Your 2019 Predictions, Part Five: Refuge.

§ January 27th, 2020 § Filed under predictions § 5 Comments

Okay, nearly done here looking back at your 2019 comic industry predictions (and here are parts one, two, three and four). Should wrap up the predictions proper today and Wednesday, with some short follow-up to your comments on Friday. And then it’s back to this sites usual diet of me talking about Death of Superman comics.

Oh, and I forgot to mention last time you can still submit your comic-booky forecasts for the remaining 11 months of 2020 right here.

Anyway, let’s get this presagery party started!

Rob Staeger stages the following

“1) Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda reunite for a Legion of Superheroes book. What’s more, it’s been delayed for so long thanks to Doomsday Clock’s reduced pace that the first four issues come out weekly, to make it event and make use of the backlog.”

Unfortunately no…an interesting creative team, but not the one we got (though the one we did get seems to be okay so far). I think you’re right about delays causing some shenanigans, if not specifically like what you mentioned. They basically brought ’em back ahead of Doomsday Clock bringing them back, so…yeah, it got a little mixed up there.

“2) Autumnlands by Kurt Busiek and Ben Dewey finally returns from Image.”

Well, they did a new printing of the first trade earlier in the year, but probably not what you meant. This story on Busiek’s appearance at Comic Con notes that new material is being prepared, so maybe we’ll get something soon!

“3) A popular board game will get its own comic book — possibly Pandemic Legacy or Betrayal at House on the Hill.”

We did get another Clue series (Candlestick) from IDW this year. Otherwise…well, I’m at a bit of a loss, if only because my board game knowledge is fairly limited. I know the games you mentioned there, and I’d probably recognize a few more from my days managing a combo game/comic shop…but if a particularly obscure (well, okay, it probably wouldn’t have to be that obscure given, well, me) game got converted into a comic, I may simply not as recognized it as such, or forgotten the solicitation info, or whatever.

But I think that Clue comic (or “Cluedo,” for those of you in civilized countries) meets your criteria, so points for you on that. Now if only someone would do a dead-on adaptation of this game (including all the weird passengers you had to rescue).

• • •

David Oakes makes like a tree and leaves me with

“I predict that Mike will get at least three ‘Mike will get hit by a meteor’ predictions following his last tweet.”

Not so far, but I haven’t read all the predictions yet. If any turn up, I’ll amend this response! Also, David is referring to this tweet where I also noted that I’d stop doing this prediction things every year if I don’t hit a certain minimum number of responses. Well, you’ll be glad to know I hit that minimum again for the 2020 entries, so look forward to me asking you for your 2021 predictions around December!

“In comics, something even more incredulous than all the joke predictions will happen, and we won’t even be surprised. Ant-Man and Blue Devil are the new norm.”

I was trying to think, what was the most ridiculous thing to happen in comics this year? …That there was a Watchmen TV show, and by most accounts it was actually good? That seemed pretty unlikely.

And Ant-Man…Ant-Man is mainstream, baby! The world loves Ant-Man! That’s about as norm as it gets! And alas, Blue Devil had his chance, what with the TV show Swamp Thing Also Costarring Blue Devil appearing on the DC Streaming service, but that program was too beautiful for this fallen world.

• • •

De lights in with

“A Fortnite comic book will be published.”

I don’t think there’s a physical comic that’s come out, at least not through Diamond, and Googling turns up lots of fan-made comics, so there’s that. However, gird yourself for the parody comic Fartnite, and…hey, look, have I ever told you that I used to get in trouble as a kid for even saying the word “fart?” And now “fart” is, like, on children’s books and toys and fart jokes appear in every kids movie and frankly I’m a bit irked.

“2. Someone involved with Comicsgate will eat a bad egg salad sandwich, spend hours on the toilet contemplating life, and then return to being a total jerk.”

Speaking of farts…well, you know, to be fair, who hasn’t? Okay, maybe not the jerk part. For you. Not me, I’m usually a jerk.

“3. Predator vs. The Planet of the Apes will be published by Dark Horse/Boom and outsells Batman.”

Why this insta-money idea hasn’t been brought to fruition baffles me.

• • •

David Alexander McDonald clowns around with

“1)The DC Universe will be dead before it can finish running the full slate of shows, due to bad numbers. It will be folded into the Warner Media streamer and DC will finally strike a deal with ComiXology to join Unlimited.”

Gotta be honest…surprised it’s still around, too. They seem committed to keeping it around, at least for now (though making rebroadcasting deals with Doom Patrol and Stargirl seems to point to…something). Your scenarios are very possible at some point, but not just yet!

“2) Marvel Comics will get a huge overhaul (again) and Marvel Studios will shock people by cutting back to one or two films a year and disappoint everybody by not announcing either and X-film or an FF film in 2019 (FF will go to TV.)”

Honestly, it’s hard to say if Marvel’s going through a new huge overhaul or continuing an overhaul that’s been going on a while. They did slap a new coat of paint on the X-Men comics franchise and pumped out too many books at once, so maybe that kinda counts.

As far as the movies go…the main Marvel Studios has at least two for this year (Black Widow and The Eternals), plus all the associated Sony Spidey films (liike Morbius), and it looks like we’ve got four Marvel Studios flicks in 2021. So, it’s probably safe to say nothin’ is slowing down with the Marvel movies.

“3) Losing their licenses pushes Dark Horse to revive their Heroes line as a film/tv shared universe. It will not get off to a good start.”

I’m kinda surprised they haven’t, unless the Barb Wire movie is making folks a bit gunshy. But that’s a lot of IP they’ve got sitting around gathering dust. Surely someone must have come sniffin’ around to license the characters, though, right? I mean, the Seaboard/Atlas characters got picked up for films, for God’s sake.

EDIT: David’s comment reminded me…I didn’t address all of his predictions! He answered his own about the DC/Comixology deal (“yes”) and I actually did look up the X-Men/FF movie announcement thing. Turns out while they did say at Comic Con plans were afoot, no specific announcements were made. So, uh…sorry I didn’t answer those right away, David!

• • •

Rob London bridges this post with

“A few prominent long-running comic strips attempts to emulate Nancy by bringing on creators who weren’t born during the Eisenhower Administration and modernizing the strip – I’m thinking Blondie or Mark Trail.”

To be fair, I haven’t read a lot of comic strips over the last year, so I haven’t noticed too much repolishing of the properties there (aside from the two women in B.C. finally getting names).

My guess is that, even with Nancy doing relatively well, that’s still not enough for other strips to take the plunge into such a dramatic shift. Nancy changed so radically I suspect it was a case of “either do something, or we’re cancelling the strip,” and I don’t expect other strips to radically change either without equally dire fates awaiting them.

“2. DC launches a revival of Scare Tactics, the mid-’90s monsters-who-are-in-a-band comic, written by a real-life musician.”

Seems like a natural for the Young Animal imprint, doesn’t it? They haven’t returned, far as I know, but then I haven’t read everything. Maybe they’re in the background of a Harley Quinn issue. Wouldn’t put it past those guys.

“3. With Marvel and 20th Century Fox under the same umbrella, 2019 brings us the return, in some form, of the amazing Apeslayer! http://comiczine-fa.com/features/among-us-walks-an-apeslayer

GET THOSE PETITIONS IN NOW, FOLKS

• • •

That’s that for today…come back Wednesday for the shocking conclusion, and then Friday for the equally-shocking epilogue! Thanks for reading, pals.

5 Responses to “Your 2019 Predictions, Part Five: Refuge.”

  • David Alexander McDonald says:

    Well, for all I sorta missed this time, I did hit on a couple — no X-Men or FF announcements for the MCU, for one. Time will tell if I was right about the FF going to TV first.

    And I was on the money about DC making a deal to join ComiXology Unlimited. What I didn’t see coming was The DC Universe just throwing the vault doors wide. For the price, it’s now a *really* good deal, and the movie/tv stuff is just a bonus.

  • Chris V says:

    I always wondered about those Killraven UK strips.
    I expected that Marvel just changed every reference in the story from “Martians” to “apes”, and otherwise kept the story the exact same, with the exact same artwork and everything.

    It’s even better, in that the editors missed a few uses of “Martians” in the stories, so sometimes the apes are even Martians.

    That is quite simply amazing.

  • Mikester says:

    David – I futzed up and forgot to address a couple of your predictions. I’ve amended the post. Sorry about that!

  • Mikester says:

    David – Also, part of my response to your Dark Horse one was missing due to an HTML error. Sigh…just not my day, I guess.

  • Rob Staeger says:

    Ha, when I predicted the return of Autumnlands in early 2019, little did I know how long the Astro City hiatus would last! Last year was CRUEL, man.