“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.” — Peter Drucker
Yes, it’s once again That Time of year, a little earlier than in previous years where I’d think “oh dip, did I ask for predictions yet?” and then put up the post right before the end of the year and have you folks giving me your guesses well in February.
I plan on getting to your predictions from last year in January, but right now, I want you to gather together all your psychic abilities and foresee the future of the comics industry. Specifically, what you expect to see in the Year of Our Iron Man Arno Stark 2020. MAKE DIONNE PROUD. But don’t forget to follow these simple rules:
1. Don’t read the other predictions before entering your own.
2. Don’t criticize other people’s predictions.
3. Don’t predict any real person’s death.
4. Limit of three predictions per person, please! I know of a few of y’all will break this rule, and more often than not I address all the predictions anyway because my heart spills over with kindness and generosity toward my fellow humans on this spaceship Earth, but c’mon, give me a break here.
Okay, you know what to do…pile those predictions in the comments section of this very post here and we’ll meet back in about 13 months to see how everyone did! And like I said, I’ll get to those predictions for 2019 in a couple of weeks.
Thanks as always for your participation, pals…I’ve done this for the past several years, and even though I’ll gripe a bit about the time and effort put into the prediction responses, I really do enjoy it, honest! Don’t believe me? Have a psychic friend check my brain and tell you.
The X-Men franchise will be reduced to one monthly book titled X-Men.
Disney will try to cash in on the Baby Yoda phenomenon by announcing a new animated series on Disney Plus titled “Baby Yoda Adventures”
Everyone will hate it.
DC will bring Alfred back from the dead, but will kill another member of the bat family. Probably Batgirl.
DC will continue to mangle continuity and stray further and further from anything resembling the basic form familiar to the public of their IP (cough… characters) in their own comic books and continue to refuse to offer a back-to-basics line of comics.
No one will mention Doomsday Clock again by January 31, 2020 as DC will forget they ever had it or could have done anything with the potential. Folks re-reading comics from this era will be baffled by the launch of Rebirth and what happened afterwards. The Button thing will never be resolved.
DC publishers and editors will learn nothing from what worked about the Watchmen HBO series, just as they learned nothing from the Watchmen comic.
Marvel will relaunch X-Men at least twice in 2020.
Everything at Marvel will get an all new #1.
People will continue to try to say DC’s movie output is in the same league as Marvel, but aside from Wonder Woman, we’ll all know it’s a lie.
Iron Man 2020 will become the unexpected huge hit of 2020. It will prove so popular that comics will hit another boom period, comparable to the early-1990s.
Iron Man 2020 #1 will stand as the third best-selling comic, behind only X-Men #1 an Spider Man #1.
By 2021, this fad will pass, and everyone will make fun of the people who bought in to the Iron Man 2020 hype.
The Iron man 2020 movie will be pushed back to 2021, and while doing better than expected, will be considered a failure.
1. Everyone starts wearing big gears on their shoulders.
2. Hasbro and Marvel work out some sort of deal to reprint Rom: Spaceknight and Micronauts.
3. Eternals-mania sweeps the nation when their movie comes out.
dc streaming will resurect the swamp thing tv show for two seasons then a swamp thing movie. dc will annouce a constatine movie and resurect the tv show. marvel will finaly let chris clarmont do an an xmen book where he reveals that mystique and destiny are really night crawlers parents all along and storm officialy being revealed at last being bishops grandfather
Marvel decides to stop productions of new comic book, changing their name to Marvel Licensing. Other comic companies swarm to license their titles. IDW adds 20 more Marvel Superhero and 5 more Star Wars books, and changes their name to Marvel-IDW. DC licenses Conan, and announces that will resume the old comic strip.
DC also gets the lince to the western Ghost Rider, and decides to make a Bat Lash Ghost Rider team-up.
FCBD is such a hit, that Boom announces a line of Free monthly comics – with 18 pages of new material and 64 pages of advertising.
With most of its comic reading fanbase “getting gray around the temples”, Marvel and DC launch a line of Bronze Age comics featuring a 1970’s universe of their characters written and drawn by the bronze age greats…Gerry Conway, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman, John Byrne, Mike Golden, Sal Buscema, etc.
Marvel and DC will co-publish an omnibus collection of their greatest silver and bronze age Christmas stories (more of a WISH than a prediction, I must confess).
Trying to recreate the success that Marvel has had thrusting Conan into the Avengers franchise, DC will bring back Claw the Unconquered, Stalker, and Beowulf and add them to the various JLA books.
Hi, Mike! Long time fan. First time prediction…
– [ ] Legion of Super-heroes will be cancelled. There will be talk of a reboot, or an advertised crossover with a previous version of the Legion.
– [ ] A DC movie will be announced that will make us say, “Well… Aquaman worked so maybe…” but still no Superman much to the disappointment of Henry Cavill.
– [ ] Gail Simone will return to DC for a Birds of Prey/Suicide Squad/Wonder Woman mega-crossover that’s actually good. I was going to add she becomes Editor-In-Chief and Publisher of DC Comics, but let’s just be unrealistic on one thing at a time.
And I hope you’re reading this in a year with no more eye surgeries!
1. Game of Thrones viewers are nearly unanimous in their disappointment with the final season. Clearly, an epic is needed to fill the vacuum left by the better seasons of Game of Thrones. What grand story will provide the large cast, palace intrigue and shocking plot twists they crave?
2020 will bring an HBO or Netflix adaptation of Jim Starlin’s DREADSTAR. Starlin’s 1980s masterpiece will become the next must-see cable/streaming series.
2. DC will publish a BATMAN and the NEW GODs series.
3. Grant Morrison will come back to Marvel to write an Eternals ongoing, illustrated by Javier Rodriguez.
1. Jim Steranko will, at least once during the year, assure us that HISTORY OF COMICS VOL. 3 will be published soon.
2. Guillermo del Toro will announce his intention of adapting some comics series or other into a movie. A few months after this, he will give an interview in which he will describe his plans for the movie, and show the interviewer some character designs he has drawn. We will never hear of the movie again after that.
3. Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment will announce that it has licensed some comics series for a movie adaptation. A few weeks later, there will be an announcement of a writer hired for the project. We will never hear of the movie again after that.
Jason Sondberg-If there’s one prediction out of this lot that comes true, I really hope it is Grant Morrison writing the Eternals.
That’s something I need from the comic book world in 2020.
Superman’s identity as Clark Kent will remain known to the public throughout 2020 or as long as it takes Bendis to tell 2 stories.
The Eternals will become known as the “shredded abs” Marvel movie that America has been waiting for.
J. Phoenix will not win the Oscar for Joker, losing to Adam Sandler!!!
1. The Eternals will come out three days after Donald Trump loses the presidential election, will receive discussion about how its vision of endless struggle between two tribes fits into the new political landscape. This will especially be so if Trump refuses to admit that he lost the election and claims that It was stolen by Amy Klobuchar or whoever the victorious Democratic candidate is.
2. Either Marvel, DC, or both will have at least one story based around climate change.
3. DIE will resume after Stephanie Hans recovers. It will continue to be (a) wonderful and (b) creepy and depressing.
1. This version of Legion of Super-Heroes will either be defunct by the end of 2020 or clearly on its way out.
2. Kieron Gillen will do more roleplaying game writing, which will be good, and will be involved in a comics adaptation of someone’s cool RPG setting, which will also be good.
3. Before it folds, LSH will have a story involving the Legion of Swamp Things, all the plant-equivalent elementals from the various worlds of the United Planets.
I am less serious about one of these suggestions than the other two.
1. 2020 will be remembered in popular culture as the “Year of Tumbleweeds” with lavish hardcover reprints of the strips, an all-star movie in production, and TK Ryan memorialized as one of the twentieth century’s greatest comics geniuses. Holding out against the “Weedhead” movement dominating America’s comics stores will be Mike Sterling.
2. Echolands by JH Williams and Haden Blackman will finally appear.
3. Superman will die or get married or something.
1. Alan Moore will get bored with retirement and announce a new hyper-niche project through a little-known publisher.
2. New Legion of Super-Heroes title.
3. Death’s Head: The Movie, yes?
1) Hickman’s X-Men will get even better, particularly for those reading from the beginning.
2) Year of the Villain will have a Supes-Apex Lex battle that will be awesome.
3) Disney will test the waters with a non-canonical Star Wars/Marvel crossover comic; probably leaking the rumor to gauge reaction before the actual announcement. The comic’s success could fuel rumors of a movie for years.
1. The X-Men relaunch will hit a point of diminishing returns and Hickman’s big mutant crossover will fizzle.
2. Ryan Sook won’t be able to keep up the art chores on Legion of Super-heroes, and we’ll get a fill-in artist/issue sooner rather than later.
3. Strange Adventures will be awesome and beautiful, and it will rightly collect accolades from across the internet.
After his appearance in the Jimmy Olsen maxi-series, Swamp Thong gets his own book and teams up Harley Quinn.
1) The Mime and the Marionette will be dead (well, comic book dead) by January 2021.
2) At least one Major Marvel Hero replaced by someone of a different gender/race/religion/species as a legacy hero with an all-new #1. Not a mutant or an Iron Man.
I’m hoping for Daredevil.
3) The next DCEU Movie Phase will include Booster Gold. Like they should have from jump.
If I may add a wish to Mr. Delfino’s prediction…
…if there ever is a Star Wars/Marvel crossover movie, I hope that it is set during SW Episodes 1-3, and has Jane Foster (perhaps in her Thor form) teaming up with Padme Amidala.
Having been away from reading comics-proper of late, I’ll come at this regarding mainly adaptations.
1. With the new Phase of Marvel films and the arrival of the Disney+ shows (along with the end of Marvel Television as an entity), we’ll see the shift in how the MCU carries the story: the main sequential narrative will be done now in the shows, with the films becoming more stand-alone tent pole pieces adding large elements to the universe (since there reaches a tipping point of “you need to see 25 other movies first to understand this one). In an odd way, this will make Marvel and DC’s films more alike (where DC wanted to be like the early sequential Marvel films, Marvel will end up with oddball stand-alone films like DC).
2. The return of Young Justice on DC Universe and Clone Wars on Disney+ will only be the beginning of new seasons of old, cancelled cartoons — now re-emerging on streaming platforms. After the slow emergence of the old BTAS/STAS/JLU voice cast in recent DC Animated films, one of these will be an actual continuation in some manner of the beloved Bruce Timm DCAU.
3. After its purchases of Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Fox, Disney will next purchase Hasbro, during current negotiations over extension of their long term deal on Disney and Marvel toys. While this raises a number of possibilities over synergy in toys and games (as well as use of the Dungeons & Dragons game engine with a number of other Disney properties), folks will mainly care about having the old D&D cartoon on Disney+ and making Dungeon Master/Baby Yoda memes.
@Dario: “3) Disney will test the waters with a non-canonical Star Wars/Marvel crossover comic”
Galactus eats Naboo
Tell me that wouldn’t be a crowdpleaser.
Neil Gaiman. Mark Buckingham. New Miracleman comics. Whadda need, a road map?
In an attempt to flood the market with Eternals comics, Marvel even reprints something with Blackwulf. The target audience of me, and only me, does not even buy the $1 True Believers book because it’s just a reprint of something I already paid $1.50 for 16 years ago.
1. DC will expand their 100 page super spectacular line to include more tie-ins to their TV shows. Star Girl will be the breakout hit.
2.Marvel and DC will enter into an agreement to make their crossover books like JLA/Avengers and the Amalgam titles available in special editions to benefit the Hero Initiative. (Ok, that may be a wish not a prediction.)
3. Saga will return, but to a much less enthusiastic audience in an example of the Miracleman effect.
Marvel Studios will have a rough 2020 theatrically, but prove out on Disney+ resulting in more series announcements…though no Squirrel Girl live action do-over yet. Man-Thing, however, will get put into development, complete with the Giant Size tag. Marvel Comics will continue to be mostly inconsequential.
DC Universe will be mainly about the comics. The Snyder cut will not appear. DC will increase the numbers of Album-style comics but otherwise be generally inconsequential. There will be no 2020 crossover in the Berlantiverse. Dan DiDio will kill the remains of the Age series of omnibuses, disappointing the five remaining geriatric fans who buy them.
The indies have a bumper year due to Kirkman! and Lemire writing ten books a week apiece.
Mike Sterling finally abandoned all hope of a Pogs revival and buries his slammers deep in the desert.
This gets more difficult the further away I get from what’s going on in comics today, but here goes:
1. Apparently DC has brought back Legion and the Justice Society. I predict these will be cancelled before the end of the year.
2. DC will do yet another linewide reboot that will be a spectacular failure and lead to another reboot in 2021 (remind me I said this when it comes time for the 2021 predictions).
3. We will see another issue of ASTRO CITY. (Kurt, I know you’re reading this.)
1) Josh Williamson will move from Flash after issue 100 (or what would be issue 100, since they’re renumbering). It’ll be the longest run of a writer on a Rebirth title, surpassing King on Batman. He’ll move on to a JSA book.
2) The DC Walmart books will get another revamping sometime this year, as their schedules and plans become clearer. Also, the previously announced and canceled DC War Giant will arrive around May, for Memorial Day.
3) Adam Strange’s “mystery co-star” in the Tom King/Mitch Gerads/Doc Shaner Strange Adventures book will be Deadman, another former star of the title.
1) After the huge success of Action #1000 & Detective #1000, and to a lesser extent Wonder Woman #750 & Flash #750, DC’s 5G reboot will see a return to legacy numbering for many of the DCU titles.
2) Wonder Woman 1984 will be the highest grossing movie by a non-Disney studio.
3) Someone publishes a comic featuring super-hero (or otherwise fantastical) versions of the Democratic & Republican presidential nominees fighting it out via fisticuffs.
1. Some Black Label or such book is going to take off for DC; and they’ll of course take the wrong lessons from it and try to cram all sorts of titles in there.
2. After Iron Man 2020, Marvel will follow-up with some of their other futures between then and 2099; like Deathlok and Killraven.
3. This would be late 2020 at best, but assuming some orange clown doesn’t win re-election, Marvel is going to have some comics that assumed he did, or that a more conservative regime is in place. (I think Dark Reign did the same thing some time back? Like it didn’t fit under Obama.)
1. Kalel Kent, Superman III of 2020 will appear in continuity during his year.
2. At the end of the year we still won’t know when Doomsday Clock is supposed to be happened with regard to DC continuity around Alfred, Superman,etc.
3. The legion will still be going at years end and will have a cw show announced.
1. Dark Horse will lose another of their major properties, either creator-owned or licensed.
2. Rumors will fly fast and furious on the alleged news sites about possible casting choices for Wolverine and the Thing. That one of them will eventually be proven right is down more to the fact that every possible name was listed rather than any sort of insider information.
3. Comic books will continue to be published in their traditional single-issue format.
2020 in review:
1) It was the best of times,
2) It was the worst of times,
3) J.A.K.E., the G.I. Robot
— MrJM
The witch who put a curse on Mike’s eyeballs will finally be brought to justice
Disney+ announces a Power Pack cartoon
Johnny Tremaine – the motion comic
1) DC gives up on normal periodical comic books – future publishing will be “prestige” format Black Label, graphic novels for kids/teens, and four monthly magazine-format anthology comics of 120-200pp each. They will be “Superman and related characters”, “Batman and related characters”, “DC Universe”, and “comics set in the TV Arrowverse continuity”. Stories from the anthology magazines will be sold individually as digital comics
2) Marvel officially gives up on completing Gaiman’s Miracleman, instead tries to imitate Doomsday Clock and does a crossover between Earth-616 and the Miracleman universe which goes down like a lead balloon.
3) At least one of the recently-founded minor comics companies goes down the tubes after failing to sell any of its titles for film/TV development.
1. There will be a return to DC/Marvel crossovers, but they will be treated as big events this time around. A+ list creators, big story lines and…lasting effects on the character’s continuities.
2. The BIRDS OF PREY film will flop because of its R rating. Warners won’t see this and instead will blame it on the mostly female cast.
3. Marvel Studios will do a stealth introduction of the X-Men/FF characters into the MCU. Something like in the form of Latveria casually being mentioned in BLACK WIDOW or Magneto being referred to as Wanda’s father in WandaVision.
You know what? I’m going to lob some evergreen softballs at you Mike. Have fun!
1) Wow! I still can’t believe in the year 2020 that comic book creator said something so clearly insensitive and/or misogynistic.
2) Wow! That highly anticipated film of fantasy/science fiction/comic book IP certainly underperformed. The backlash bodes ill for the genre and that means fewer movies like it next year.
3)
3) Wow! Another fine example of “over promise, under deliver.” It was anyone’s guess when the next issue of that series was going to be released, wasn’t it?
4) Wow! Lucy pulled the football away AGAIN on Charlie Brown.
Good grief!
Well, I’ve been dead wrong every year I predicted comics would be printed on slices of ham, so it’s time to get serious.
In 2020, comics will be printed on slices of turkey.
1. The unbroken 25 year streak of no new Miracleman will continue in 2020.
2. DC will finally crack under the pressure of public opinion and will throw a ton of money at Helfer and Baker to complete the “Body & Soul” storyline in The Shadow. It will be everything we have waited for and more.
3. Disney will announce that the next Star Wars movie will be a Thanos origin story featuring Jedi AND sassy droids, in a desperate attempt to reboot the franchise, and hopefully capture some of the Marvel magic.
1) DC will continue to publish fewer books than Marvel and be just fine.
2) The DC 100-Page Giant books will continue to sell at a steady pace throughout 2020. They will also not be released in digital format.
3) The Netflix/Millarworld show Jupiter’s Legacy will be released in 2020 to excellent reviews.
1. Image comics will launch an extremely successful mega-hit series like Saga or The Walking Dead… BUT… It will be launched and planned as an ongoing series, but only 5 issues will ever come out and the series will be abandoned, like many others before it (like Bitch Planet for example).
2. Marvel, seeing the success of their 2019 X-Men relaunch, decide to add more titles to their X-Men line-up and have them all be interconnected. There will be the usual suspect, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, X-Factor and New Mutants as well as more obscure ones like: Fallen Angels, Excalibur, Caliban the X-cellent, Stacy X vs Opioids, X-treme X-Men, Krakoa: The inner life of a living island, Marauders, Space X: The X-men in Space, Jean the Phoenix and Me, X-ceptional X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Krakoa’s Taxation Time, Roadwork: The Krakoan’s Gate Traffic Controller, ClassiX X-Men, Exiles, New X-Men, Weapon X, X-Men Legacy, X-Men 2099, X-Men party like it’s 1999, X-cetera. This dilutes the brand and sales plummet across all titles. In an attempt to boost sales, Marvel begin making “Pog” variants
3. Another year without Lego comics