Your 2017 Predictions, Part One: Bring It On.
You dreaded its arrival, and now it’s here…part one of 82 of “Mike looks back at your 2017 predictions!” And if you want to be part of the fun next year, drop your 2018 predictions into the comments of this other post from just a couple of weeks ago.
Okay, and awaaaay we go:
William Burns gets the fire started with
“Comixology will stop providing its pull list service for local comic shops.”
This does appear to be the case, but you were only a few months off…seems to be happening first quarter 2018.
“The age of Trump and the Republicans will see the Big Two retreat from ‘diversity’ books in favor of straight white male superheroics. This will be pitched as ‘a return to our roots’ or ‘giving the fans what they want.'”
Yeah, that turned into a real big stink in the middle of the year (as seen in this article, where a Marvel VP’s comments about diversity hurting their sales was countered by an examination of the actual business practices that were more to blame). As it stands right now, there are a number of books with diverse casts on the stands, but the trend on Big Two titles is, as always, “back to the status quo.” However, there’s usually always someone attempting to widen the appeal of the Marvel/DC books sort of despite the companies’ efforts, so the cycle will come around again.
“Batman 66/Maxwell Smart. C’mon DC, you know you want to.”
Man, I know I wanted them to. However, far as I know there’s nothing new on the comics front for Batman ’66 comics (save a trade collection of the B’66/Wonder Woman ’77 team-up). Hopefully something else will turn up…at least a Batman ’66/Wonder Woman ’77/Superman ’78 story.
King of the Moon waxes and/or wanes upon the following:
“Still no Power Pack ongoing series in the main Marvel Universe.
“Despite having the IP of a family of kids who get superpowers from a magic alien horse and have their own sentient spaceship that successfully ran for 62 issues Marvel won’t print money.”
Well, we did get a Power Pack #63 as part of the whole Marvel Legacy “let’s give one more issue to some cancelled series” hoohar, though I suppose that’s not exactly what you mean. Like, at the very least you’d think there’d be a budget-conscious “Power Pack” TV series on, I don’t know, Amazon or Crackle or something, with an accompanying comic book.
Gordon R. Dymowski blogs this, pal:
“Marvel will reveal in its books that Inhumans and mutants are the same”
Um…I’m pretty sure they didn’t? I don’t read any Inhumans or X-books so it’s possible this could’ve slipped by me, but I expect if such a thing did happen, the caterwauling that would have ensued would have been hard to miss.
“As part of its REBIRTH Initiative, DC will reveal that Nite Owl is the Earth-Watchmen’s Batman”
Not yet, at any rate, since we’re only two issues into that Doomsday Clock series, now available at a comic shop near you!
“Although larger conventions (like San Diego ComicCon, WizardWorld, etc) will still predominate, more people will attend smaller, local shows due to affordability of larger, turnkey conventions as well as an ability to reach local retailers, creators, etc.”
I don’t know the attendance numbers, but it does seem like there are more attempts at doing smaller, non-SDCC/WW shows in more places. I’ll mark this one down as “I’m gonna need someone else to tell me.”
“No Swamp Thing predictions this time, sorry.”
HOW VERY DARE YOU
LondonKdS accentuates the following:
“Titan will announce miniseries for every Doctor they haven’t depicted yet, including the ‘Shalka’ and ‘Fatal Death’ Doctors. None of them will have more than two issues out by the end of the year.”
Not quite yet, but give ’em time! And I would absolutely plotz if there were any kind of series based on the “Curse of Fatal Death” story. Yes to any comic that would give me Rowan Atkinson/Hugh Grant/Joanna Lumley Doctors.
“Full-scale campaign for right-wing ‘representaion’at the Big Two. One of them will cave in and publish a series which will tank for being blatant and dull propaganda.”
Haven’t quite reached that state of affairs yet, though I understand there are independent attempts at this sort of thing.
EDIT 1/12: Whoops…Michael Grabowski reminds us of something that might fall within this description from the past year.
“Marvel sales continue to fall, DC bump from Rebirth finally ends.”
Looking at the Retail Market Share charts at Diamond…there doesn’t appear to be too much of a significant change from the beginning of the year to the end. There are some ups and downs but market shares appear to be relatively consistent. I would think that the “Rebirth” branding probably did outlive its usefulness, as it’s been removed from the covers…though that may have as much to do with the arrival of the “final” part of that publishing effort, Doomsday Clock, now available at a comic shop near you!
EDIT 1/12 AGAIN: Whoops Part 2, as relative share of the market doesn’t exactly equal relative size of the market, a thing I remembered once I was, y’know, awake. Reports seem to indicate direct market comics shrinkage, so let me look into this a little further.
Tim Stevens evens us out with:
DC Comics will finally give Aztek the Ultimate Man his due and give him a brand new series.
Not yet, but he did pop up in the Justice League of America comic in December, just under the wire, so that’s close enough for me!
People will continue to insist Marvel hates the X-Men even as the number of mutant related books rise and rise.
Admittedly, that talk seems to have died down a bit of late, with that Disney/Fox deal happening. Maybe it’s still going on in the message boards, but I ain’t lookin’ in there.
People will talk about Image again as a viable 3rd company again as they did circa 2013.
That seems to be the generally accepted Number Three of the Big Two, though the actual strength of that position seems to come and go. It’ll stick around as a major presence for some time to come, I’d imagine.
Marvel will finally recognize what a talent their MarvelCom freelancer Tim Stevens is and give him his one boutique style line within the Marvel Universe a la Gerard Way’s Young Animal.
Nope, sorry, that’s one prediction over the limit, can’t answer that.
Hooper Triplett doubles down on
“Paul Grist will start a well-received new series that he stop unannounced and never complete.”
OUCH. Anyway, didn’t happen this year. IT’S BECAUSE YOU SCARED HIM OFF, HOOPER.
Greg A Assumes
Marvel will continue to try to make the Inhumans into a Thing; however, will also continue to have poorly received results.
Nope, Ben Grimm did not become a…oh, wait, I misread that. Well, there are still Inhumans comics, so I guess that counts as still being a thing. Not exactly taking the world by storm, no.
Marvel’s upcoming Inhumans television series will air the exact same number of episodes as Viva Laughlin before being quietly cancelled.
From what I can tell, Inhumans had eight episodes, which is six more than Viva Laughlin aired (though it apparently had 5 unaired episodes). I don’t know if it’s officially cancelled, but word on the street ain’t good. Yeah, that’s right, I get my word from the streets.
DC Comics will launch a new LSH series. Thanks to its unexpected creative team, the new series will have better than expected sales–particularly in digital and book fair markets.
We’re all still waiting to see what’s happening with the Legion as far as a new comic book series goes, but in the meantime, here’s live-action Brainiac 5 from next week’s Supergirl to keep y’all happy:
demoncat_4 conjures up:
“marvel will manage to get the ff rights back and do a tv show and have doom show up in an avengers film.”
You’re half-right…well, it’s a pending half-right assuming the Disney/Fox deal is permitted.
“dc will decide its time for swamp thing to show up in live action again and have him pop up on both the flash and legends then spun off in his own movie and tv show.”
Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t turned up on the CW somewhere, though maybe they had high hopes for that live-action Justice League Dark movie.
“given him now being part of arrow ragman will get his own comic and at last his own action figure and will be hard to get.”
Again, half-right! There was a new Ragman mini-series that started in 2017. And there’s no official action figure yet, but a Google search turns up a lot of custom figures. I guess technically those are hard to get!
My old pal Skinslip slides in with:
“At least two more Doctor Who ongoings will happen.”
We did get two mini-series, at least…so you were close!
“The Hasbro universe will add at least one more 80s toyline to boost sales”
There was a Transformers/Visionaries crossover comic that started just this month…but it was solicited in 2017, so I’m counting that at least as a partial hit (since, um, I don’t know that it boosted sales all that much).
“Big Trouble in Little China/Escape From New York will get a second mini series or become an ongoing”
No second series yet, but we did get another Big Trouble mini (“Old Man Jack”) so who knows?
Eric L takes the L mostly on one of the following:
“The DC Rebirth books will gradually return to a 3.99 price point.”
Very gradually…a series or two got demoted to monthly from biweekly, with the attendant $1 jump in price. I expect the trend to continue.
“The Wonder Woman movie will be critically acclaimed, but underperform at the box office.”
It was critically acclaimed indeed, but did amazingly well at the box office, too! Good news all around!
“The entire Watchmen invading the DC Universe storyline will be ignored or dropped entirely.”
Nope, it’s still going strong, what with the currently-running Doomsday Clock, now available at a comic shop near you!
Okay, that’s it for now! Tune in same Watchmen-time, same Watchmen-channel, for the next exciting installment!
LondonKdS’ prediction:
“Full-scale campaign for right-wing ‘representaion’at the Big Two. One of them will cave in and publish a series which will tank for being blatant and dull propaganda.”
There was that brief attempt at previewing a Marvel comic that would cross-promote defense contractor Northrup Grumman. That was digitally booed out of existence before the actual reveal could take place. I’d say that’s a hit for London.
Is it just me or does that Brainiac 5 look like a White Walker? Come to think of it, Polar Boy had a very Night King look a few years ago…
I was 0 for 3.
Eric L – hey, you get part-credit on a couple of them!
Hi Mike! I enjoy reading your responses to these predictions every year. Thanks for keeping at it and for all the great blogging in general. Your site is a favorite destination of mine!
I am very, very surprised that your wish is not for a Batman ’66/Swamp Thing ’82 comic (or would that be Swamp Thing ’90?).
And now I find myself wondering, if an animated Batman/Swamp Thing movie had both Alice Cable and Catwoman as characters, which one would Adrienne Barbeau play?
That Kate Power comic was a nice surprise. Here’s hoping they are testing a return for when her brother returns with the FF