Mikester

As promised, though slightly delayed: I’ll be going back and responding to your responses to my posts covering your 2017 predictions (as seen in parts 2017 predictions (parts one two three four five and six). Thanks for your patience, everyone, and we’re almost done, I promise!

First, I should note I already did direct responses edited into the original text of that part one I just linked above, so go back and check those out if you haven’t already.

Now, to part two:

In response to the whole “next big comics death” thing, David Alexander McDonald noted:

“Black Widow bought the farm in Secret Empire, didn’t she? Also, Rick Jones, not that we care.”

Well, yeah, but there wasn’t any kind of overwhelming, or even halfhearted, media reaction…there was barely any ripple even in the usual comics news sources. Man, I didn’t even know about the whole Rick Jones thing. It appears either the “kill ’em off for sales and attention” thing is itself killed off, or the characters didn’t warrant the attention. Even when they “killed” Bruce Banner, general response was, like, “…eh.”

JD says, regarding Marvel moving titles to biweekly:

“Marvel did make several of its titles biweekly without much fanfare: X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue, Guardians of the Galaxy (the last of which has already been cancelled for a retooling)”

Okay, fair enough, but in my defense Marvel’s release schedule of many of their titles has been relatively wacky since the Bill Jemas era. You know, the “soon as they’re ready, get ’em on the shelves” strategy which may not have been their intention, but that’s pretty much how it worked out. For a while there on the site I was regularly complaining about supposedly monthly titles cranking out three issues in four weeks. I probably didn’t register any of Marvel’s current titles as being on a consistent biweekly schedule so much as them being on the “whenever” release pattern.

Paul suggests, per my comments about “mainstream” comic releases:

“Regarding ‘a mainstream comic mag may launch,’ not sure if you’d conside these 2 items relevant.”

I think may answer was more in regards to “mainstream” as in “regularly read by large audiences,” rather than specifically to content. I mean, the two items you link to would be good general interest comics publications, but they’re probably going to still require people going to comic shops versus grabbing off the rack at the local supermarket. But, y’know, can’t succeed unless you try, and I hope they succeed.

• • •
From Part the Third:

Turan provides a correction to the credits for “Seasons in the Sun” which I’ll just link to here. …You never know where these prediction posts will go!

Rob London rebuts my assertion about not calling Marvel’s Star Wars character Jaxxon a rabbit with

“You *can* call Jaxxon a rabbit – rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents.”

Well, he still probably wouldn’t like that…and I was all ready to blame Roy Thomas, but looking back at the full page I pulled that panel from, he was responding to someone who did call him a “rodent,” so let’s all blame that guy for doing so!

Michael tells a tale out of school in relation to my wondering why the preexisting Marvel villain called “Trump” hasn’t popped up recently:

“Mike, it so happens I was advising a Marvel author who needed a villain for their story and suggested Trump would fit their purpose. They loved the character’s gimmicks, but the idea was shot down because of his name – which I hadn’t even considered when I promoted him.

“Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when everybody wanted Gerald Ford to be their super-villain?”

Jack POOONGs

“For my money, ‘Then…KOREA’ is the best running gag this site has. POOONG!”

Jack, I will have to agree with you. I love that amazing panel. I’ll see if I can’t find a way to bring it back more often than, say, once every four or five years.

• • •
Part four, ahoy!

Papa Lazarou wondered, regarding my reference to a negative review of the Yoe Books reprint projects:

“Where can I find this?”

Already answered in the comments there, but thought I’d do a direct link here. (As I write this, images aren’t showing up there, but maybe it’s a temporary thing.) Now personally, I enjoy the Yoe Books comics, though I can certainly understand the reviewer’s issues with them.

• • •
Fit the fifth:

Gareth Wilson follows up on his own prediction (about a new rural white character who specifically isn’t a stereotypical racist etc. jerk) with

“I realised after posting about the rural character that he’s just Cannonball.”

Not new by any means, but, yeah, he probably fits the criteria. That Sam Guthry’s not a bad fella.

• • •
And now, Six:

It’s Turan again, explaining why “Thing ring, do your thing!” will likely not turn up again (and yes, Turan knows he’s responding to a joke with a very serious answer, which I of course encourage):

“Given that the ‘Thing Ring’ cartoon was a Hanna-Barbera production (as indicated by the show’s actual title, ‘Fred and Barney Meet the Thing’), and given that often the rights to a character or idea introduced in an adaptation remain with the company that produced the adaptation rather than with the owners of the original property, or at least are shared by the parties (this, to give an example that will probably mean nothing to most of your readers, is why Nikki Porter was not a character in the 1970s Ellery Queen TV series)–given that, I suspect that a ‘Thing Ring’ TV series would require the collaboration not only of Disney/Marvel and Fox, but also of Time Warner (which owns Hanna Barbera now).

Of course, Time Warner also owns DC Comics. I don’t know, but I suspect that if the people who own Marvel and the people who own DC ever do get together to make a comics-based TV series or movie, ‘Benjy Grimm and His Thing Ring’ will probably be low on the list of ideas considered.”

Yes, I reposted the entire explanation, because it’s amazing. Thanks Turan!

And that’s pretty much all I had to add this time around (except going back to part six got me to fix a stupid typo that blew one of my jokes…”INVINCIBLE,” not “INVISIBLE,” dummy!)

Thanks to all of you for your participation, and I’ll see you all back here next year when it’s time to look at your 2018 predictions!

And, um, hopefully I’ll see you later this week when the website resumes normal broadcasting!

Okay, here it is, the last installment of looking back at your 2017 predictions (parts one two three four five)! Well, there’s still one more part looking at your reactions to the last few posts, but the national nightmare is almost over! Thanks for sticking with me through this annual trek of mine.

Also, if you want to be part of the adventure next year, throw in your 2018 predictions here, even though we’re about 1/12th of the way through 2017 already.

LET’S GO PREDICTIN’ NOW:

Andrew sends me off on a true life adventure with

“Marvel reacquires at least some Fantastic Four rights, and revives Benjy Grimm of ‘Thing Ring, do your thing’ fame/infamy as a Netflix show.”

As you might have heard, Disney may be getting some of their properties back for film use via their Fox deal (barring any legal blocking of said deal), so we may actually see new FF or X-Men movies in the eventual future. …I’m going to guess that, sadly, the Thing Ring will not make a reappearance.

“Some sort of live-action Crisis or Convergence or Zero Hour happens to merge the CW shows because Berlanti finally figures out that Earth-1 should not be a world without a Superman. Swamp Thing will play a pivotal role.”

If they keep getting John Constantine cameos on the CW shows, maybe Swamp Thing will turn up someday. But for your main prediction…we actually did get a “Crisis” story on-screen, involving multiple Earths, which still seems impossible despite having watched it with my own eyes. No merging of parallel universes just yet, but if we recall our first season Flash episodes, there was that newspaper from the future that had an article about a “Crisis” event, red skies an’ all. So, yeah, I imagine sooner or later we’ll get all our characters living together on Earth-CW, but maybe not for a while.

“The Goldsman/Liefeld deal results in a Supreme movie heavily inspired by Alan Moore’s work. It will make all the money, and heads at Time Warner will roll. Fanboys will be confused when director Joss Whedon or Quentin Tarantino aim the camera so that Suprema’s feet are in every shot.”

Nothin’ yet, though I’d love to see how people react to an Alan Moore-inspired Supreme film. It would likely require replacing Silver Age Superman nostalgia as its building blocks for…I don’t know, Christopher Reeve nostalgia? Any way they do it, it’ll be weird. And your comment about the focus on feet…I’m going to read that as a comment about Liefeld’s apparent reticence for drawing feet, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE.

• • •
Philippe Leblanc wires me the following

“Legion of Superheroes will become the latest DC/CW TV show. People walk in comic shops to buy the latest Legion comics only to find confusing reprints of former series instead.”

Close…we got a small intro of them just before the end of the year in Supergirl, but didn’t get a full-on appearance ’til this year. Haven’t seen much in-store interest in Legion stories, but yeah, aside from the occasional one-off appearance (like the Bugs Bunny or Scooby-Doo crossovers), just a handful of reprint books are available. Bad time to not have an ongoing Legion comic at least for the already-buying-comics folks who might have picked it up if they saw it on the shelf.

“Marvel’s dropping of digital codes drives regular audience away. In order to revitalize sales, Marvel begins releasing exclusive Pogs to drum up sales. It’s a major success leading to a huge Pogs revival.”

Dropping those codes did annoy a few customers…a lot of folks who still liked getting the physical editions enjoyed having the digital codes to put the books on their electronical doohickeys, and removing the codes did damage the perceived value of the books. Thankfully Marvel did reverse the decision before they had to initiate the Pog Directives.

“DC Comics launches a new comic called ‘Swamp Thing & friends.’ The first issue features Swampy investigating a comic stealing crime that leads him directly to Sterling comics. Mike Sterling makes a cameo in a Swamp Thing comic. Swampy’s catches the crook too late and the owner of Sterling comics is killed. Swampy, in an act of kindness take Sterling to becomes part of the green, makes him immortal. They hang out regularly during the course of the series, doing all sorts of fun activities like canoeing, camping, having fondue and talking about the thing Swamp Thing likes the most, himself!”

• • •
Jerry Smith rigs these up

“Marvel’s sales slide will increase, with fans rejecting their pushing of classic characters into the background for new PC versions. Marvel will ignore this and figure the problem is that they’re not replacing enough classic characters.”

If anything, Marvel seems to have decided the opposite, given some statements here and there. However, a good case has been made that the problems Marvel has been facing are more endemic to their ongoing business practices more than to their attempts at attracting new audiences.

“An Image comic will get a movie deal.”

Wasn’t sure, so I did a quick Googling, and this was the top result. So yes, an Image-published comic did indeed score a movie deal! A couple more of ’em are listed here, though I’m wondering what they’re going to call the Invincible movie since there was already a film by that name in 2006. “The Invincible Chronicles?” “Invincible Man?” “LET’S GET INVINCIBLE?”

“A Planet of the Apes/Sugar & Spike crossover will be announced.”

“Gbtlz spzts!”

“GASP! The human babies spoke…um, I think!”

• • •
David Alexander McDonald farmed up these

“DC will see another show canceled with POWERLESS flopping on the No Bugger Cares channel. It won’t matter; there’ll be another 12 new DC shows by the end of 2017. On the publishing front, the two-year Rebirth overarc will be looking pretty ridiculous by June as Geoff Johns and his team of trained gerbils try to explain it all. The DC Omnibus program will gain traction and do well. A fanatical group will rise up with Superman’s Red Trunks as its banner.”

Those are a lot of predictions squeezed into here, David, so let’s see: Powerless did die, which is too bad since it started to get pretty good; not 12 shows, but the numbers are slowly increasing; we’re getting the wrap-up to the 2-year arc now so we’ll see how it goes; Omnibus program still exists, so close enough for horseshoes; “fans,” for short. (For shorts! Ha, get it, because…okay, fine.)

“Marvel will continue to pump out omnibus volumes of *everything*. Ike Perlmutter will be eaten by Washington. Marvel’s books will continue to be schizophrenically split between the endless restarts that go thuddy thud thud and the cute, funny, clever books like Ms.Marvel and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Marvel’s movies continue to do well, and some do great, but the non-Netflix TV shows will continue to have issues (although LEGION will get a lot of positive attention) with INHUMANS going down to ignominious doom despite the IMAX opening.”

Yes; pretty much; ain’t that the truth; nailed the movie/TV thing.

“Dan Slott will move into a penthouse in Las Vegas, never again to be seen by most men. Reports will periodically come out that he’s lying naked on a bed, watching ICE STATION ZEBRA over and over.”

Now you got me here at the house, late at night, thinking about Naked D. Slott. ARE THERE NO END TO YOUR CRIMES, DAVID ALEXANDER MCDONALD.

(Nothing personal against Mr. Slott, who I am sure is a perfectly acceptable naked person…DAMMIT, DAVID, LOOK AT THESE THINGS YOU MAKE ME TYPE)

• • •
Dan (presumably not Mr. Slott) contributes

“The sleeper hit of the summer 2017 blockbuster season is a gritty live action reimagining of ‘WordGirl.’ Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy becomes Public Enemy Number One after killing Captain Huggyface with a meat slicer.
In 2018 it sweeps the Oscars, winning the Big Five.”

Okay, had to look all that up because for a second there I thought our friend Dan had some kind of seizure. I vaguely recalled Wordgirl, and sure enough, those other characters exist too. Frankly, I think we’re still too soon on the ironic dark reboot of the property…the kids who watched that in the 2000s probably still need a few more years to get into positions of power in the entertainment industry. I suspect the fanfiction may be way ahead of them, however.

• • •
Anthony puts all this to a merciful end with

“Marvel won’t do any crossovers with other companies.”

Well, maybe not in the way you mean it, but Marvel teamed up with Archie Comics to get some digests into supermarkets via Archie’s ancient distribution deal. And, well, this almost happened, but probably also not what you meant.

“Even though fans will want one, there will still not be a solo Swamp Thing animated movie. (REALLY hoping I’m wrong)”

Ol’ Swampy’s been turning up in various animated places, so we’re probably closer than ever to this actually happening soon!

“The rights for the comics of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street will continue to remain lost.”

Does seem weird that it’s been a while since either of these properties have turned up on the stands. At the very least, I’d like a reprint of Marvel’s black and white Nightmare on Elm Street magazine (written by Steve Gerber) since I sold my copies off like a dummy. Ah, well, if no one’s planning on comics based on these properties right this moment, I’m sure they will be again soon. Licenses like these come back from the dead fairly often, appropriately enough.

• • •
Well, looks like that was it! Thanks for reading and contributing, pals, and I’ll have one final post following up on some of your more recent comments reacting to these last few entries. See you all on Friday!

Previous installments: one two three four

Covering: your 2017 predictions

Enter: your 2018 predictions here

LET’S CONTINUE:

Gareth Wilson volleys

“A high-schooler teacher on a Marvel movie or TV show will irritably demand to know where Kamala Khan or Miles Morales is. Not necessarily the Spider-Man movie.”

Well, a little Googling and Wikipedia-ing reveals that, yes, there was a deleted scene from the Spider-Man: Homecoming film that references Miles Morales. Can’t seem to find anything similar for Ms. Khan, but both Ms. Marvel and the Miles Spider-Man have made direct appearances in cartoons, so, you know, there’s that.

“A new Marvel or DC character will be introduced who is white and from a working-class rural background. They will be firmly established as not racist, sexist, or homophobic.”

Can’t think of any specific examples, but sure, why not. I don’t know that they’d have been established as not having those traits, but, y’know, so long as they’re not explicitly shown as mocking Norwegians, chasing secretaries around desks, and hatin’ on gays, that’s at least something.

“Some kind of Green Lantern adaptation – comic, movie, or TV show – will emphasise the Lanterns as law enforcement officers, and implicitly criticise other superheroes as irresponsible vigilantes.”

Well, the Green Lanterns as space cops thing’s been in the comics for a while now, but I can’t recall any kind of in-story comparison/conflict/reading that pushes the GL Corps as being superior to superpowered vigilantes. It’s probably come up at some point, but don’t recall any major storylines of late where that was a plot point.

• • •
Michael Grabowski hands off

“Full frontal face-to-face interaction between Watchmen and DCU characters within the DCU continuity, but then the characters will be back to separate universes with new ongoing Watchmen-related comics.”

“Full frontal,” indeed…I see what you did there. The Doomsday Clock series is just barely underway, and the meetings of characters are only just beginning. Well, there was that Batman/Flash “The Button” story where Reverse-Flash seemingly meets Dr. Manhattan, but that was all off-panel. I think the real meat of this crossover has yet to be rev…er, maybe I should rephrase that.

I do expect follow-ups on Doomsday Clock with Watchmen characters, but totally in DCU continuity. C’mon, they’d have to be, for no other reason than to drive people crazy.

“President Trump, or presidential characters inspired by him, will play a significant role in the present-day continuties of both Marvel and DCU comics.”

Pretty much avoided ol’ Trumpy in their comics. Like I said in a previous installment of these Prediction posts, indie comics seem to have it covered.

“The 40th anniversary of Cerebus the Aardvark #1 will result in renewed interest in the character and the restored editions of the trade volumes in spite of Dave Sim’s ongoing awkward and amibivalent approach to promoting his work.”

There have been several Cerebus-related comics this year…all reprints of his webstrip Cerebus in Hell, featuring Our Favorite Aardvark in essentially clipart form, pasted over Gustave Doré illustrations from Dante’s Inferno. I don’t know if there’s been increased interest in Cerebus of late…I’ve only sold a few volumes since I’ve opened my store, period, though I’ve seen some chatter about it online here and there. At least it’s still being discussed, 15+ years after it wrapped up!

• • •
Dave Carter has Yet Another set of predictions

“DC’s summer event, which will feature the Watchmen characters (or some derivation thereof) interacting with the DCU. will meet with derision and general condemnation by fans online, yet still sell very well.”

The actual event, Doomsday Clock, didn’t start ’til almost the end of the year. but it is selling very well despite negative online reaction. In-store reaction has been mostly positive. The same goes for the earlier mini-event “The Button,” which was closer to spring than summer, but sort of had the same reaction.

“Ms. Marvel collections will continue to be one of Marvel’s best-selling items, with a huge portion of their sales (at least 50%) coming from outside comic shops.”

A couple of articles on Marvel’s slumping sales (early in the year, and later) both emphasize Ms. Marvel’s high trade sales…how much is from outside the direct market, I’m not sure, but it’s likely a not-insignificant amount.

“A third-tier comics publisher will attempt to jump on the Trump bandwagon by publishing comics designed to appeal to the so-called alt-right.”

There was some talk and fundraising along these lines, but it was pretty late in the year and so nothing’s out quite yet. You can read a little about it here.

• • •
Tim B. supplies

“Geoff Johns’s New Years Day tweet with the close up of Dr Manhattan actually relates to his 12 issue magnum opus entitled Northampton that involves an up & coming comic book writer going mad touring the Midlands and encountering a lot of characters from the works of Alan Moore in a biting criticism of mass market pop cultures as a distraction against the random chaos of the universe. Moore’s grumbling can be heard from the International Space Station…”

Alas, Geoff Johns’ LARGE DIGITS did not see the light of day.

“The DCEU films will continue to make mistakes that they rectify in the next film, only to produce new, different mistakes attaining an asymptotic relationship to the platonic ideal of super-hero films.”

Well, in my opinion, the Justice League film addressed the criticisms that previous DC films were too dark by giving us a fun adventure. But yes, it had its problems…nothing new, just the same old “villain is evil because he’s evil” motivation. Whether that problem can be fixed in the next film is more an issue with big-budget action movie production as a whole than just DC superhero movies. We’ll see.

“The Inhumans continue to not be a thing, for the 52nd year running…”

(sigh) Yeah….

• • •
Adam Farrar goes too far with

“DC doesn’t think to put out a comic to capitalize on The Lego Batman Movie. Maybe some cover variants, but no comics.”

No comics, or even variants…unless you count the variants from a couple of years ago that fooled some people into thinking they actually were Lego comics. There were a few kids books, at least.

“Neil Gaiman & Mark Buckingham’s Miracleman comics start coming out again.”

That would have been nice. Been waiting for a follow-up on that cliffhanger for decades.

“Kurt Busiek & John Paul Leon’s ‘Batman: Creature of the Night’ finally comes out.”

Indeed it did, just under the wire!

• • •
Jeff R. wraps up today’s installment with

“We get a Legion book back this year, finally. (Also, the Legion will have a huge role in the CW-verse(s) fall 2017)”

No Legion of Super-Heroes comic yet (though it appears to at least be a gleam in DC’s eye at the moment). The Legion did begin their involvement in the CW superhero shows in the episode or two of Supergirl“Still no Fantastic Four Book in 2017.”

As answered previously, there’s like half an FF book, with the Thing and the Human Torch in the Marvel Two-in-One series.

“We will get at least two things on this list: New Frank Miller Sin City, A Fourth Scott McCloud nonfiction book, all of Gaiman’s Miracleman: The Silver Age, Matt Wagner’s Mage III, and/or a trade paperback collection of Foglio’s Buck Godot: The Gallumaufry.”

You got one of those things (the Mage III comics) and you’ll like it, mister!

• • •
Okay, next time will be the end of the predictions, so hang on just a little bit longer, everyone!

Okay, let’s knock out a few more of your 2017 comic industry predictions (previous installments: one, two and three). Like I said before, I’ll have follow-ups and corrections to my earlier response in the final part of this series, which should only be three or four months away. And if you have any predictions for 2018, put ’em here, but don’t guess that Tom Strong and Promethea will return to comics, because we already know.

So, once more unto the breach:

Andrew Leal presents the following with zeal

“NetFlix will consider bolstering their Marvel shows (and that sort of but not quite RICHIE RICH thing) with HERBIE (Popnecker, not the Volkswagon or the robot).”

I know it was just a joke prediction, but I would gladly donate pal Ian‘s life savings for a Herbie Popnecker TV show of some kind. I’d prefer, like, a CGI Herbie in a real world setting, or if we had to have an actual actor as Herbie…I don’t know, Matt Lucas? Whatever…I can just picture a Herbie TV show giving kids weird memories they’d half-recall as adults, wondering if they’d just imagined it.

“The Lego BATMAN movie and related tie-ins will make money and bring joy and probably lead some to consider just making the next Batman/Superman movie in Lego.”

It make money, it brought joy, but I don’t think there’s a direct follow-up in the works. And they’re still making DC superhero movies in live action, so no, like, Lego Justice League movie, which perhaps might have done better than the JL movie they actually put out.

“Mike will have fewer GRAPE APE comics in his shop than the previous year.”

I believe this is true. ONE HIT FOR ANDREW.

• • •
Brian offers up

“Marvel’s constant rebooting of titles will finally lead to some new sort of system (vs. having the twelfth number one of a given title, perhaps two or three of them in the same year). Such a new system won’t be any clearer, however.”

The “Marvel Legacy” initiative this year sorta helped to clear things up a bit, though I did have some confusion from some customers (“wait, why is this comic suddenly #218!?”). It would be nice if Marvel just left it as-is, sticking to those higher issue numbers instead of launching into new restarts…but Marvel just ended Guardians of the Galaxy at #150, and you know when they relaunch it, it ain’t gonna be at #151. So this Marvel Legacy “no really look at how long all these series have ran, once you add ’em all together” thing could just be a temporary cosmetic fix, until the next wave of new #1s comes in (which is the rumor goin’ around, I hear).

“Given rising production costs and the maturation of the digital sales market, one of the independent publishers will switch to solely-digital production, allowing for different controls on how ‘books’ are done.”

I don’t think this happened…a lot of the publishers that have been on the stands have surely expanded their digital offerings, but I don’t think anyone’s entirely abandoned print. There could be some small publishing house that I’m not recalling, so feel free to remind me!

“DC will start running into trouble as creative teams on the Rebirth books come and go, making it more difficult to line up the conclusion of the promised two-year line-wide arc.”

I haven’t really noticed too much of a problem here so far…yeah, there have been some team switch-ups, but nothing that seems likely to endanger DC’s long-term plans. Plus, if I recall correctly, Doomsday Clock, the beginning of the end of DC’s two-year plan, takes place a year in the future of the DC Universe, so the rest of the line still has time to catch up. I think.

• • •
MrJM jams in here with

“At least one high-profile/high-stakes criminal prosecutions for the creation and/or sale of politically/socially/sexually radical comics. Creators, retailers & fans share a serious ‘waitwhatohshit’ moment.”

I don’t think any one big thing happened to make us all go “…uh oh,” but there’s always some shenanigans going on as seen on the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s main page.

“DC’s Young Animal imprint continues to make comics designed just for me!”

I’m going to say…”Yes. Yes they did. And are. And will likely continue to do so.”

“Alf makes a big comeback.”

Yeah, yeah, I know. But seriously, I’m sort of surprised there hasn’t been an effort to bring those Alf comics back into print. They were actually very popular at the time (as the story goes, even outselling X-Men comics on the newsstand), and had some pretty solid cartooning. Be a shame if they just vanished forever with no permanent edition to preserve them. …C’mon, ALF ARCHIVES…it’s gotta happen.

• • •
Chris Gumprich grumps

“A forgotten 1950s comic gets a new life when reprinted and becomes the darling of the Internet. The creators are unknown and probably too dead to reap any benefit.”

I’m sure 1950s comics were reprinted, but I don’t know that any of them got internet traction. Well, there was that pretty negative review of IDW’s reprints of weird old horror and romance comics which received a bit of attention, but that’s probably not what you meant. I mean, once I publish that complete collection of Spunky the Monkey, then we’ll be on the same page.

“Creators bring a modern take to a beloved 1970s cartoon, ignoring what made it popular in the first place. (My vote is for Hong Kong Phooey, but that was never popular.)”

The 1970s were a real wasteland when it came to cartoons anyone would want to revive…trust me, I grew up in the ’70s, most of those cartoons were terrible. I mean, sure, I watched ’em, but they were still awful. Well, there was Dastardly and Muttley, based on…well, technically a very late 1960s cartoon, but still really part of the 1970s. The comic based on that ignored a lot of the original cartoons…but in a good way!

We did get some ’70s characters in the Scooby Doo Team-up series, but those were all pretty true to their roots. Even Hong Kong Phooey! …Still willing to write that Mighty Man and Yukk revival, DC!

“A big-name creator says something stupid on Twitter, everyone gets upset, boycotts are called, and then promptly forgotten when another big-name creator says something stupid.”

I think we can just assume this happens every year!

• • •
Mike Loughlin laughingly adds

“Trump will show up in a Marvel comic. Readers will not be pleased.”

I think Savage Dragon beat ’em to it. And many people weren’t thrilled…particularly if they liked Trump!

“The Watchmen characters’ appearances in various DC books will derail the series’ plot lines and lead to declining sales.”

There have been tie-ins (more thematically than character appearances) but nothing that’s really completely derailed any of the books. Everything seems pretty well integrated, for once.

“Mosaic will be canceled; readers will be blamed for not pre-ordering/ trade-waiting/ Marvel Unlimited-waiting by someone who works for Marvel.”

There was a lot of talk about “readers not supporting the books” near the end of the year, regarding several announced cancellations. I don’t recall any such talk about Mosaic, which went from the character being a semi-big deal to “you know, I don’t recall seeing any solicitations for this comic for the last couple of months.” Well, okay, I exaggerate, I never noticed that it was gone. Just the latest title to fall by the wayside, without any real fanfare.

• • •
James proclaims

“Trump references E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E.”

Mostly from indies, surprisingly not so much from Marvel.

“Harley Quinn will get a (much needed) new creative team.”

A new creative team was announced last year, and debuted this week!

“The Fantastic Four will remain M.I.A.”

Well, you’re half-right, I guess, depending on how you look at it…half the team returned in Marvel Two-in-One at the end of the year. Technically, the Fantastic Four is still gone, but we’ve got the Fantastic Two on the stands. That’s, y’know, close.

• • •
My old pal mojo_iv squishes these in

“Chuck Austen will return with a 48-page adaptation of the 1988 film Action Jackson.”

Sadly, no. And I totally would have read that.

“Leftover plot points from Secret Wars will be used to justify a crossover between the main Marvel Universe and the Star Wars universe. Galactus will threaten Coruscant and only the 3rd or 4th Death Star or something can be used to defeat him, but it’s powered by Terrigen-infected Ewoks or Hoojibs or something and instead Rey and Quicksilver have to time travel back to the Prequels and stop Anakin and Padme from getting married or something. Meanwhile Jean Grey will kill 80 billion Mon Calamari and be given a pass because Phoenix.”

Okay, the Mon Calamari joke gave me a mean chuckle. But honestly, I am so surprised at the lack of Marvel/Star Wars crossovers (even, like, a full month of themed variant covers) that I can only assume it’s prohibited by highers-up. Otherwise it’d be nothing but “Dr. Doom versus Darth Vader…TO THE DEATH.”

“Dwayne McDuffie will rise from the grave to destroy us all.”

And we’d probably deserve it.

• • •
Okay, time for my beauty sleep, so that I may become even more beautiful, so I’ll pick up on the predictions this coming Monday. Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you then!

Okay, I meant to go edit in some more corrections and addendums/addenda in the previous posts (part one and two), but I think I’ll wait ’til we’re done going through all the predictions and do a final wrap-up instead. In the meantime, let’s get through a few more of your guesses for the events of 2017…and don’t forget to give me your predictions for 2018!

Rob London bridges the gap with

“Marvel villain Trump (you know, this guy) makes a comeback.”

Not that I can tell (as you might imagine, that’s hard to look up right now…”Siri, find me ‘trump villain evil'”) but I can’t imagine how anyone at Marvel could have resisted.

“DC launches an equivalent to Marvel Unlimited.”

(and Bryan Boles also noted “I think this is the year DC finally has a digital equivalent to Marvel Unlimited”)

Not that I can tell, but this seems like something The People want, since I had more than one person predict it!

“Agents of SHIELD ends in May; its spot in the ABC schedule is taken by a Ghost Rider series.”

Beyond all expectation, it’s still hanging in there. Who knew?

• • •
Wayne Allen Sallee sallies forth with

“Dr. Oz is not Ozymandias. Clark Kent is really Nite Owl from the Watchmen-verse AND Dr. Oz.”

Well…you’re partly right!

“The letter Thomas Wayne wrote to his son Bruce were simply the lyrics to ‘Seasons in The Sun’ by Terry Jacks.”

Close…turned out it was the lyrics to “MacArthur Park.”

“The DC/Watchmen thing will never be resolved because Trump and Putin will fight over something trivial–perhaps the hidden meaning of ‘Seasons in The Sun’–and Russia and the US will bomb each other to bits.”

Oh, Wayne…you know those two crazy kids would never fight over anything!

• • •
Stephen Conway twitters

“Daredevil will be the latest Marvel character to be replaced with a PoC legacy character, but there won’t be any wholly new character that receives their own book.”

Seems like Matt Murdock and his twin brother Swingin’ Mike Murdock are in it for the long haul…though I suppose recent supporting character Blindspot is right there if they decide to do the ol’ switcheroo.

“Several second and third tier publishers collapse. NuValiant folds as their much needed influx of Hollywood money never arrives.”

No comics-aggedon just yet…maybe a couple have fallen off (or at least scaled back) in the last year, but there’s no alarming attrition thus far.

“Charles Soule catches a rather bad cold causing him miss his deadlines, resulting in Marvel having a week with no new comics.”

That man apparently had a very healthy year!

• • •
Rob Staeger stages the new few items

“I’m gonna predict a new Legion series until they give us one. I’m going to go out on a limb and say DC will use some of Tom King’s Batman cred to launch it; he’ll write the first year.”

Hard to believe we’re still waiting for a new Legion of Super-Heroes series…but better to let it rest than just crank out series after series with declining returns. I do like your idea of Tom King writing it, though…that would certainly make it feel different from every other attempt at relaunching the series.

“While I’m making a wish list, I’ll predict another thing I’d really like: DC will publish a collection reprinting some of the Comico Jonny Quest series.”

I’d like a collection of that series from pretty much any source, but it feels like the time to have done that was maybe when the Future Quest series had started way back when.

“Of the original wave of Rebirth books, the first one cancelled will be Blue Beetle. Jaime Reyes will become a regular in a team book soon afterward.”

It didn’t happen ’til this year, with Blue Beetle ending this February…but Superwoman is beating it by a month, ending, well, right now.

• • •
Bully, the Little Foreseeing Bull, stuffs in the following

“Jaxxon the Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit will get his own five-issue miniseries.”

I don’t think this fella’s turned up at Marvel aside from a couple of variant covers…but I’d be all for a Jaxxon series. Except don’t call him a rabbit because:

“Fleishman’s Margarine will become the newest member of either the X-Men or the Inhumans, or both.”

Well, the Inhumans could’ve used the help.

“The crossover event ‘War of the Spiders’ will never finish. Neither will the human race.”

I’m not even sure what “War of the Spiders” even was. Man, crossovers sure do come and go nowadays. I mean, maybe it is still going, who am I to judge? The human race, however, is still going, sort of despite itself.

• • •
Rich Handley palms off the following

“Star Trek comics will cross over with at least two other franchises. One of them will have the word ‘Star’ in the title.”

Alas, no Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek event, nor did Barbra Streisand meet the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise in A Star Trek Is Born.

“The Watchmen’s involvement in DC Rebirth will ultimately turn out to be neither as interesting nor as important as folks are hoping.”

Well, we’ve got 10 more issues to go before we find out, I don’t know, Rorschach is Jimmy Olsen’s father, or whatever. We’ll just have to see!

“Then… KOREA!”

Why, this is just a cheap ploy to get me to run this panel again:

It’ll never work.

• • •
More prediction talk to come in just a day or two! Thanks for reading, pals.

AND SO IT CONTINUES SOME MORE: more looking behinder to see aheader via your comic industry predictions for 2017 and checking who got it right, who got it wrong, and how good your pal Mike’s memory is. Part one of this series is right here, and if you want to participate in next year’s event, drop your 2018 comics predictions in the comments here.

Let’s jump right in!

Hulk It Up, Y’all! smashes through with

“Monsters Unleashed will be the first truly fun big ol’ Marvel crossover on a long time, which will be much needed after Civil War II”

Well, parts of it were fun, but the series as a whole didn’t seem to grab the same amount of eyeballs as the Civil War event. I suspect, however, it was a sufficient palate cleanser for those sampled it.

“Wonder Woman will be a big ol’ flop, thus further damaging movie studios’ faith in female led superhero movies :(. If that happens, I will not be happy.”

Never fear, Mr. and/or Mrs. Hulk It Up, Y’all! as the Wonder Woman movie was indeed a big ol’ hit.

“That FCBD Star Trek TNG Mirror Universe comic will be a big ol’ load of fun, and somehow less bleak than a certain movie that also has the word ‘Star’ in it that came out this year.”

I quite liked that Mirror Universe story…I don’t read too many modern ST comics, but I make the occasional exception and this was was pretty fun. It was, as you say, less bleak than that one “Star” movie.

• • •
Pelasgus’s Pal Jason Sandberg submits

“Marvel will move several flagship titles to a biweekly schedule. (The change might be implemented in the manner of Waid’s current ‘Avengers’ run with .1 issues).”

There wasn’t a deliberate and consistent effort to duplicate DC’s biweekly books at Marvel, aside from the occasional shipping shenanigans that resulted in consecutive issues being released close together. There were those .1 issues alternating with their parent titles, like you said, but that’s not quite the same as a single biweekly book. As it turns out, Avengers is weekly for a storyline in 2018, which is not something I would have predicted!

“DC will launch a ‘Bat-Man and the Justice League’ title.”

There is a new (biweekly!) Justice League of America title that is basically “Batman and the Justice League,” which was actually solicited in the same month you made your prediction, but my guess is that you may not have known about it. It’s not titled “Batman and the Justice League,” which…well, I kinda wonder how that would have improved sales?

“Boom! Studios will announce a December 2017 ‘Klaus’ one-shot from Grant Morrison & Dan Mora, this will become a beloved annual Christmas tradition.”

Indeedy-doodly. I hope, like you, they do this every year.

• • •

googum googumed:

“There were a lot of comics with Obama covers. Not expecting anywhere near as many Trump ones.”

There were quite a few Trump parody comics in the past year…I think he’s still behind in numbers versus the Obama comics, but hey, it’s only been a year, I’m sure Trump will catch up in the next seven years of his term. But anyway, like I said in this End of Civilization post a while back, there certainly is a different…tone to the Trump books, isn’t there?

“Even though the sales are better than most other books, Marvel still decides to shake up Star Wars; with a new number one and setting stories after Empire.”

I am surprised the main Star Wars book hasn’t been restarted with a new setting and/or focus yet. I bet they’ll do what you predicted here eventually.

“Next big comics death? I’m guessing Storm.”

Storm is still amongst the four-color living at the moment. In fact, did we have any big character deaths this last year? I mean big as in “anybody caring” or “it made the TV news because nothing else was going on that day.” I know a character or three died in Marvel’s event, but I’m pretty sure all that resulted was some shrugging and assuming the character(s) will be back in whatever the next event will be.

• • •
Harvey Jerkwater spills the following

“Marvel will continue its strategy of creating a second version of every hero as well as its strategy of making the original hero temporarily evil (e.g., Superior Spider-Man, Superior Iron Man, the Hydra-fied Captain America) and it will lead to at least one hilarious misfire that will prompt years of ‘can you believe they did that’ internet giggles.”

Honestly, I can’t think of anything that meets that criteria more than Hydra-Cap. And we’ll never be able to let that sink into the memory hole because I’m sure he’ll get dragged out as a nemesis for every other event series from now on.

“The temptation to create a Big Event where the original versions of the Marvel heroes fight the second versions will prove too strong for editorial to resist.”

Marvel did in fact do this with their “Generations” series of one-shots, with Wolvering Vs. All-New Wolverine, etc. It wasn’t so much an event as event-tangent, spinning off from Secret Empire.

“The Punisher will pick up a ‘Mr. Myxyzptlk/Bat-Mite’ style puckish magical imp called ‘Li’l Bang-Bang’ to bedevil him with fanboy questions and magical shenanigans during his relentless mission of vengeance.”

Will pray every day to any entity that will listen for this to someday take place.

• • •
Bob Stec goes this way with

“Trump will NOT appear on comics covers or interiors as President Obama did, instead, he will appear in stories as thinly veiled (but obvious) villains across the Marvel and DC lines.”

The ol’ Trumpeteer has been showing up in lots of indie comics, and he was, shall we say, prominently presented in an issue of Savage Dragon. He’s made a few appearances in recent DC books (noted here), and the Marvel wiki has a couple of not-very-flattering appearances listed here. Nothing quite on the level of Serpent Society Ronald Reagan yet.

“A Marvel Comics Bronze Age Christmas Story Omnibus will be published. Over-sized and re-colored for your yuletide pleasure.”

Again, I’m surprised they didn’t do anything like this. They’ve got enough reasonably good holiday stories to make for a solid omnibus edition.

“Batman ’66/Gilligan’s Island mini-series will be published. It will contain a scene where Sherwood Schwartz and Julius Schwartz meet ‘n’ greet. Written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Kevin Maguire! C’mon you know this would be awesome!”

I can picture this greatness in my head, and I hate you for making me want this thing that will never happen. Unless of course I start a GoFundMe campaign to collect enough cash to commission a story by these guys that only I can get to read.

• • •
Thelonious_Nick cuts in with

“As Marvel sales continue to drop, DC holds steady, and Image gains ground, we start talking of a ‘Big 3’ comic companies.”

As I noted in an edit to the last prediction post, market shares held relatively steady, even if actual monies made dipped. I don’t think anyone’s talking “Big 3” yet, but certainly nobody’s ignoring Image as a powerful player in the marketplace.

“Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Lego Batman movies earn ALL the money this year, Wonder Woman movie is too dark for parents to take their kids to see and fares poorly, Thor 3 seen as derivative and bombs at box office. Latest Spider-Man reboot and Logan stand-alone movie leave theaters after two weeks having barely made a ripple.”

GOTG2 did very well ($860 million), and Lego Batman had a good showing (about $312 million). But everything else you listed there did just fine, too! In fact, I think Logan was the second-highest grossing X-Men movie (behind Days of Future Past). Homecoming had a slightly higher box office than Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the other two movies you mentioned…well, you’ve probably heard how they’ve done!

“Following Life After and Exodus: Life After, the Life After will start its third series–Leviticus: Life After.”

Oh, you.

• • •
Simon says

“Retailers will start merging or collapsing.”

There were a lot of stories over the last few weeks about stores taking financial hits after a lackluster year…I’m sure we lost a few shops, but I haven’t heard of any specific shop mergers to, like, save businesses. Could start happening if problems continue…it’s an option that could be considered.

“Publishers will keep merging or collapsing.”

There’s certainly been some cooperation…Marvel teaming with Archie to get those Spider-Man and X-Men digests into grocery stores, for example, and IDW is still packaging high-end reprints and special collections for other companies. There was stuff like Netflix buying Millarworld’s stuff, but that’s not quite the same. I can’t think of any companies literally merging into one company in our industry, but I do have a bad memory for that sort of thing. Let me know what I missed and I’ll add it in here.

“A mainstream comic mag may launch.”

I get what you mean, but I can’t think of any U.S. publications that would match what you’re probably thinking of. There are plenty of mainstream graphic novels that are doing gangbuster business, like DC Super Hero Girls and anything by Raina Telgemeier, but there isn’t any regularly published comics mag that gets on all the newsstands and in the grocery stories that’s widely bought by folks who don’t normally buy comics…well, maybe Mad, but even that’s not what it was. Hey, maybe someday.

• • •
That’s the end for today…come back soon for part 3 of your 2017 predictions! And, of course, a big thanks to everyone who participated!