“We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror.” — Marshall McLuhan.
Whoops, almost forgot in the midst of all this Wolverine talk that it’s time to take your comic industry predictions for 2025!
Just leave ’em in the comments to this very post, but please adhere to these simple yet necessary 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!
Starting sometime in January, I’ll start going over the predictions y’all made for 2024 last year and see how you did. No prizes awarded, just a fun way to see how the industry has played out vis-à-vis our expectations.
As always, thanks in advance for participating!
1. Diamond will go out of business, causing a few smaller publishers to collapse, but nowhere near the disaster it would have been 30 years ago.
2. DC will announce a joint DC/Marvel blockbuster movie. Kevin Feige will reply “That’s the first I’ve heard of this.”
3. I don’t know if this counts as a prediction because it’s of something that WON’T happen. Gary Spencer Millidge will not release the final storyline of STRANGEHAVEN in 2025. But he’ll get close.
1. James Gunn’s Superman movie will be a huge hit, out-performing any of Marvel’s recent movies at the box office.
2. Absolute Martian Manhunter won’t sell well, but it will be a critical darling.
3. Tom King finally gets to write a Legion of Super-Heroes story?
1. Marvel/Disney will announce an X-Men movie, and it will somehow take cues from both Krakoa & the expected series’ status quo, satisfying no one.
2. There will be another go at the Legion, and it will appeal to nostalgia for the 90s post-Zero Hour team this time instead of the 70s/80s era.
3. Not sure if it counts for a comics prediction, per se, but AEW will do a promotional theme night for the Gunn Superman movie.
1. Most of the predictions will be wrong.
2. Superman: The New Movie will not do as well as The Batman.
3. Comics will continue to be published, but DC is most in danger of losing its periodical line if Zaslav gets around to noticing it.
Either DC or Marvel will just say, “chuck it,” and stop the madness. They will stop publishing comics and license out all of their characters and titles to another entity. IDW? Dark Horse? Who knows. Everything will start over with new #1s, which will sell like wheatcakes at first, then be under current norms by issue 6. Stories will be even worse than Marvel’s present output, as modern comics writers are not Stan Lee.
I might be a year or two off on this prediction.
1.)The “From the Ashes” X-title relaunch will end up a failure as pushing out eighty new series within four months will prove untenable (there may be a slight exaggeration at the number of new books). The majority of titles will be cancelled within one year. The line will settle down to a sane four or five ongoing titles, as that is the appropriate amount that a line of comic titles can bear in the current market.
2.)The DC Absolute line will hit its nadir as it attempts the Absolute Ultra the Multi-Alien series. DC begins to rethink its priorities in the fallout.
1) SUPERMAN will outperform FANTASTIC FOUR handily, its a much easier sell to mainstream audiences. Nobody needs oodles of exposition to understand “Superman fights Lex Luthor and kisses Lois Lane” versus “okay we start off in a 60’s inspired parallel Marvel Universe where actually Shalla-Bal is the Silver Surfer and let’s lead with Galactus which invokes the Council of Reeds…”
2) Neil Gaiman’s personal scandals will escalate and bump him permanently off finishing MIRACLEMAN, he will pass the torch on SANDMAN to another writer to keep the royalties coming in.
3) There will be a much much bigger Comics Grading/Slabbing scandal that actually puts one of the grading companies in legal or financial jeopardy and causes large scale doubt in the hobby over what you are actually getting in the slab.
1) The market for graded comics will shrink to the point that at least one comic book grading company will go out of business.
2) Absolute Swamp Thing will be announced, and maybe even published by the end of the year.
3) At least one James Tynion IV comic will be optioned for a tv show or movie, probably Something is Killing the Children.
DC will hire either one of the Chris’s (Pratt, Hemsworth, or Evans) to try to counter RDJ’s return to the MCU.
1) There will be a treasury-sized crossover book published of Absolute Superman meets Ultimate Spider-man; its success will lead to other treasury-sized inter-company crossovers and a plethora of Absolute and Ultimate titles…Absolute Ambush Bug – nuff said!
2) The blueprint for the original Ultimate universe of titles will start to be followed -Secret War, crossovers with the regular Marvel universe, and ultimately Ultimatem…looking forward to the new iteration of Ultimate Adventures.
3) The Emperor Doom storyline will end with Dormammu as the leader of Latveria and Doom as the Lord of the Dark Dimension.
1 dc will at long last publish the legendary swamp thing meets jesus issue. 2 disney will try and buy dc and then marvel and dc will do a jla vs avengers film with james gunn and kevin feige working together and it will blow the box office away. 3 james gun will reveal he is doing both a live action and animated version of kingdom come with mark hamil voicing batman .
Instead of a Blackhawk film, Steven Spielberg will pivot to producing an Airboy film set during WW II starring Timothee Chalamet as Airboy, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Valkyrie, David Harbour as The Heap, Michael Fassbender as Airwolf, and Margot Robbie as Black Angel. Chuck Dixon will be a consultant.
Paramount Pictures film adaptation of the Atlas/Seaboard character Devilina will be filmed in a retro-’70s Hammer Horror/Amicus/ grindhouse aesthetic and will be a surpris hit, thus boosting the Atlas/Seaboard brand. As a result, Tarantino will decide to direct a Planet of the Vampires film.
Marvel Comics will greenlight a limited series by Jaime, Gilbert, and Mario Hernandez called “Romance and Monsters” that will have stories set in 1960 featuring Patsy Walker, Hedy Wolfe, Millie the Model, Chili, Klagg, Gor-Kil, Mummex, Titano, Groot, and Fin Fang Foom.
1. There will be at least one court case with DC suing some crypto bro outfit trying to capitalize on the Superman movie using Krypto’s name
2. DC will announce an animated show starring ‘Mazing Man
3. The Fantastic Four’s big post-credits reveal will be … the Beyonder?!?
1- At least one parallel publishing universe (absolute/ultimate/etc) will end.
2- Marvel will finally come up with a comprehensive vision for their line.
3- The speculator market will slow down ()
Trump (and possibly Musk) variants will be hot for a minute like Obama ones were in ’08. Except every publisher will be forced to issue an “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m trying to delete it” apology afterwards.
Tarrifs are going to make things VERY difficult for publishers, especially with regards to graphic novels. Expect to see cheaper, less ornate collections come out.
1. Corporate comics move in a culturally conservative directions, particularly in queer rep.
2. With great fanfare, someone will bring out an AI-written and illustrated comic. It will be terrible, but that won’t stop people trying.
3. Somebody finally gets their act together and brings out a Sally Bananas collection.
Miracleman: The Dark Age will be announced as a single graphic novel rather than a miniseries. It will be solicited with a 2025 date but will, as is traditional, be late.
By years end there will be a least as many Absolute books than Bat-family books
The Grendel TV project will be back on again, possibly on a different network/service.
1. Several small publishers will put out Popeye comics to exploit his public domain status… not noticing that Popeye has long been a hard sell. These attempts fade quickly.
2. A known artist will think they can put out primiarly-AI material without anyone noticing or caring. This will be wrong.
3. Comics will, nonetheless, continue to rock.
1)In the Marvel Universe, general public opinion will become favourable towards mutants. It’s the one variation of the Mutant Metaphor they’ve never done.
2)A famous conservative media personality will write a comic book. Even putting all political considerations aside, it will be terrible.
3)In the Fantastic Four movie, there will be a scene where the Four discover to their horror that they’ve travelled to the Sony Spider-Villain universe.
Happy New Year, Mr. Sterling! Here’s low-hanging fruit of the funnybook industry’s evergreen tree of predictions. Just pick the ones which interest you.
1) Oof! That highly anticipated adaptation of comic book/cartoon IP certainly under-performed at the box office. I’m sure the responsible party be held accountable, and soon be waiting tables at Dennys!
2) Huh. The selection for Free Comic Book Day looks amazing this year. But it seems the event gotten away from its original goal of creating new readers. Glad we agree FCBD should/shouldn’t continue to exist.
3) What?! There’s no way that the comic book with first appearance of Superhero (C) sold for that much at auction! What is going on?!
4) Sigh… The comic book industry lost a legend this year, and yet I can’t help feel that its at best a mixed legacy being left behind. Your thoughts?
5) So, on further reflection and with the benefit of hindsight, fandom overreacted with outrage. Or did we? Or do we ascribe to malice what is explained by stupidity?
6) Ha! Once again, ambition outpaced ability. Tell me again Mike why would the publisher/producer announce those grandiose plans only to see it slip/shelved on the schedule. Are they buying magic beans?
7) Egad! I’m more confused than ever about where we are with the publishing rights to Character X. Care to explain it to me?
8) Good grief! Did Lucy pulled the football away on Charlie Brown AGAIN?!
Time to peer into the future!
1) My annual Legion prediction. I predict Darkseid’s Omega Legion will get its first workout toward the end of the year…and in that appearance, we’ll get an inkling that one member of the Omega Legion is resisting Darkseid’s control.
2) We’ll see another volume of Russell and Pugh’s Billionaire Island from AHOY!
3) DC’s revival of Vertigo will see some classic creators return, such as Mike Carey and Peter Milligan.
Mike Sterling launches his first Kickstarter for his first comic featuring Popeye, Buck Rogers, Winnie the Pooh, and TinTin (all public domain the past couple of years).
He cancels it when he realizes he still cannot use Sluggo.
1. Miracleman: The Dark Age will be announced with Mark Buckingham as the sole credited writer (though there may be an acknowledgement of some kind for Neil Gaiman).
2. In other Neil Gaiman news, a new Sandman series (mini or ongoing) will be announced that will minimize Gaiman’s involvement in the franchise to just a “created by” credit. (Like, no “FROM THE WORLD OF NEIL. GAIMAN’S SAMDMAN” emblazoned on the cover.)
3. Either Marvel or DC (I’m guessing Marvel first) will see the last of their $3.99 comics as everything at that price point goes up to $4.99 (or more). If it’s DC, their kids books will go from $2.99 to $3.99.
1) the success of the recent amalgam and crossover omnibuses will result in at least one brand new Marvel and DC crossover
2) there will be a Captain carrot and his amazing zoo crew cartoon announced using the original designs
3) there will be a new champions-like team focused on Miles but the book will be called Spider-Man and his amazing friends.
1) Major boomer and/or gen X creators will put out works with major publishers embracing and using AI.
2) Critics and industry insiders will defend it saying, “but it’s actually really good.”
3) It will actually be very very bad.
1) A publisher that has been publishing comics for at least ten years goes out of business and/or declares bankruptcy.
2) While variant covers continue to be a thing, one publisher prominently cuts back on the amount of variants that they solicit.
3) A major shake-up for the Superman comics is announced around the time that the movie premiers.
1) The Legion will continue to lay fallow while the echoes of the Bendis version fade away. Another few years will pass before anything happens.
2) The rest of Levitz‘s LSH run (and the year of Tales of the LSH stories) will continue to not be reprinted.
Having giving up on my oft-thwarted predictions that comics will be printed on lunch meat, I now boldly presage that comics will be printed on pressed and rolled sheets of tungsten.
1. Amazon will continue to debrand Comixology- possibly dropping the name altogether and either end Comixology Unlimited or fully merge it into Kindle Unlimited.
2. Some investor buys the remains of Aftershock. I don’t think the bankruptcy has been resolved yet. In a perfect world, the creators who were scammed out of what they thought they were going to get in compensation will be made whole. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
3. Someone will announce that they’ve used AI in a completely new way to circumvent some part of the comic book creation process. Everyone reacts in horror at the idea of humanity being taken out of the art of comics. Luckily, the new way sucks, we all have a laugh, and we go on, trying to ignore that people have less money for comics because AI took our jobs.
(I spent this weekend in a class about AI and the hiring process. I’m a little pessimistic today.)
Prior to the Superman movie, DC will produce collections for all or most characters appearing in the film. Marvel will do a few collections for their movie characters but not until after the movies were released.
The 50th anniversary of Giant-Sized X-Men #1 will be an excuse to change up the X-line with some cancellations, some new titles and cast changes for surviving titles.
Grant Morrison to write Aquaman, as it’s the only major Justice Leaguer they’ve yet to write.
Non sequitor–>Not sure if aware but this was a proof of concept sizzle reel for our favorite sailor done back in the day for feature length movie.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puSSTA_tnRg
Hope the XXV is firefree & swell for you and yours.
Aloha
Non sequitor–>Not sure if aware but this was a proof of concept sizzle reel for our favorite sailor done back in the day for feature length movie.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puSSTA_tnRg
Hope the XXV is firefree & swell for you and yours.
Aloha
1. The proposed tariffs by the incoming administration (25-to-100%) will be reduced to the lower end of the range but will still impact smaller publishers negatively, resulting in increased pricing for their books. Larger publishers will hold the line on monthly comic book prices but increase collected trade prices slightly.
2. Diamond Comic Distributor’s will survive 2025 intact (without closing or being purchased).
3. Based on the strength of the Absolute line and the Superman movie, DC will outsell Marvel at Sterling Silver Comics by a 20% margin.
Wishful thinking more than a prediction, possibly, and a sort of re-rerun for me, but anyway:
1. After wrapping up Copra this year (that’s his plan. not a prediction), Michel Fiffe will get hired by DC to produce a Grand Design-style history of the Teen Titans.
And
2. With a 40+-year publication history and multi-publisher legacy numbering currently in the high 270s, Stan Sakai will announce that Usagi Yojimbo will build up to some kind of concluding sequence of arcs to be published over the next few years, finishing around #300.