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And so it goes on, our look back at your predictions for The Comic Industry in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty and Four, with parts one and two at those links right there.
And yes, get in those predictions for 2025 before too much more 2025 goes by!
• • •
googum, as is his wont,
googums
“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.”
Kang is definitely out in the Marvel movies, given the troubles with the actor, and the simple fact Kang wasn’t getting the Big Villain traction Thanos did. Essentially replaced by Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, and that Avengers movie that would have been called “The Kang Dynasty” is now “Doomsday.” So there.
“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.”
Huh, could’ve sworn we had more of the Guardians over the last year, but it looks like the last Guardians comic was the annual in February. I’m sure I’m not remembering appearances of the Guardians (solo or together) in other comics, but it doesn’t look like there’s a new series for them in the near future, barring news I’ve not spotted. Oh, and as you read this a Doctor Doom and Rocket Raccoon one-shot should be on the stands at your better comic shops, or even mine.
“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.”
I’ve not seen anything from any legitimate publishers using A.I., far as I know. There was bit of a dust-up middle of last year regarding an artist possibly using A.I. for cover art. I feel like (or at least hope) anyone using A.I. to generate work would probably be shunned, shunned I say, so that’s a good incentive for someone in comics’ small pool to avoid it.
• • •
Bret comes this way
with
“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.”
Unfortunately, the Blue Beetle film actually didn’t do well at all, making just barely over its production budget, which doesn’t even count its promotional budget and so on. But it seems like a Booster Gold TV show may be in the works for streaming on Max. It looks like whatever they’ve done so far has been returned for regrooving, so it may be a while yet before we get any idea what it’ll be like.
“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!”
Not…as such. Marvel would occasionally do one-offs with ’80s and ’90s creators, and that Silver Surfer Rebirth was basically that. But not a whole lot of that in 2024, aside from facsimile reprints. Am I forgetting something? Maybe X-Men ’97, though that’s more a nostalgic call back to the cartoon than the comics.
“3. SECRET WARS III (12-part mini-series) by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck. Nuff said.”
Would I read the hell out of this? Abso-freakin’-lutely. C’mon, Marvel, let’s get this going.
• • •
Snark Shark sorta
predicted
“1) more Marvel movies will bomb.”
As noted previously, Madame Web and Kraven both died dogs’ deaths, as, like, everyone figured. Marvel Studios its own self only put out the one flick, and Deadpool/Wolverine made all the money.
“2) more DC movies will bomb.”
Also previously noted, Joker: Folie à Deux, DC’s only theatrical release for 2024 I believe, um, underperformed, shall we say.
“3) uh… i dunno.”
Me neither, Snark Shark. Me neither.
• • •
Thom H. hops on it
with
“1. Nice House on the Lake vol. 2 is published or at least announced.”
Nice House by the Sea did indeed start coming out in 2024!
“2. Miracleman: Dark Age is put on hold indefinitely because Silver Age performed so poorly.”
Um…it’s probably on hold for now, but not for reasons of underperformance, shall we say.
“3. Tom King finally gets to write a Legion of Super-Heroes story.”
Not yet! Hey, might as well give the boy a shot…can’t hurt.
• • •
DK returns
with
“It’s that time of year again….”
It just keeps comin’, DK.
“1) Kevin Feige gets fired or demoted.”
Nope, we still have Kevin Feige to kick around.
“2) There will be a big announcement of a major Justice Society project for the 85th Anniversary in 2025.”
Outside of a new ongoing series, I haven’t seen anything specifically for an anniversary celebration. I wouldn’t mind if they did a facsimile edition of this DC Special:
…but maybe throwing Hitler and a swastika on a cover right now may not be particularly wise. So maybe a facsimile of this digest (at normal comic book size, please) which reprints the story above, and more besides:
Anyhoo, I’d like to have all the digests reprinted in comic book size. DC Comics, you have your orders.
“3) Spider-Man sales drop noticeably.”
Sales actually went up a bit for me over the past year. Looking at Comichron sales appear to be relatively consistent overall, so it’s hanging in there!
• • •
Existentialman appears
with
“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.”
I…don’t think so? I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Let me know in the comments and I’ll update this entry. (By the way, doing a Google search on a woman comics creator always turns up some awful results.)
“2) A Disney+ Viv Vision television series will be announced in 2024 to premiere in 2025.”
Not yet, but give ’em time.
“3) Even with his past vision challenges, Mike will draw a much better capybara in 2024.”
this is like the third time you’ve asked me about my capybara drawing, and friend, I may never top this one from when I was five:
But the one I did for this post comes close.
• • •
Okay, Enuff Z’Nuff for today, so let’s continue our foray into the future via a year past on Friday, which is also in the future. …I’ve lost track of where I’m at. Anyway, thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you then.
Back at it this week, checking to see just how you all did in regards to guessing how the past year in comics was going to go! Part one is here, and don’t forget to get in your predictions for 2025 while there’s still time!
So, awaaaaay we go:
Chris V visits us with
“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.”
I think, by and large, the Main Three X-titles (X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and Exceptional X-Men are fairly well regarded by fans, particularly Uncanny as written by Gail Simone. In my opinion, launching three ongoing X-Men titles (not to mention, like, X-Factor and X-Force) all at once doesn’t really help or encourage readership (Exceptional is already slipping in sales for me, and X-Factor and X-Force are selling minimal numbers.)
It’s hard to say what would make a “safe” choice for an X-book…I mean, the aforementioned Simone is a fairly beloved writer, so in that way it’s “safe,” but I don’t think anyone expected her to be on an ongoing X-Men series, so that’s kind if a surprise, maybe. Unless you meant “people who normal write superhero comics” as being the safe choice, and, I don’t know, “Alan Moore returns to comics to write Uncanny” would be the “critical darling” choice. Not making fun or anything, just trying to define terms so we can determine how right you are with your prediction.
I think I’m going to say you were right i that these were safe choices, in that these were all people regularly writing comics and have proven track records. Not Huge Giants of Comics, like, say…ooh, there are a couple names I want to say here, but given the trouble they’ve been in of late, I don’t want to. You know who I’m talking about, people on that level. Or had been on that level, anyway.
As to whether you stopped reading X-books, Chris, I don’t know. I’m going to say…maybe you did? You’ll have to tell us!
“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).”
Some books are still holding the line at $3.99, but boy folks are getting really comfortable with slapping $4.99 and $5.99 and $6.99 price tags on things. And of course there’s the occasional $9.99 Special Issue! Oof. Anyway, I made my predictions for 2025 and didn’t realize I essentially duplicated this one. Urgh. It’s gonna happen eventually.
“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.”
I think Hickman is still solidly at Marvel, and so is Al Ewing, though Ewing did have his Metamorpho series come out at the end of the year for DC, and it was announced he’s writing Absolute Green Lantern this coming year. Gillen I believe is still primarily Marvel and Image (and other indies).
• • •
William Gatevackes swings open
with
“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.”
I don’t know if any comic companies can afford Taylor Swift. And while I’m sure redesigning Dazzler to look like Taylor is tempting, I don’t think even Disney would want to tangle with her legal team.
There was a Little Golden Book about her, though!
“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.”
Would the Absolute books count? The Superman one, especially. I think the greatest trick of them all is that said “unsavory types” probably read the book and don’t even realize it’s “woke” [complimentary]. “Wow, this comic where a family bucks the traditional class system, leading their son to fight for the little guy against the powers that be, is great! It’s so much better than one of those ‘woke’ comics!”
“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.”
Look, this has to be done while we still have Ray Wise in the acting business. Wise played Kirby for a TV show a while back, and HE IS THE MAN. I don’t think any biopic has been announced, but Hollywood is foolish if such a thing does not happen.
• • •
Sciencegiant is trying to kill me
with
“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.”
Well, these are more “Question Time“-esque post prompts than predictions, I think, Obviously all these things happen (and will also happen in 2025, natch), but I can probably come up with an example for each.
“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.”
I mean, the easy answers are Madame Web and Kraven, but I’m pretty sure literally everyone except whoever’s running Sony knew those were DOA. I think the big shock is that Joker sequel…the first film made a billion bucks and won all kinds of awards. I mean, I’m sure no one thought the second film would do as well, but they probably thought it would do, y’know, at least reasonably okay given the performance of the previous installment. Certainly not that it would crash and burn in such an epic manner.
Anyway, that probably doesn’t kill the idea of Batman related films, but it definitely put the kibosh on musicual superhero movies, I think.
“2) SOB! The industry lost a great one whose like we will not soon see again. Any stories you care to share, Mike?”
I don’t want to single out any particular creator as being The Big One, because that’s not really fair to everyone. A lot of talents passed this past year, some after a very long life, some way too traggically young.
However, I do have a special fondness for Don Perlin, who passed in 2024 at the age of 94. I have an issue of Defenders a friend gave me, one guest-starring Man-Thing, that was signed by him.
“3) Fandom seems pleased/outraged about this latest reimagining. Your thoughts?”
Everything turning up Absolute Comics! And Ultimate Comics from Marvel, too, I guess!
“4) Good grief! Lucy pulled the football away on Charlie Brown AGAIN?!”
Hey, that’s four predictions! You have broken ape law! Anyway, Lucy and Charlie Brown are long dead, no one’s pulling footballs from anybody now.
• • •
Andrew Davison teaches us all with
this
“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.”
I…wait, what? Anyway, I don’t look good in a tophat. Besides, you all were lucky to get one video of my dumb face in a rumpled shirt here, I ain’t doin’ no magical tricks.
• • •
Dan Jack
sez
“1. The mainstream publishers will continue to promote Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in their hiring and staffing”
Not sure that I’ve heard anything specific about this, but if they do, I hope then continue to do so. Especially now.
“2. More and more readers will abandon the above publishers.”
I presume you’re trying to draw a connection between Prediction #1 and this one. Sales do seem to be up, particularly with the advent of (here they are again) the Absolute and Ultimate lines. I know at my store comic sales are up across the board. I think things are okay with the Big Two right now…I’m more worried about the little guys and how the Diamond bankruptcy situation may affect them. Oh, and how tariffs may increase prices across the board. That’s more of a problem than supposed “diversity hires.”
“3. More crowdfunding/etc ventures will be successful, and remain un/under reported on by comics industry as a whole!”
In fairness I probably don’t mention these enough here, but I do occasionally go in for retailer bundles on some Kickstarters. I can’t do ’em all, but I try to pick the occasional one that sounds interesting. And it seems like I see them mentioned all the time, but maybe that’s mostly on social media. That’s where more people will see them anyway, I think, more than on my silly, ancient blog.
• • •
Cassandra Miller almost lives up to her name
with
“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.”
Yeah, they’ve popped up once or twice, even an evil Anti-Legion in the DC All-In special. But not a whole lot really giving us what the Legion’s deal currently is, post Bendis-reboot. I really, really, really keep hoping we just get a World’s Finest-style Legion series by Mark Waid, since anything in the current DC Universe seems doomed to failure.
“2. Diamond files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and (hopefully) emerges a little stronger.”
Well, you were off by a couple of weeks, but Diamond did in fact do just that. Whether they come out of it stronger is something I expect we’ll find out in a few months.
“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.”
The Superman books seem to have cut back a little on the “here’s 15 different Super-characters” business, though they did play a part in that weekly Waid storyline, and we had a Supergirl back-up during that run. But what I wouldn’t give for a 1970s/1980s style Superman Family book. Gimme my solo Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen adventures! And we could have “Mr. and Mrs. Superman” without it being the Earth-2 characters! Make Jon Kent the lead feature, with various back ups, and we’d be set!
• • •
Okay, that’s it for now…your pal Mike has a medical thing in the morning, so he needs his beauty sleep. Yes, yes, I know, I’m already too beautiful, but sleeptime awaits. Thanks for reading, and we’ll get to more of your predictions next time!
Okay, there’s been a couple of delays, but here we are, you’ve waited an for this very day, I’m certain, where we begin our look back at your comic industry predictions for 2024! Let’s see how we all did (and don’t forget to get in your predictions for 2025, which is already in progress).
And…this particular comments section had more than its fair share of excess discussion and jokey predictions and whatnot, that I’ll be skipping over this year. Sorry, just don’t have it in me this time. In the future 1) try to have some kind of specific prediction I can work with, and 2) try to keep it to just predictions in the comments sections to those posts, please.
First off is Customer Sean, with
“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.”
Doing a search on Diamond for “facsimile” for 2023 versus 2024, there definitely were more results for the latter year than the former. (Diamond still has solicits for DC in its system, if you’re wondering.) Heavier on Silver and later, but some Golden Age did pop up as well. An interesting trend is doing facsimile editions of full series, as Marvel did with Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, Boom! did with a reprint of Marvel’s Labyrinth adaptation, and DC did with Crisis on Infinite Earths) and just started with the original Batman “Hush” storyline. Can’t tell you how many times a #1 facsimile came out and I was asked for a #2 reprint as well.
“2. Mark Millar will succeed in revamping the comics industry.”
No revamping that I’ve noticed!
“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.”
No, but I wonder if the Challs just aren’t flashy enough for a big budget comic book movie. I mean, I like ’em…every time they bring the team back in comics, I read it…but maybe moviemakers just want something…bigger? Obviously a good movie can be made out this, and I’m sure folks got movie pitches, but the Supermans and the Batmans get first dibs.
• • •
Chris Gumprich cashes in
with
“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.”
King’s up to some shenanigans in Wonder Woman, but that’s not Black Label. Nothing quite on the scale as his Mister Miracle or his Adam Strange mini, at least. King is writing a mini with Black Canary, Best of the Best, but I don’t think it’s doing the same thing those other series did. And it feels like we’re due for a new Shade the Changing Man thing…the last was “Shade the Changing Girl/Woman” from the Young Animal imprint a few years back.
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!)”
Not really anything along the lines of its edgier TV cousin (unless you count the reprint of Betty and Me #16).
• • •
Pal Nat predicts
“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.”
Not that I saw. Do Marvel and DC even have subscription departments any more? I suppose they must. It would be a nightmare what with all the relaunches with new #1s.
“2. One of the big YA graphic novelists will drop an adult GN, the comics version of when Judy Blume released Wifey.”
I actually conferred with Nat on this one, and neither of us can think of any YA comickers making this specific transition. But, honestly, it’s just a matter of time, I’m sure.
“3. Comics will be said to be dying, still, as almost always.”
Ummmmmm, yeah…that’s always a thing, but it certainly got a boost of late.
• • •
Mike Loughlin drops
this in
“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.”
I would say that’s two predictions in there, but let’s cover the first one first.
Now, just based on my sales, Uncanny and Adjectiveless have dipped a tiny bit but remained strong, the other X-titles, including Exceptional, have stabilized at lower numbers. Which makes sense, since X-Men and Uncanny X-Men are the established names. We’re still within the first year of the relaunches, so let’s see where everything’s at by the time Year Two rolls around.
As far the Ultimate X-Men goes, yes, it’s still selling well, if not as much as the leader of the pack, Ultimate Spider-Man. I suppose that makes it a hit, as the people who like it really like it, but I’ve come across some folks who turn their noses up at it for not being a more traditional superhero comic (as much as the Ultimate books can be). Ah well, that’s how it goes.
• • •
Thanks for your patience as it took me a little extra bit to get started on this series of posts! Next Monday I’ll dive back in and continue the ride…well, probably!
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!
So in retrospect, for the “titles” I had for my 2023 prediction review posts, I should have gone with the chapter titles from Bored of the Rings instead of using them from The Hobbit. Ah well, maybe next time.
Speaking of which, here are all seven parts looking back at your guesses for the year – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 – and some of you had comments and questions, which I’m going to try to address today.
First, I was trying to think of a particular comic that featured A.I. artwork, and Michael Grabowski reminded me it was Abolition of Man, which did get mentioned in a later post. I did have this at the shop, but couldn’t tell you a thing about it. I’m sure the link there will give you all the deets you need. And I don’t use the term “deets” lightly.
Michael Wayne is the fella who reminded me that the newest iteration of the Legion of Super-Heroes made an appearance last year in Green Arrow. I’ve made mention of this a couple of times in this series of posts since, but he’s the reason why I remember now. I even specifically had a customer ask for those issues because of the Legion, I just…uh, forgot.
It was Joe Gualtieri who clued me in to the fact that the new Batman: Brave and the Bold series was an anthology, not a team-up book like its eponymous predecessors. I mean, to be fair, I knew it was an anthology, but for some reason I was under the impression that there were some team-up stories in it, which was my mistake. Thanks for the clarification.
Joe Littrell asks in response for my want of a Scribbly collection, featuring the semi-autobiographical comics of Sheldon Mayer:
“Would a Scribbly omnibus include the story from Sgt. Rock #408?”
I suppose it should, for completeness’s sake. But it’s a crazily dark story, so it’d be a huge shock to the system hitting that after a bunch of lighthearted teen gag comics. Look, it’s been a long time since I read that issue of Sgt. Rock, and when I did, new off the stands, I didn’t really know who or what the original “Scribbly” was. I couldn’t tell you if they dropped any clues in the Rock story implying this Scribbly was the same as Mayer’s character. At any rate, including that story with the rest would be a real “THEN…KOREA” moment:
Can you believe it’s been 12 years since my “THEN…KOREA” post? Geez louise.
Dave Carter steps up with some sales numbers on the latest Asterix album. Apparently a million copies in France in its first month, and a total of five million (so far!) across all its international editions. And without depending on variant covers, even!
Sean Mageean and Joe Gualtieri both make mention of some sort of tussle regarding ownership of the Marvel character Machine Man, reported here at a site I don’t normally link to but will since every other place talking about this links to it anyway. Long story short, DC’s parent company Warner Bros. owns, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Machine Man first appeared in Jack Kirby’s comic book series based on that film that was published by Marvel in the 1970s. That certainly sounds like bit of a mess, but maybe we can get DC to put out a nice facsimile edition of the 2001 treasury Kirby did.
JohnJ asks if I’d seen the Werewolf by Night special on Disney+ and its version of Man-Thing. Why yes, I have…not the more recent color version, but the original black and white. It’s not quite the Man-Thing of the comics, but a completely mindless creature may be a hardsell on TV, reality shows notwithstanding.
In response to my comments that Superman comic sales have been on bit of an upswing, both JD and Allan Hoffman point out the recent change in direction (and apparent sudden wrap-up of the previous storyline) in Action Comics. And…fair enough. I don’t know how Action had been doing over the past year overall, but at least in my store sales were slowly going up. But if it ain’t broke, it don’t get fixed, and Action got fixed with a rotating team of “Superman Superstars” creators. There might have been other reasons, but a big change like this does indeed likely mean a change was needed.
Daniel T wants to know why I had to yell at people in my shop. If I blow my stack at anyone, it’s because that person is (or people are) acting like dumbasses and causing problems. The most recent time was telling a bunch of baseball player kids, unsupervised, in my shop and running around and treating it like a playground. Trust me, I was far more patient than I needed to be. As pal Dorian has said, “if you get Mike mad, then you’ve really screwed up.”
• • •
Other topics came up as well, such as Thom H.
asking after Miracleman, and a whole lotta discussion about how to revive the Legion of Super-Heroes in a way that people will actually want to read, but those are all big posts on their own. I plan on addressing
Miracleman in short order, inspired by a post on Bluesky that got me thinking. As far as Legion goes…I’ve tackled that topic before, just check my
Legion of Super-Heroes category, and, honestly, I don’t know if anything can work at this point. There’s always a chance someone will
finally get the right formula and make the Legion Great Again, but I think we’re destined for occasional guest appearance for the near future.
So that’s that for the 2023 Comic Industry Predictions! Thanks again to everybody who participated, commented, and/or read all my typing. Any future discussion on this topic I’m just going to keep contained to this post’s comment section.
Here’s one last reminder to get in your 2024 predictions, and…that’s it! I’ll see you all on Monday!
Okay, first off a couple of recent comments you guys (Joe and Sean specifically) got caught in the hopper recently and didn’t get posted. Sorry about that, not sure why that happened, but I’ve approved the comments and they’re up now. If that happens again, to you or anyone else, where you write a response and it seems to disappear when you post it, I’ll catch ’em and make sure they get put up. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Anyhoo, let’s get on to the last batch of your 2023 predictions (previous parts:
(1 2 3 4 5 6). And put in your 2024 predictions if you haven’t yet.
• • •
Michael Grabowski grasps at the following
“1. Gabrielle Bell’s 2023 book will be about finally getting her own dog.”
You’d think it’d be easy to find a list of an author’s work in release order, but boy I had trouble finding one for her. Her personal site seems to have gone down late last year, according to archive.org. I did find a book from a few years ago about Gabrielle getting a dog for her mom, but I didn’t see any books about getting her own dog. If I missed something, let me know!
“2. A new round of Stray Bullets begins in the 1990s with an adult Ginny finding herself getting into Harry’s organization.”
David Lapham did return with a new crime series from Boom! called Underheist, but unrelated to Stray Bullets.
“3. Gaiman & Buckingham continue to complete new chapters of Miracleman on a regular routine schedule throughout 2023.”
Well…yes! Some time between new issues, but we got five across 2023! After 30 years of nuthin’, that’s fine with me!
• • •
Wayne Allen Sallee wrenches this in
“Mike will continue to be the nicest guy in the 805 area code, and we all can share our lives through his posts and our respective comments.”
Well, I did have to yell at a couple people in the shop this year (so if you’re playing the Mike’s Comic Shop Drinking Game, down the glass) but I’ve tried to be kind and mellow all year. EXCEPT WHEN I’M NOT
“Just an observation here: for the most part, we survived a plague!”
Everyone around me seems to be getting the COVID, but I’ve dodge it successfully so far, either via being careful or just simply having the luck of the devil.
• • •
John Maurer cuts these down
“1. This new DC event Dawn of DC or whatever does nothing to improve sales and the labeling will quietly and quickly fade away.”
It’s still hanging in there! And there has been a small bump in sales for, like, the Superman books, so that’s something!
“2. 2023 Will end without any new Legion of Super-Heroes content.”
As I was reminded in a previous post, and by you, John, asking for these issues…they popped up in Green Arrow of all places!
“3. As a result of #2, I spend more on LSH back issues and finally finish my Reboot Legion collection and maybe even finish acquiring the handful of Superboy v1 LSH appearances that I’m missing.”
I don’t know…did you? I think I sold you a couple.
• • •
Rob S. gets away with
“1) My obligatory Legion of Super-Heroes prediction: I think we’re going to get some this year — possibly officially designated a limited series — and it will modify the Bendis/Sook run, but with other creators. It’ll use some of Sook’s costume designs, and include a lot of the visual/ethnic heritage changes for characters, but will feel more like a conventional comic, and will pull back from trying to feature the whole team in each issue. Some of the new characters (such as Monster Boy) won’t be seen.”
Like I said previously, it looks like Green Arrow was are only real Legion content this past year in comics. I’ve been told it follows on the Bendis/Sook Legion relaunch, but the character appearance seem to be mostly focused on the “classic” name characters (like Mon-El and Saturn Girl) and not the new fellas. I think you’re onto something, however, where a potential new Legion series would do well to stick with the Bendis version of the team, if maybe…scaled down a little? I feel like it tried to do too much too fast…but honestly, with the Legion, I have no idea what approach would work to give the team traction any more.
“2) DC will tweak its DC Universe Infinite Ultra plan as a result of sales drops to its midlist titles. Meanwhile, Marvel will work to match them, getting closer to the 1-month availability window with their own Marvel Unlimited.”
Haven’t noticed many changes on either side, far as I can tell. I do wish DC would add more 1970s/early 1980s Superman books to their service, however.
“3) DC publishes a new comic with Firestorm as a regular character, maybe as part of a team.”
No solo (as it were) series of his/their own, but Firestorm’ popped up with small appearancees here and there (like in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest and Tales from Dark Crisis and Black Adam, with a ten page story just for his own self in Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn! So there’s always hope for more in the future!
• • •
Chris G gives this up
“The latest Superman relaunch/rethink quickly sees its sales revert to about where they were beforehand; by the end of the year there are clear signs that yet another relaunch is on the horizon. Somewhere, Dan Jurgens starts sharpening his Super-pencils.”
While Dan Jurgens is never far from Super-books, I think sales are okay and I don’t think we’re approaching relaunch territory just yet. Like I noted above, the Superman titles are doing fine, and the Bat-books have seen an increase in numbers for me, even over the already good sales I was getting from them. Not to say a relaunch won’t happen eventually (this is DC, after all!) but I think we’re safe for now.
• • •
Scott Rowland rows the boat ashore with
“1. The price of a standard comic will jump up another dollar.”
The $3.99 price point ain’t extinct yet, but more and more books are coming out at $4.99 a pop, if not more.
“2. DC will once again try to push a higher-priced thicker book size to compensate, while Marvel will cut story pages to try to keep costs down.”
I haven’t seen any story page cutting, but it sure does look like they’re trying out higher and higher price points on thicker comics. I just about plotzed when I saw G.O.D.S. #1 at ten bucks. I really do think we’ll be seeing more experimenting with formats as publishers try to find a happy medium with cost vs. page count for their regular titles (“here’s a 48 page book for $5.99,” that sort of thing.
“3. The old Night-Man show will be a minor hit on an ad-based streaming service, leading to Marvel tentatively reviving some of the Ultraverse characters in an event. The revised versions will have little in common with the original heroes other than the names.”
Was kinda pulling for this one, though I think Ultraverse is forever in the Marvel oubliette as, if I understand correctly, using those characters would mean “paying royalties to creators” and surely Marvel wouldn’t want that. That aside, I would love to see more of the short-run “comics are hot now, let’s do TV shows!” programming of the early 1990s on Tubi or Pluto TV. That would be fun if occasionally cringeworthy.
• • •
OKAY THAT’S IT WE’RE DONE, IT’S SAFE TO RETURN TO YOUR HOMES
Friday’s post will be the corrections/addendums post for this batch of predictions, so maybe I’m not totally done, but we’re in the home stretch at least. As always, thanks for reading and participating!
Just rambling along, continuing with your 2023 comic industry predictions and seeing how you — and I!?!? — did! Don’t forget to put in your 2024 predictions, too!
And here are the previous five parts: 1 2 3 4 5.)
• • •
Patrick Gaffney hits me with the following hooks
“Marvel will hire Henry Cavill, Gal Godot, and Michael Keaton to play Hyperion, Power Princess, and Nighthawk in one of their Multiverse movies.”
While the Squadron Supreme remains unconverted to filmic form, your idea would be the biggest nose-thumbing to DC by Marvel in either companies’ histories.
“DC will start a collected edition line to compete with Marvel’s EPIC and MASTERWORKS. Oh, wait, you wanted predictions that will come true. In that case DC will continue to ignore their rich history of publishing except for a omnibus every 3-6 months, and they will cancel 1/2 of those.”
I sense a little irritation at DC here! I think the focus was in reprinting newer material versus vintage (’30s – ’60s) work, though I did track down on a Silver Age Green Lantern omnibus that came out late last year, far as I can tell. DC’s announcement of their compact paperback reprints have focused on newer stuff (as in Watchmen are forward) but maybe if they do well we can get more old material. Like, one of these days I’d like to have a nice color collection of all the Metal Men comics. I mean C’MON
• • •
Hal Shipman sends along
“1) DC will NOT publish the missing Levitz LSH stories for another year.”
I think the last of the Legion of Super-Heroes reprint books (continuing on from the DC Archives editions) was late 2021. I haven’t given up hope yet on more volumes, since there was quite a gap between those Archives and the reprint books that followed. Given DC’s reticence toward reprinting lots of old material (outside their big ol’ “80th Anniversary” or whatever books) it may be a while, but I’m pretty sure we’ll get one eventually.
“2) DC will let the LSH series languish in its limbo/not cancelled state while Bendis finishes the cartoon and then forget about the property entirely again.”
The team’s been on hold all year (save for a brief appearance in Green Arrow, of all places) so I don’t know if we’ll get The Return of Bendis (unlikely) or just an extended absence awaiting another retooling and relaunch.
• • •
Here are some predictions from someone named…
Mike Sterling? Huh, sounds like a handsome and intelligent guy
“1. Penguin Random House will end free shipping on comic orders to retailers.”
Hasn’t happened…yet. Sooner or later they gotta realize shipping out one comic at a time can’t be viable.
“2. A new live action adaptation of Swamp Thing (either TV or movie) will be announced.”
Late in January 2023, a new Swamp Thing movie was announced as part of the James Gunn and that other guy’s new media plans for DC Comics. Given how superhero movies have been doing lately, I’m not holding my breath that this new initiative will last long enough to get to that film.
“3. There will be another revamping, if not outright relaunching, of the X-Men line.”
Well, looks like this would’ve made a good prediction for 2024 instead.
• • •
William Gatevackes opens up with
“1. There will be a comic book adaptation of ‘Misfits of Science.’ Alex Ross will do the covers.”
I feel like there’d be an audience for that. To be completely honest, I was entirely surprised no revival of Misfits of Science showed up at all in any medium.
“2. James Gunn’s new job as DC film guru will last well less than his 10 year plan. His first film under his watch, be it good or bad, will be slammed for no good reason, giving Warners execs cold feet.”
Was it ten years? Hoo boy. When that Superman movie doesn’t make back its budget, that plan is going to be tossed in favor of something else that won’t work.
Maybe I’m being cynical.
“3. There will be a DC and Marvel crossover of some sort, either official or unofficial.”
I don’t think either company is quite at the level of desperation to want to start doing these again, as they were back in the crossover heyday of the 1990s.
Unofficially…I’m sure someone somewhere in one of the books pulled something like the Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyzptlk being the same entity, or Superman appearing in What If #1, or like that. I can’t recall seeing any, but if someone spotted one in the last year, maybe they can let me know!
• • •
Brian F does my bidding by predicting
“1) Man-Thing gets more comics.”
Not his own series, but he popped up in the new Incredible Hulk comics, at least. Also, he got a swanky lunchbox!
“2) Deadman gets more comics.”
Again, didn’t get his own solo series, but was featured in DC’s event series in 2023, Knight Terrors!
“3) Machine Man gets more comics.”
Can’t seem to find any info on Machine Man appearances in recent months. He didn’t have his own title, but I’m sure he guest-starred in something. Again, if you’ve got details, let me know!
• • •
joecab pulls up to the curb with
“1) WB will make at least one ‘WTF?? Why them’ DC movie announcement. My money is on ‘Mazing Man!”
While ‘Mazing Man would be, well…’mazing, I think maybe the wildest announcement would be The Authority. Again, I don’t actually expect it to happen, but if it does, I don’t imagine much of its tone will translate into film. Expect punching but with more swearing. Unless they decide to really play up the “gay Superman/Batman analogue couple” which would be interesting but I keep picturing it as becoming borderline exploitative. But again, perhaps I am not in the mindset to be discussing superhero movies right now.
“2) In an effort to save money, Marvel Studios will introduce longtime character Elf With a Gun to appear in every Phase 5 MCEU movie to thin out the cast (and therefore those salaries).”
Marvel’s really missing a bet here. What, are they afraid of making a film that won’t make money?
“3) Announcement of a Tales of the Beanworld animated special … because I demanded it!”
I think Tales of the Beanworld would translate very nicely into a cartoon. I can picture it as being quite charming, and just weird enough to grab attention and get people hooked with its ongoing storyline. C’mon somebody, get on it!
• • •
Okay, probably only one more post of actual predictions to go, then the follow-up, so it’ll all be done this week! Thanks for reading, everyone, and I’ll see you on Wednesday!
Hold onto your shorts, we’re flying right into part five of looking back at your comic industry predictions for 2023! (And here are the previous four parts: 1 2 3 4.)
But don’t forget to make your predictions for 2024!
• • •
Adam Farrar gets up close and personal with
“1. After years and years of predicting that we’d get Miracleman back, I’m not going to get greedy. So, Miracleman The Dark Age will not be published in 2023. There’s a tiny chance it gets solicited but I don’t think we’ll see an issue in print.”
As I promised Thom H. in the previous comments section, I’ve got more Miracleman talk in me, but it’s gonna have to wait until I finish this prediction stuff first. But you’re right, Miracleman’s “Dark Age” chapter hasn’t made an appearance yet, aside from a blurb in the most recent issue released this month. Presumably “Dark Age” will come later in the year, but I gotta tell ya, they’re missing a bet if they don’t eventually do “The Marvel Age” given, y’know, being at Marvel an’ all.
“2. The Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3 will blend Rocket Racoon and Halfworld with the High Evolutionary’s New Men and Counter-Earth. It might also make the second movie’s Sovereign people the High Evolutionary’s creation as well making Adam Warlock his too by extension. But the prediction is that one of these two things will be followed up on in the comics.”
Maybe it’s because it’s late as I write this, or it’s because I’m old, or “why not both,” but it took me a couple of times to parse this. I think this kinda/sorta happened in the film, right? I mean, maybe not so much “Halfworld” but Rocket and all his genetically manipulated animal friends were ol’ High E.’s doing, so there’s that. As far as any of this being followed up on in the comics…I don’t think so, but again, I don’t read everything, so if I missed something let me know.
“3. Al Ewing will be the new writer of the Avengers.”
Well, he wrote Avengers Inc. anyway.
• • •
Rodrigo Baeza throws the following
“1. Boba Fett and Snake Eyes join the Savage Avengers.”
Well, no, but wouldn’t it be funny if Marvel really committed to creating a mainline superhero series they could never reprint due to all the licensed characters. Just pile ’em in there. Nova from Planet of the Apes. ROM. The Mirconauts they don’t own. A Gonk droid. JUST THROW ‘EM IN THERE
“2. ‘Frank Miller Presents’ will publish a new Corto Maltese series, written by Dan DiDio.”
Huh. I can actually see that, but no. For those interested, IDW did reissue a bunch of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese books in recent years.
“3. A comics publisher will announce an AI-drawn comic. The AI, however, will quit in mid-project once it realizes the scripter is Warren Ellis.”
Well, a while back we had Abolition of Man, a comic entirely drawn with “A.I.” (Thanks to Michael Grabowski for reminding me of this title!) I did carry it, back in the days when A.I. was seen as a peculiar novelty before we realized it was the end of us all.
I can’t recall any major publishers announcing the use of A.I., though given comics’ usual lag time in jumping on fads long after they’re done, give it a few months. But I imagine there are folks using A.I. on professionally published books to help automate some of the process rather than using it to generate the art. And a Googling reveals some online sources using A.I. to make full comics, or advertising just how to make a comic with A.I. We’re probably going to see more of it before we see the end of it.
• • •
D
ave Carter carts in for these
“1) At least two other mid-size comics publishers will follow Afterschock’s lead and file for bankruptcy and/or go out of business altogether.”
I’m sure there are really, really small publishers out there that put all their money into a single release, then dried up after that and disappeared. But I don’t believe anything on the level of Aftershock’s collapse happened. Even trying to Google search “comics publisher banktuptcy 2023” just brings up the 2022 stories about Aftershock. Oh, and at least one archived news item about “Chaos! Comics” filing Chapter 7. It’s a hard bsuiness, print.
“2) The new Asterix graphic album will come out in Fall and be a world-wide bestseller, even though the domestic comics world will pay it little heed.”
Asterix and the White Iris came out in 2023, which did well in France, natch, but I can’t seem to find how it did in the U.S. I feel like the Asterix books are more of a niche market here…I’ve carried them over the years both at my own shop and at my previous place of employment, and they have their fans, but they hardly burned up the shelves. Maybe someone can let me know how it did.
“3) The CW will cancel Superman & Lois after its third season.”
It does have a fourth season coming in 2024, but apparently that’ll be the end of it. Making way for the new Superman film, it’s presumed.
• • •
And that’s all I can manage tonight. I’ll finish it up next week. Thanks for reading, pals!
Lessee how we all did with your 2023 comic industry predictions (and get in your guesses for 2024 before too much 2024 gets by us)! Previous installments: 1 2 3.
• • •
Xanadude did decree
“1) Rob Liefeld will tour comic shops to promote Deadpool: Badder Blood, and will use that as an excuse as the reason his magnum opus Heirborn is ‘delayed.’ Similarly, ‘The Defiants’ will never go beyond the NFTs that have already been produced. Backers will still be waiting for copies of their crowd funded ‘Brigade’ comic.”
Well, that’s a lot to unpack. Liefeld did do some signings over the last year, and it looks like it was mostly as cons, big and not-so-big. I don’t know if he’s said that’s contributed to any delays of his work, but the only Heirborne thing I found was apparently a short story included in the Brigade Remastered special edition released a couple of months ago.
Okay, The Defiants NFT…hoo boy. NFTs are…not my thing, and I’m not sure what’s going on with this. I Googled around and found lots of news stories about The Defiants comic coming out, but not any that I could see that it had come out. Looking at the place where this NFT is obtainable, I guess, it looks like you can buy things related to the comic, and there’s a listed owner of one of the items with a sale price of over $7000, and I don’t know, it all looks like nonsense to me. Anyway, I think this is all there is of The Defiants, as Xanadude says.
And here’s the listing for the Brigade Kickstarter. It was successful, bringing in twice the money asked for. I’m not sure what to make of this, as Rob’s updates say “I’M SHIPPING OUT MORE BOOKS!” and the comments are all “it’s been 10 years where’s out books” like within the last few weeks. And a general online search shows a lot of unhappy people regarding this thing. Did anyone get their Kickstartered Brigade book?
“2) Dan Didio will be removed/quit from the Frank Miller comic book line.”
Still there, far as I know! YOU CAN’T DEFEAT THE DIDIO
“3) Archie will see a spike in sales of their digest comics with the integration of their superheroes into them.”
I don’t know overall, but I haven’t had any additional interest in the Archie digests at the shop. I don’t know if the extra superhero content is enough to boost interest beyond a very, very niche market (sorry, Sean!).
• • •
Bob Stec sticks in the following
“1) The success of Marvel’s Silver Age omnibi 1962 and 1963 will be copied by DC with similar Golden Age omnibi 1938, 1939, and 1942”
No, not that I’ve seen. Though I flashed on the very possibility of a Scribbly omnibus and I may have wept a little.
“2) Mark Russell will be groomed to follow in Chip Zdarsky’s footsteps and take over a major title like Batman or Spider-Man”
I bet it’ll happen eventually, but not yet. Mark Russell Spider-Man would be amazing (so to speak).
“3) Team-Up books will make a comeback because DC is running out of new Batman title concepts and, eh, the Brave and the Bold relaunch seemed like a good idea at an editorial retreat; Marvel will quickly copy this with their own relaunch of Marvel Team-Up…written by Mark Russell (did you see what I did there?)…”
Well, we did get Brave and the Bold, which I don’t believe is a straight up team-up book like the original series, but other characters from the DCU definitely show up, so close enough. And I would absolutely read a Mark Russel Marvel Team-Up, which would be absolutely wild.
• • •
Kurt Onstad speeds his way in with
“1. My second podcast (Gothamites, with Carla Hoffman) will have released at least one episode, hopefully closer to 30 or 40 by the end of the year.”
Very very sneaky, trying to get me to plug your new podcast Gothamites here on my site. I refuse to acknowledge your podcast Gothamites here, or that it’s reached nearly two dozen episodes by the end of 2023, or that Gothamites is hosted by two people I know personally. This blatant Gothamites promotion will not stand, and I won’t have it!
“2. DC will have already undone some of the changes they introduced with ‘Dawn of DC.'”
I don’t know, did they really do that many significant changes with Dawn of DC, aside from pulling back from the whole “THE MULTIVERSE IS GOING TO EXPLODE, ALSO THE MULTIVERSE IS BACK” plotlines from the last couple of years? I don’t believe they’re in backtracking mode just yet, but give it another year or so when sales start to flag again.
“3. Marvel movies will continue to make all of the money ever, and yet YouTubers will declare that they are failing because they are ‘woke.'”
Mmmmmmm Marvel movies, and superhero movies in general, kinda hit a wall this past year, through a combination of burnout, waiting for streaming, new movie-going habits encouraged by both streaming and COVID, and (as I saw someone suggest) Avengers: Endgame functioning as a “jumping-off” point for at least the Marvel franchise. (“Oh, they’re still making Marvel movies? I thought Endgame was, you know, the end.”)
And there are other reasons, but I’m fairly certain none of the actual reasons are “they’ve gone ‘woke,'” given (as I’ve said before) that the Barbie movie was woker than a woke thing that was awake and it made a billion bucks.
A couple Marvel movies did do well…Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (last installment in a beloved series that’s suffiencely different from the rest of the MCU) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (a stylish animated film, following up a previous installment, oh and also fills most bozos’ definition, as much as they have one, of “woke”). But I think we’re definitely at a point where maaaaaybe throwing a super-flick at the big screen every couple of months is no longer sustainable? And makes them no longer special? Hell, I don’t know, I’m just a dude that runs a comic shop. And definitely doesn’t listen to Gothamites, the premiere Gotham TV show review podcast.
• • •
Lain lines these up
“1. Watchmen will somehow be removed from, and then added back into, the mainline DC storyline universe in the same year.”
Well…outside of Cleopatra “Nostalgia” Pak from Doomsday Clock showing up in the New Golden Age one-shot in late 2022, I think that may have been it for Watchmen stuff of late. Again, I don’t read everything, so maybe something got past me (which would be annoying, since I’m trying to follow all of DC’s misguided rejiggerings of Watchmen out of perverse fascination. So I think for the most part the whole Watchmen thing isn’t explicitly out so much as being ignored while the “Dawn of DC” publishing initiative continues.
“2. Crunchyroll will buy a major american manga publisher, and proudly announce they are selling volumes that are translated entirely by AI.”
I don’t think Crunchyroll purchased any manga companies, but one publisher did announce their usage of A.I. translation which went over as well as you’d expect.
“3. One of those celebrity likeness parody comics will make a comic about God King Trump that involves an ‘accidental’ call to action of violence against the sitting president so blatant it will have to be recalled.”
Well, I know this didn’t happen because I didn’t get an endless parade of phone calls and in-store visits from people I’ve never seen before demanding copies of it. Which is good because I wouldn’t have ordered enough to go around, given my usual orders on things like this is exactly zero copies.
• • •
Gareth Wilson presents
“1) As research for a comic about British politics, Kieron Gillen will create a new real-world political party in the UK, which will be surprisingly popular.”
I’m going to say “no,” even though since my knowledge of British politics is generally limited to occasionally seeing on TV people on opposite sides of a room boisterously shouting at each other, this could have happened and I’d have no idea.
“2) A major comics publisher will announce that they will no longer include named characters who are police officers.”
Huh, that’d certainly be a step to take, but I don’t think anyone’s made it yet.
“3) An MCU streaming series will be referred to as the ‘Marvel Andor’ by more than one reviewer, but this phrase will be controversial.”
No, a new Howard the Duck series hasn’t shown up on Disney+ yet.
• • •
It just isn’t a prediction review post here at Progressive Ruin Industries unless
googum shows up to googum his guesses
“1. With DC films in a regrouping/rebuilding phase, somebody is going to try and grab that #2 spot for comic book movies. Spawn seems most likely to make a serious try for it.”
I feel like everyone’s now in the “let’s see how the comic movies thing shakes out” mode, letting others lose millions before they try anything. Which reminds me, whatever happened with whoever it was getting the media rights to the Seaboard/Atlas characters? Where’s my Grim Ghost movie? Or Morlock 2001?
“2. Despite selling a mess of copies, the new Batman/Spawn thing doesn’t open the doors for new crossovers. Maybe the opposite, if the corporate owners feel those promote somebody else over them.”
Yeah, it did sell pretty well, but no other Big Team-Ups along those lines have really popped up. I’m sure there’s probably a small one here or there I’m forgetting, but not, like, “Spider-Man/Spawn by Todd McFarlane” which would sell more copies than the Bible. Oh, wait, there’s that Justice League/Godzilla/King Kong thing, but that’s not quite the same.
“3. Marvel goes back to the well with this year’s big crossover, making a direct sequel to an old one, like Acts of Vengeance II or something. Maybe not that hacky…maybe that hacky. Eh, probably still a few good ones in there.”
What did we have this year, G.O.D.S.? I think this was mostly its own thing. Have we had an “Evolutionary War II” yet? That’s a good one to try.
• • •
And that’s enough for now. Don’t worry folks, I’ve only got a couple more of these to go, so if you’re already sick of them, just hang in there! Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you on Friday!
We’re well on our way looking at your 2023 comic industry predictions (previously: parts 1 and 2), so let’s see how you did!
(And get in your 2024 predictions, too!)
• • •
MisterJayEm smokes up the following
“1) Someone on Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s disastrous team will turn their evil eye towards D.C. Comics… Nothing good will follow.”
Not yet, far as I’ve heard. The publishing end of DC is still well below the threshold of notice for the Eye of Zaslav. I mean, sooner or later he’s gonna want to free up five or ten bucks and will eventually cut DC down to a Batman reprint house, so we’ll see.
“2) Someone at Hearst Communications will realize that there is untapped value in the Thimble Theatre Cinematic Universe.”
WIMPY: THE MOVIE hasn’t been announced yet, but at least we’re still getting great new Sunday strips by Randy Milholland, which are great!
“3) Writers and artists will continue to craft wonderful creations without regard to the demands of corporations. (At least I *hope* so!)”
Nope, sorry, Disney has bought all comics, past, present and future. Ed the Happy Clown is now a Disney Princess. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
• • •
Here comes Customer Sean with some very exact guesses for the past year
“1. Disney will buy the rights to The Micronauts and Rom Space Knight from Hasbro (or whoever the current owner is) so that they can be integrated into the MCU. Failing that, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania will have cameos by quasi-Micronauts re-branded with different character names and/or a different team name like the ‘Quantum Knights’–and/or characters that Marvel already owns including Arcturus Rann, Marionette, and Bug will appear and possibly be spun off into a future Quantum Realm film.”
Well, I don’t know how you did it, but in May of 2023 Marvel reacquired the rights to ROM and the Micronauts. However, it wasn’t to shove ’em back into the Marvel Universe with new stories, but rather to be able to reprint all that old material. Big ol’ omnibuses are coming, reprints of the first issues of both series have been released, and Marvel put out a thick comic reprinting ROM/X-Men crossover stuff.
That said, there is some new ROM material, in the form of (of course) variant covers:
So make your own stories, I suppose.
I haven’t finished watching that new Ant-Man/Wasp movie yet, so no idea if that prediction came true. I haven’t heard about it , so I’m guessing “no….” As far as those Mironauts character Marvel actually owns…once we get a little closer to the omnibus release maybe they’ll pop up somewhere!
“2. Archie Comics will publish more one-shots or limited series featuring its Golden and Silver Age superheroes. This might include another Bob Phantom comic, more The Fox comics, more Black Hood comics and possibly a Golden Age Shield comic, as well as another go at The Mighty Crusaders.”
Well, the only thing I could find was a one-shot featuring the Golden Age Archie/MLJ character Madame Satan. I suspect other old-timey Archie superhero characters (not to be confused with Archie Superheroes) turned up in the many digest releases, but I didn’t check all those.
OKAY FINE I checked one digest, and the Jaguar is in there along with the Riverdale gang, so there you are.
“3. Dynamite Comics will acquire the license to The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (since IDW hasn’t been publishing any new T. A. material) and Dan Jurgens will write it and Jerry Ordway will draw it and it will be a faithful continuation of Wally Wood’s original vision: set during the 1960s and possessed of a certain kitsch charm.”
No word on new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents that I’ve seen, and I don’t expect any new material in the near future given it seems like such a hard sell in the modern comics market. Not sure why, really, aside from maybe just a general resistance to superhero properties outside the Big Two’s roster.
• • •
DK Definitely Kontributed these predictions
“1. The Squadron Supreme will make their live-action debut in a MCU property.”
I don’t believe any of that particular group of characters has turned up or been referenced in any of the live action stuff. I think an adaptation of the Mark Gruenwald series would be fun, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
“2. DC Comics is going to have massive layoffs/restructuring as they are blamed for the underperformance of the DCEU. WB’s thought process will be ‘why are we paying for an IP factory when the output is bad?'”
Nothing quite as drastic as the 2020 layoffs happened, best to my knowledge. So far it looks like the publishing end has avoided being the scapegoat, since the mindset is probably still “we can make real money on this stuff eventually.”
“3. A Watchmen character is going to be a regular, recurring character in a mainstream DC book in 2023. Not Doomsday Clock, OG Watchmen.”
I honestly expected something like this to happen. My much repeated joke of “Rorschach Team-Up” is only sorta half-joking.
The spin-off characters (Nostalgia and (cough) The Watchman) may be more likely to appear, and maybe through them we’ll get some folks from the original Watchmen. I mean, who’s left? Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, right?
• • •
Joe Gualtieri keeps it short but sweet with
“1. Diamond will go under, and take a health percentage of comic stores with it.”
Not yet! I would guess that before that happens, we’ll have enough publishers setting up alternative means of distribution so that when it does happen, the deleterious effect it would have on the industry would be minimized. Not looking forward to it, either way.
“2. The Ezra Miller Flash film bombs, hard.”
There’s a solid “gimme!” Box Office Mojo puts its total worldwide take at $271 million versus its reported production budget of about $300 million, which doesn’t even count the marketing costs. Hoo boy, Zaslav sure picked the wrong superhero film to dump for a tqx break.
“3. Image joins Lunar.”
It sure did. Like Marvel and a few other publishers who set up shop outside of Diamond, Image isn’t exclusive to Lunar, but still that’s probably a good chunk of business taken away from the former One Distributor to Rule Them All. I personally have said losing Image would be Diamond’s death knell, but nope, they’re still hanging in there. Until Lunar takes away their stranglehold on the sexy Japanese schoolgirl PVC statues, anyway.
• • •
Cassandra Miller lives up to her name with
“1. Dawn of DC leads to a spike in sales that will not be sustainable. Numbers will fall back to where they were within the first 4 months.”
I haven’t found reliable information on sales numbers, but at my store we had a small bump on some ongoing titles (like the Superman books) while interest in lessened in new series (like the Green Arrow relaunch). So, no really huge highs, but things mostly going along in a stable and expected fashion.
“2. Jason Aaron will announce he’s writing a book for DC before the end of 2023.”
He sure did…speaking of the Superman line, his first issue of Action did quite well!
“3. With the movie imminent, there will be a lot of talk about a new Legion book. It will not happen.”
Are we talking about the animated movie? It was kind of terrible and DC didn’t even try to capitalize on it anyway, which was just as well.
• • •
Jeff R reveals
“1.Mad Jim Jaspers is the main threat in a cosmic-level marvel comics crossover.”
Apparently he turned up as recently as X of Swords but doesn’t appear to have had much to do of late. Not that I’m a big X-Men guy, but I did like the character from the bits I’ve read of him. My Googling also turned up this “Jim Jaspers Vs. Mr. Mxyzptlk” discussion in case you’re interested. And why wouldn’t you be?
“2. The Legion of Superheroes doesn’t get an ongoing book despite successful miniseries and features on TV and movies (the movie part probably not until 2024 but the hype train will be up and running.)”
No Legion for nobody, alas. A middling cartoon movie and a guest-appearance in Green Arrow and that’s all we got. Look, someday I’ll get my in at DC and write the Bouncing Boy solo series, just you wait. (And will he have a mustache? Darn tootin’ he will.)
“3. For the 35th anniversary Neil and DC do a Sandman comic miniseries, Dreams of Krypton which uses that frame to show some of the untold stories of the history of the Endless.”
Ooh, I would’ve liked that. Didn’t happen, alas. Look, Neil’s got his hands full trying to do more Miracleman, let’s not get him on a second comic book series just yet.
• • •
And that’s enough for now. Thanks for sticking with this, everyone, and I’ll be back Wednesday with more of your predictions. And as always, feel free to send in corrections which I’ll address in a special addendum.
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