Your 2022 Predictions, Part Three: Forbidden Knowledge.
Not as much blogging time tonight, so we’ll see how many of your 2022 comic book industry predictions I can get through. Here are parts one and two of the series, and you can still place your bets on what’s gonna happen in 2023 right here.
King of the Moon waxes and wanes with the following
“The one universal truth is regression to the mean so:”
Uh oh.
“1. 2022, the MCU backlash kicks in. Kids start complaining about having to understand 400 hours of previous shows and movies to see a new one and suddenly the MCU is not cool anymore.”
I haven’t seen this in my usual haunts, but I’m not looking in the “hip” places anymore, where they don’t use words like “hip.”
I tried created an account on TikTok, and 1) I’m surprised the “what’s your birthday” dial went as far back as the year I was born, and 2) apparently I screwed up somewhere and it gave me a “too many attempts, try again later” so no searching that platform for appropriate videos. Or even inappropriate ones. I’ll try again, as the app suggested, “later.”
So I went with the ol’ standby, which is of course Googling my little heart out. With the search terms “marvel universe too hard” I did indeed find a handful of links where folks are complaining that, as this Reddit thread was titled, “The MCU got to [sic] complicated.” And I think folks in that thread were disagreeing, I don’t know, Reddit gives me a headache.
I also found this article from a couple of months ago where a large number of superhero movie fans are surveyed and about a third of specifically Marvel fans say they’re “fatigued” by the amount of product being dished out to them.
But I also found complaints along those lines going back farther than that, so I suspect the “backlash” element will always be there within the target audiences for these things, as opposed to those folks who were against the idea of these movies from the get-go. When this backlash reaches a critical mass, one that actually affects the box office/viewership of these franchises, that’s when the worry will set in. I don’t quite have my finger on the pulse of today’s youth, but I feel like they haven’t quite reached that point yet where they’re all “pffft, Marvel movies, that’s for old people.” Y’know, like Star Wars.
“2. GenZ video bloggers discover Jim Shooter. One YouTube video rightly declares him ‘The Amadeus Mozart of Comic Books’ and they are right. Suddenly I am cool for always liking Jim Shooter.”
I don’t see any particular trends along those lines looking at the YouTubers (Swamp Thing’s favorite video platform) but searching just for the past year…there are a surprising number of videos about Jim. Many featuring interviews (or convention appearances) directly with him. So I don’t know if any of these videos are by Generation Z, but I will include this video here, uploaded only a few months ago discussing Shooter’s finest moment, the Dazzler graphic novel:
Cassandra Miller almost lives up to her name with
“Another major publisher leaves Diamond; by the end of the year, Diamond declares bankruptcy and is put into a restructuring agreement.”
It was announced just a few short months ago that Dark Horse Comics was leaving its exclusive distribution deal with Diamond and also offering its wares through Penguin Random House, who also has Marvel and IDW, among others, in its roster. Like those two publisher, Dark Horse will continue being distributed through Diamond as well, but PRH has free shipping and (maybe) a better discount than Diamond will be able to offer, so, y’know.
Diamond is still with us, and surprise surprise the number of shortages and damages I’ve had from them have plummeted, the more vendors they hemorrhage. Don’t know if that’s because they have less to sort, or the pressure’s on to keep any more vendors or retailers from bailing, I don’t know.
Chris V, Our Friend, declares
“1.) Considering that Victor LaValle writing Sabretooth wasn’t some sort of fever dream but actually seems to be reality, I can only guess that Christopher Priest will write a Marvel Comic this year.
No, not the Christopher Priest who used to write as Jim Owsley.
Christopher Priest of the Prestige fame.
LaValle writing Sabretooth was even more surprising than simply LaValle writing a mainstream Marvel title.”
Yup, that LaValle Sabretooth series actually happened. No word on that particular Christopher Priest, but Marvel’s had a few comics with prose authors doing comics lately (like The Thing by Walter Mosely). Maybe we can get that Elsa Bloodstone mini-series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
“So, I’m going to go with Christopher Priest writing a Sub-Mariner series…because, why not?”
We did get a Namor series, so that’s a half-point there! And it was written by a filmmaker, not a novelist, so…I don’t know, close, I guess?
“2.) After completely botching Hickman’s Krakoa post-‘Inferno,’ Marvel will announce that continuing Krakoa as the new status quo for the mutant titles was a huge mistake; leading to Marvel putting together a shoddy, rushed company wide crossover to try to fix the Krakoa mistake while still refusing to erase any prior Marvel continuity.
The results will end up similar to fan reaction to Secret Empire.”
The Krakoa-era is still going, and I don’t think we have a conclusion to it coming soon. But I don’t think this is a “miss” so much as “a hit that hasn’t happened yet.” Maybe in a year or two.
“3.) Grant Morrison will not work at DC or Marvel for at least the entirety of 2022.”
I was gonna say “…maybe that Superman and the Authority book,” but I forgot it was a lead-in to, what, eighteen year run of the Warworld story in the Superman comics. So, unless there’s something I’m forgetting, aside from reprints, I think Morrison did slip out of their grips, for the time being.
I said this was gonna be a short one! Thanks for reading, pals, and we’ll be back at it on Monday!
Here is the most comprehensive Jim Shooter interview I’m aware of. It covers his entire career. However, it was not made by Gen Z video bloggers–Gen X for the win!
https://youtu.be/FBh709_dLNs
So if the MCU is getting complicated for the youngsters or redditors or both, could it be that the multiverse films are bunched together?
Now, I haven’t seen Dr. Strange or Spider-Man, being that I’ve lived in the Unabomber’s old cabin since 2020, so maybe that isn’t a big thing.Will time travel with Kang make it even harder? (I myself don’t think so, but I’m fine with that genre.)
I’d be curious as to what and/or when things became more confusing, because MCU sure has it better when it comes to repeating their films over and over.
Thoughts?
Yes, I should have went with Walter Mosley, not Christopher Priest. Darn!
There’s the “Fall of X” event coming this Summer. Will it actually mark the end of Krakoa? Maybe. The X-Men’s 60th anniversary will be later this year, so I expect Marvel to have a big relaunch planned for that occasion. I guess I was one year early on that prediction.
Will it be a huge mess though? That still remains to be seen.
Superman and the Authority was from 2021, not 2022. That was definitely a hit on my part.
“Marvel putting together a shoddy, rushed company wide crossover”
Sounds like something they’d do!
Which reminds me, I haven’t insulted Civil War for awhile.
CIVIL WAR SUCKED!
And is also where I realized Mark Millar was an over-rated writer!
The #1 strangest complaint these days is by fans who say there’s too many Star Wars shows, too many Marvel shows and too many Star Trek shows. I guess I am enjoying all of them so I don’t see what the problem is – given that we went what 15 years between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, 10 years between ST The Original and the first movie and so forth, I appreciate the “accelerated” storytelling. If I don’t like something, I just read a recap to catch anything I might have missed in the narrative and then move on with my day. Complaining because we get TOO MUCH is certainly a choice.
Chris V. – I’d meant to note that Superman and the Authority was from 2021, as it was the lead-in to that interminable story in Action, but forgot to drop the year. Yes, that was definitely a hit for you!
[…] into this next batch of your 2022 comic industry predictions, I want to clarify my response to Chris V.’s submissions as I wasn’t clear. He’d said that Grant Morrison wasn’t going to do any new work […]