predictions here, even though we’re about 1/12th of the way through 2017 already.
LET’S GO PREDICTIN’ NOW:
Andrew sends me off on a true life adventure with
“Marvel reacquires at least some Fantastic Four rights, and revives Benjy Grimm of ‘Thing Ring, do your thing’ fame/infamy as a Netflix show.”
As you might have heard, Disney may be getting some of their properties back for film use via their Fox deal (barring any legal blocking of said deal), so we may actually see new FF or X-Men movies in the eventual future. …I’m going to guess that, sadly, the Thing Ring will not make a reappearance.
“Some sort of live-action Crisis or Convergence or Zero Hour happens to merge the CW shows because Berlanti finally figures out that Earth-1 should not be a world without a Superman. Swamp Thing will play a pivotal role.”
If they keep getting John Constantine cameos on the CW shows, maybe Swamp Thing will turn up someday. But for your main prediction…we actually did get a “Crisis” story on-screen, involving multiple Earths, which still seems impossible despite having watched it with my own eyes. No merging of parallel universes just yet, but if we recall our first season Flash episodes, there was that newspaper from the future that had an article about a “Crisis” event, red skies an’ all. So, yeah, I imagine sooner or later we’ll get all our characters living together on Earth-CW, but maybe not for a while.
“The Goldsman/Liefeld deal results in a Supreme movie heavily inspired by Alan Moore’s work. It will make all the money, and heads at Time Warner will roll. Fanboys will be confused when director Joss Whedon or Quentin Tarantino aim the camera so that Suprema’s feet are in every shot.”
Nothin’ yet, though I’d love to see how people react to an Alan Moore-inspired Supreme film. It would likely require replacing Silver Age Superman nostalgia as its building blocks for…I don’t know, Christopher Reeve nostalgia? Any way they do it, it’ll be weird. And your comment about the focus on feet…I’m going to read that as a comment about Liefeld’s apparent reticence for drawing feet, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE.
Philippe Leblanc wires me the following
“Legion of Superheroes will become the latest DC/CW TV show. People walk in comic shops to buy the latest Legion comics only to find confusing reprints of former series instead.”
Close…we got a small intro of them just before the end of the year in Supergirl, but didn’t get a full-on appearance ’til this year. Haven’t seen much in-store interest in Legion stories, but yeah, aside from the occasional one-off appearance (like the Bugs Bunny or Scooby-Doo crossovers), just a handful of reprint books are available. Bad time to not have an ongoing Legion comic at least for the already-buying-comics folks who might have picked it up if they saw it on the shelf.
“Marvel’s dropping of digital codes drives regular audience away. In order to revitalize sales, Marvel begins releasing exclusive Pogs to drum up sales. It’s a major success leading to a huge Pogs revival.”
Dropping those codes did annoy a few customers…a lot of folks who still liked getting the physical editions enjoyed having the digital codes to put the books on their electronical doohickeys, and removing the codes did damage the perceived value of the books. Thankfully Marvel did reverse the decision before they had to initiate the Pog Directives.
“DC Comics launches a new comic called ‘Swamp Thing & friends.’ The first issue features Swampy investigating a comic stealing crime that leads him directly to Sterling comics. Mike Sterling makes a cameo in a Swamp Thing comic. Swampy’s catches the crook too late and the owner of Sterling comics is killed. Swampy, in an act of kindness take Sterling to becomes part of the green, makes him immortal. They hang out regularly during the course of the series, doing all sorts of fun activities like canoeing, camping, having fondue and talking about the thing Swamp Thing likes the most, himself!”
Jerry Smith rigs these up
“Marvel’s sales slide will increase, with fans rejecting their pushing of classic characters into the background for new PC versions. Marvel will ignore this and figure the problem is that they’re not replacing enough classic characters.”
If anything, Marvel seems to have decided the opposite, given some statements here and there. However, a good case has been made that the problems Marvel has been facing are more endemic to their ongoing business practices more than to their attempts at attracting new audiences.
“An Image comic will get a movie deal.”
Wasn’t sure, so I did a quick Googling, and this was the top result. So yes, an Image-published comic did indeed score a movie deal! A couple more of ’em are listed here, though I’m wondering what they’re going to call the Invincible movie since there was already a film by that name in 2006. “The Invincible Chronicles?” “Invincible Man?” “LET’S GET INVINCIBLE?”
“A Planet of the Apes/Sugar & Spike crossover will be announced.”
“Gbtlz spzts!”
“GASP! The human babies spoke…um, I think!”
David Alexander McDonald farmed up these
“DC will see another show canceled with POWERLESS flopping on the No Bugger Cares channel. It won’t matter; there’ll be another 12 new DC shows by the end of 2017. On the publishing front, the two-year Rebirth overarc will be looking pretty ridiculous by June as Geoff Johns and his team of trained gerbils try to explain it all. The DC Omnibus program will gain traction and do well. A fanatical group will rise up with Superman’s Red Trunks as its banner.”
Those are a lot of predictions squeezed into here, David, so let’s see: Powerless did die, which is too bad since it started to get pretty good; not 12 shows, but the numbers are slowly increasing; we’re getting the wrap-up to the 2-year arc now so we’ll see how it goes; Omnibus program still exists, so close enough for horseshoes; “fans,” for short. (For shorts! Ha, get it, because…okay, fine.)
“Marvel will continue to pump out omnibus volumes of *everything*. Ike Perlmutter will be eaten by Washington. Marvel’s books will continue to be schizophrenically split between the endless restarts that go thuddy thud thud and the cute, funny, clever books like Ms.Marvel and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Marvel’s movies continue to do well, and some do great, but the non-Netflix TV shows will continue to have issues (although LEGION will get a lot of positive attention) with INHUMANS going down to ignominious doom despite the IMAX opening.”
Yes; pretty much; ain’t that the truth; nailed the movie/TV thing.
“Dan Slott will move into a penthouse in Las Vegas, never again to be seen by most men. Reports will periodically come out that he’s lying naked on a bed, watching ICE STATION ZEBRA over and over.”
Now you got me here at the house, late at night, thinking about Naked D. Slott. ARE THERE NO END TO YOUR CRIMES, DAVID ALEXANDER MCDONALD.
(Nothing personal against Mr. Slott, who I am sure is a perfectly acceptable naked person…DAMMIT, DAVID, LOOK AT THESE THINGS YOU MAKE ME TYPE)
Dan (presumably not Mr. Slott) contributes
“The sleeper hit of the summer 2017 blockbuster season is a gritty live action reimagining of ‘WordGirl.’ Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy becomes Public Enemy Number One after killing Captain Huggyface with a meat slicer.
In 2018 it sweeps the Oscars, winning the Big Five.”
Okay, had to look all that up because for a second there I thought our friend Dan had some kind of seizure. I vaguely recalled Wordgirl, and sure enough, those other characters exist too. Frankly, I think we’re still too soon on the ironic dark reboot of the property…the kids who watched that in the 2000s probably still need a few more years to get into positions of power in the entertainment industry. I suspect the fanfiction may be way ahead of them, however.
Anthony puts all this to a merciful end with
“Marvel won’t do any crossovers with other companies.”
Well, maybe not in the way you mean it, but Marvel teamed up with Archie Comics to get some digests into supermarkets via Archie’s ancient distribution deal. And, well, this almost happened, but probably also not what you meant.
“Even though fans will want one, there will still not be a solo Swamp Thing animated movie. (REALLY hoping I’m wrong)”
Ol’ Swampy’s been turning up in various animated places, so we’re probably closer than ever to this actually happening soon!
“The rights for the comics of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street will continue to remain lost.”
Does seem weird that it’s been a while since either of these properties have turned up on the stands. At the very least, I’d like a reprint of Marvel’s black and white Nightmare on Elm Street magazine (written by Steve Gerber) since I sold my copies off like a dummy. Ah, well, if no one’s planning on comics based on these properties right this moment, I’m sure they will be again soon. Licenses like these come back from the dead fairly often, appropriately enough.
Well, looks like that was it! Thanks for reading and contributing, pals, and I’ll have one final post following up on some of your more recent comments reacting to these last few entries. See you all on Friday!
I’ve got to say that when I watch Dr. Strange and hear them talk about their transdimensional brass knuckles, I so much want to hear Benedict Cumberbatch shout “Sling ring, do your thing!”
To take a joke far too seriously:
Given that the “Thing Ring” cartoon was a Hanna-Barbera production (as indicated by the show’s actual title, “Fred and Barney Meet the Thing”), and given that often the rights to a character or idea introduced in an adaptation remain with the company that produced the adaptation rather than with the owners of the original property, or at least are shared by the parties (this, to give an example that will probably mean nothing to most of your readers, is why Nikki Porter was not a character in the 1970s Ellery Queen TV series)–given that, I suspect that a “Thing Ring” TV series would require the collaboration not only of Disney/Marvel and Fox, but also of Time Warner (which owns Hanna Barbera now).
Of course, Time Warner also owns DC Comics. I don’t know, but I suspect that if the people who own Marvel and the people who own DC ever do get together to make a comics-based TV series or movie, “Benjy Grimm and His Thing Ring” will probably be low on the list of ideas considered.
I’d notbonly like to see Steve’s published issues of NIGHTMARE reprinted, I’d like to see the canned issues finally published. Steve never did return my VHS copies of the TV series (acquired by my then-wife, who was climbing the ranks in WB syndication.)
I accept no responsibility for your filthy visualizations, Sterling. How did *I* know you had a lurking fantasy of Dan Scott as old Howard Hughes?
…man, between my bad typing and autocorrupt….
I think you’ll like my third 2018 entry much better.
I didn’t get one of my usual I’ll Be Right One Day You Know points in this go-round, though it’s slowly happening — the move to graphic albums style release crawls along, with Kurt Busiek switching ASTRO CITY to the format, as well as the announcement that ALL-STAR BATMAN will be in that form. Then there’s DARK KNIGHT III, which rather followed the Bandes-Dessinee approach. Nothing new in any of this, obviously, but mo thylakoids floppies will one day be a fringe item. I’ll Be Right One Day You Know!
Living in the Philly suburbs, I misread that as “Worldwide Cheesesteak” and immediately got hungry.