“I never make predictions, and I never will.” — Paul Cascoigne.
Yes, it’s That Time yet again, where I come, virtual hat in hand, asking you, the Progressive Ruin reader, to put your prognostic powers to the test and give me your best predictions for the comics industry for 2024. All I ask is that you follow these very 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! VERY VERY IMPORTANT! You can only do one or two if you’d like, but NO MORE THAN THREE PLEASE!
Next month I’ll start looking at your (and my!) predictions for 2023, so we’ll see how we all did. I mean, did Miracleman finally come ba–oh, wait, it did. Anyway, please drop your UP TO THREE AND NO MORE predictions in the comments to this post.
Every year, you folks come up with some good’uns, and the occasional jokey one (which I don’t mind, just don’t go too overboard), and it still remains fun for me to do, even if it’s a lot of work! And I hope it’s fun for you to read. Thanks as always for participating if you do, and we’ll meet back here in January 2025 to check the results!
1. Both DC and Marvel will ramp up the number of facsimile editions being reprinted in 2024–bringing more classic Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age key stories to the readers at prices that won’t break the bank.
2. Mark Millar will succeed in revamping the comics industry.
3. James Gunn will announce a Challengers of the Unknown film featuring Cillian Murphy as Prof., Ryan Gosling as Ace, Tom Hardy as Rocky, and Harry Styles as Red.
3.
1. Tom King will write a Black Label series that takes an obscure character, messes up their life, and ultimately kills the character.
2. Not specific enough? Okay fine, the character will be… Shade the Changing Man.
3. Archie will continue to milk the RIVERDALE dollars by doing a crossover comic with “Beverly Hills 90210”.
(Hey look, I did a different Archie prediction this year!)
1) Some things will get worse,
2) Some things will get better*, and
3) People will disagree about which things have gotten worse and which things have gotten better.
— MrJM
*I have much less confidence in this prediction than I have had in prior years.
“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend: Future events such as these will affect you in the future.”
1. DC will figure out how to push subscriptions for Christmas, and most but not all retailers will recognize this as seeding the comics market rather than stealing customers.
2. One of the big YA graphic novelists will drop an adult GN, the comics version of when Judy Blue released Wifey.
3. Comics will be said to be dying, still, as almost always
The new era of X-Men comics, shepherded by Tom Breevort, will sell well at first but quickly lose fan enthusiasm due to its retrograde nature. Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men will be a hit, for as long as she’s on the title.
1.)The X-Men revamp under Brevoort will be considered a major disappointment by most as Brevoort will choose very safe creative teams, no “critical darlings”.
Leading me to stop reading the X-Men comics for the first time since 1993, when I was in high school. I will not complain.
2.)All comics will be rising in price. Is this really a prediction in December 2023 though? Regular, monthly comics will be $4.99 (American), while “special issues” will be $50 (OK, I might be exaggerating slightly on that last price).
3.)Kieron Gillen, Al Ewing, and Jonathan Hickman will all leave Marvel during 2024. Hickman ends up at DC. Gillen and Ewing will not.
This will cause me to lose interest in Marvel even more, and will still not increase my interest in DC. I will not complain.
1. One comic company will get into the Taylor Swift business, most likely Marvel. It could be anything from creating a series featuring tales from her life to perhaps redesigning one of their characters to look like her, most likely Dazzler.
2. To the disdain of many of the unsavory elements of the comic fandom, a “woke” comic will become a multimedia sensation, bring new readers into comics and get mainstream attention.
3. Hollywood will wise up and finally make a biopic out of Jack Kirby’s life. It might not be released in 2024, but it will at least go into pre-production.
They’re evergreen AND they’re softballs. Which means really they’re just a chance for you to riff on whatever you want to bring up.
1) WOW! That highly anticipated adaptation of fantasy/science fiction IP certainly underperformed at the box office/streaming service. I predict this is the death knell of of that genre/franchise.
2) SOB! The industry lost a great one whose like we will not soon see again. Any stories you care to share, Mike?
3) Fandom seems pleased/outraged about this latest reimagining. Your thoughts?
4) Good grief! Lucy pulled the football away on Charlie Brown AGAIN?!
@ William Gatevackes
It would be great if Kirby got his own biopic, but I think the more likely scenario is a Madmen style film or streaming series about Marvel Comics during the ’60s and ’70s.
I could see Michael Imperioli as Jack Kirby, Leonardo DiCaprio as Stan Lee, Bill Skarsgard as Steve Ditko, Bill Hader as Wally Wood, and Guy Pearce as Martin Goodman…with many great bit parts for other actors as the rest of the Silver/Bronze Age Marvel Comics bullpen.
Mike will try out my sartorial suggestions, a la Zatara, appearing in a short video blog to perform a variety of magic tricks.
This video will become an Internet sensation, leading to a new career as a stage magician, headlining in Vegas by the end of the year.
This will in turn trigger a multi-million dollar lawsuit from DC, and a movie offer from James Gunn.
1. The mainstream publishers will continue to promote Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in their hiring and staffing
2. More and more readers will abandon the above publishers.
3. More crowdfunding/etc ventures will be successful, and remain un/under reported on by comics industry as a whole!
1. Although there are continued allusions/cameos, the Legion of Superheroes gets neither a new book, nor an actual explanation of exactly which Legion is the “current” one. Lots of contradictory cameos, is what I’m saying.
2. Diamond files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and (hopefully) emerges a little stronger.
3. (This one is more a hope than a prediction.) DC realizes they should just put out a “Superman Family” book, and refocuses the main Superman book as, well, mainly a Superman book.
1. Marvel’s going to try to pivot from Kang, to Ravonna. As long as they don’t try to use the name ‘Terminatrix’ it’ll probably be fine.
2. They’ll also give up on the Guardians of the Galaxy; as a comic, at least the current batch. Maybe they’ll send Rocket to the 31st century for a bit and bring back the originals.
3. Some shoddy A.I. thing will be heralded as the savior of comics; maybe A.I. colors or letters or something. It’ll not only suck, it won’t even really be A.I, just super-outsourced.
1. With the moderate success of the Blue Beetle movie, DC will revamp the Booster Gold character to make him more movie-friendly for a Blue and Gold team-up movie.
2. The success of Mark Waid’s pocket silver age universe of titles will lead Marvel to start their own pocket universe of titles (with more of an 80’s vibe) lead by the likes of Roger Stern and…buh buh buh…John Byrne!
3. SECRET WARS III (12-part mini-series) by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck. Nuff said.
@ Bret
Marvel should just go ahead and publish John Byrne’s X-Men stories that he’s been creating for his own entertainment for the last few years…they are set in the ’80s…at the point from when he parted ways with Chris Claremont. It could just be done as an ongoing What If maxi-series, or whatever, but Gen X and Boomer fans would buy it.
Over at Cartoonist Kayfabe Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg got hold of a bootleg copy and did an episode all about it a few years
ago, and the art looks really solid and the plot seems decent.
1) more Marvel movies will bomb.
2) more DC movies will bomb.
3) uh… i dunno.
1. Nice House on the Lake vol. 2 is published or at least announced.
2. Miracleman: Dark Age is put on hold indefinitely because Silver Age performed so poorly.
3. Tom King finally gets to write a Legion of Super-Heroes story.
It’s that time of year again….
1) Kevin Feige gets fired or demoted.
2) There will be a big announcement of a major Justice Society project for the 85th Anniversary in 2025.
3) Spider-Man sales drop noticeably.
@ DK
That would be cool if there were a major Justice Society project for its 85th Anniversary–even better if Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway were allowed to create it.
@ Thom H.
If King gets his mitts on The Legion I doubt that it will live long…
1) Despite their high-falutin’ Hollywood lifestyles, Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick will return to either Marvel or DC to write one limited series each.
2) A Disney+ Viv Vision television series will be announced in 2024 to premiere in 2025.
3) Even with his past vision challenges, Mike will draw a much better capybara in 2024.
“John Byrne’s X-Men stories that he’s been creating for his own entertainment for the last few years…they are set in the ’80s”
WOULD BUY!!
@ Snark Shark
Here’s a link to the Cartoonist Kayfabe episode on John Byrne’s “X-Men: Elsewhen”… 150 pages of tight pencils…
https://youtu.be/uUUrgvHqDdg?si=UKvYU25Tn1IN5Y6L
PLEASE: no more posts in this comments section unless they’re predictions. Thank you.
1. marvel will have a big summer event
2. boom studios will have a lumberjanes kickstarter
3. dc will put out an omni of artemis of bana mighdall comics
1. Dark Horse will restructure and try another line of super-hero book.
2. Based on the success of facsimiles of the Secret Wars and Spider-Man black costume series, Marvel will announce an on-going series of X-Men facsimiles, starting with a re-issue of Giant Size X-Men 1, then continuing with issue 94 on.
3. DC will announce Steve Englehart will do another Batman series, with variant covers taken from old Marshall Roger artwork,
1. DC will, after yet another money-wasting snafu by the understaffed collections department, finally hire some more people for it again.
2. Post-Crisis Batman omnibus announced.
3. Diamond goes under.
Let’s see:
1) I always post a Legion prediction, so here’s one that feels like a shoe-in: Geoff Johns will reintroduce members and designs of the pre-Bendis/Sook Legion, making it a crapshoot as to which version of the Legion is the current one again. To complicate matters, the Bendis/Sook version will make a guest appearance elsewhere in the DCU.
2) After largely publishing limited series for years, smaller publishers begin experimenting with ongoing series. (AHOY just announced its PROJECT: CRYPTID title is now an ongoing; I’m hoping other publishers follow their lead.
3) We start seeing some books from Marvel in DC’s larger Black Label format.
Happy new year!
1after manage to make the dc film verse start catching up with marvel kevin feige and james gunn will annouce a jla avengers crossover in the works to not waste time .2dc will announce at last they will finaly after other failed attempts rerelease the legendary swamp thing 88 where swamp thing meets jesus and let rick veitch get to write a new swamp thing book again. 3 del torro will annouce he will not only work with james gunn on the swamp thing film. but also if swamp thing does get a tv series the episode where swamp thing meets constine .
1) Marc Spector (Moon Knight) will be brought back to life.
2) No new Machine Man series
3) Deadman will come back to existence following his Night Terrors “death”
This year for sure:
1. Lots of “Donald Trump as superhero” memes, about 50/50 serious and parodic.
2. The fading of the superhero movie moment with have negative effects on the sales of comic books.
3. Another Alan Moore comic book will be announced, from a company that has never published his work before.
1. Franklin Richards will be a mutant again by the end of the year.
2. There will be a new Legion of Superheroes book, written by one of the Toms (Taylor or King)
3. None of the DC or Marvel movies released in 2024 will perform as well as the lesser (lets say second worst for each) ones from 2023.
1) Deadpool 3 will be the highest grossing R-rated film of the year.
2) By the end of the year, $4.99 will be the standard cover price of comics from Marvel & DC
3) A writer normally associated with Marvel will be announced as the writer of either Batman or Detective Comics.
1. A writer at Marvel or DC will get caught using AI-generated scripts from the writer’s own plots to write a serial comic with established characters, without having let the editors or readers know about it first. Whatever the publisher does to the writer and series as a consequence, fans will be outraged that it wasn’t the opposite kind of consequence.
2. A writer at Image will subsequently use AI-generated scripts on purpose and promote that fact about his or her new series. Reader reaction will be “Meh.”
DC finally pre-solicits (rumors or Amazon pre-orders) that final TPB to polish off the “end of LSH vol 2,” aka the original stories making up the first year of Tales of the LSH.
I get overly excited about getting a second physical copy of those issues I already own.
DC cancels it in favor of a new series of collections starting at Adventure Comics #247 again.