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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!
You dreaded its arrival, and now it’s here…part one of 82 of “Mike looks back at your 2017 predictions!” And if you want to be part of the fun next year, drop your 2018 predictions into the comments of this other post from just a couple of weeks ago.
Okay, and awaaaay we go:
William Burns gets the fire started with
“Comixology will stop providing its pull list service for local comic shops.”
This does appear to be the case, but you were only a few months off…seems to be happening first quarter 2018.
“The age of Trump and the Republicans will see the Big Two retreat from ‘diversity’ books in favor of straight white male superheroics. This will be pitched as ‘a return to our roots’ or ‘giving the fans what they want.'”
Yeah, that turned into a real big stink in the middle of the year (as seen in this article, where a Marvel VP’s comments about diversity hurting their sales was countered by an examination of the actual business practices that were more to blame). As it stands right now, there are a number of books with diverse casts on the stands, but the trend on Big Two titles is, as always, “back to the status quo.” However, there’s usually always someone attempting to widen the appeal of the Marvel/DC books sort of despite the companies’ efforts, so the cycle will come around again.
“Batman 66/Maxwell Smart. C’mon DC, you know you want to.”
Man, I know I wanted them to. However, far as I know there’s nothing new on the comics front for Batman ’66 comics (save a trade collection of the B’66/Wonder Woman ’77 team-up). Hopefully something else will turn up…at least a Batman ’66/Wonder Woman ’77/Superman ’78 story.
• • •
King of the Moon waxes and/or wanes upon the following:
“Still no Power Pack ongoing series in the main Marvel Universe.
“Despite having the IP of a family of kids who get superpowers from a magic alien horse and have their own sentient spaceship that successfully ran for 62 issues Marvel won’t print money.”
Well, we did get a Power Pack #63 as part of the whole Marvel Legacy “let’s give one more issue to some cancelled series” hoohar, though I suppose that’s not exactly what you mean. Like, at the very least you’d think there’d be a budget-conscious “Power Pack” TV series on, I don’t know, Amazon or Crackle or something, with an accompanying comic book.
• • •
Gordon R. Dymowski blogs this, pal:
“Marvel will reveal in its books that Inhumans and mutants are the same”
Um…I’m pretty sure they didn’t? I don’t read any Inhumans or X-books so it’s possible this could’ve slipped by me, but I expect if such a thing did happen, the caterwauling that would have ensued would have been hard to miss.
“As part of its REBIRTH Initiative, DC will reveal that Nite Owl is the Earth-Watchmen’s Batman”
Not yet, at any rate, since we’re only two issues into that Doomsday Clock series, now available at a comic shop near you!
“Although larger conventions (like San Diego ComicCon, WizardWorld, etc) will still predominate, more people will attend smaller, local shows due to affordability of larger, turnkey conventions as well as an ability to reach local retailers, creators, etc.”
I don’t know the attendance numbers, but it does seem like there are more attempts at doing smaller, non-SDCC/WW shows in more places. I’ll mark this one down as “I’m gonna need someone else to tell me.”
“No Swamp Thing predictions this time, sorry.”
HOW VERY DARE YOU
• • •
LondonKdS accentuates the following:
“Titan will announce miniseries for every Doctor they haven’t depicted yet, including the ‘Shalka’ and ‘Fatal Death’ Doctors. None of them will have more than two issues out by the end of the year.”
Not quite yet, but give ’em time! And I would absolutely plotz if there were any kind of series based on the “Curse of Fatal Death” story. Yes to any comic that would give me Rowan Atkinson/Hugh Grant/Joanna Lumley Doctors.
“Full-scale campaign for right-wing ‘representaion’at the Big Two. One of them will cave in and publish a series which will tank for being blatant and dull propaganda.”
Haven’t quite reached that state of affairs yet, though I understand there are independent attempts at this sort of thing.
EDIT 1/12: Whoops…Michael Grabowski reminds us of something that might fall within this description from the past year.
“Marvel sales continue to fall, DC bump from Rebirth finally ends.”
Looking at the Retail Market Share charts at Diamond…there doesn’t appear to be too much of a significant change from the beginning of the year to the end. There are some ups and downs but market shares appear to be relatively consistent. I would think that the “Rebirth” branding probably did outlive its usefulness, as it’s been removed from the covers…though that may have as much to do with the arrival of the “final” part of that publishing effort, Doomsday Clock, now available at a comic shop near you!
EDIT 1/12 AGAIN: Whoops Part 2, as relative share of the market doesn’t exactly equal relative size of the market, a thing I remembered once I was, y’know, awake. Reports seem to indicate direct market comics shrinkage, so let me look into this a little further.
• • •
Tim Stevens evens us out with:
DC Comics will finally give Aztek the Ultimate Man his due and give him a brand new series.
Not yet, but he did pop up in the Justice League of America comic in December, just under the wire, so that’s close enough for me!
People will continue to insist Marvel hates the X-Men even as the number of mutant related books rise and rise.
Admittedly, that talk seems to have died down a bit of late, with that Disney/Fox deal happening. Maybe it’s still going on in the message boards, but I ain’t lookin’ in there.
People will talk about Image again as a viable 3rd company again as they did circa 2013.
That seems to be the generally accepted Number Three of the Big Two, though the actual strength of that position seems to come and go. It’ll stick around as a major presence for some time to come, I’d imagine.
Marvel will finally recognize what a talent their MarvelCom freelancer Tim Stevens is and give him his one boutique style line within the Marvel Universe a la Gerard Way’s Young Animal.
Nope, sorry, that’s one prediction over the limit, can’t answer that.
• • •
Hooper Triplett doubles down on
“Paul Grist will start a well-received new series that he stop unannounced and never complete.”
OUCH. Anyway, didn’t happen this year. IT’S BECAUSE YOU SCARED HIM OFF, HOOPER.
• • •
Greg A Assumes
Marvel will continue to try to make the Inhumans into a Thing; however, will also continue to have poorly received results.
Nope, Ben Grimm did not become a…oh, wait, I misread that. Well, there are still Inhumans comics, so I guess that counts as still being a thing. Not exactly taking the world by storm, no.
Marvel’s upcoming Inhumans television series will air the exact same number of episodes as Viva Laughlin before being quietly cancelled.
From what I can tell, Inhumans had eight episodes, which is six more than Viva Laughlin aired (though it apparently had 5 unaired episodes). I don’t know if it’s officially cancelled, but word on the street ain’t good. Yeah, that’s right, I get my word from the streets.
DC Comics will launch a new LSH series. Thanks to its unexpected creative team, the new series will have better than expected sales–particularly in digital and book fair markets.
We’re all still waiting to see what’s happening with the Legion as far as a new comic book series goes, but in the meantime, here’s live-action Brainiac 5 from next week’s Supergirl to keep y’all happy:
• • •
demoncat_4 conjures up:
“marvel will manage to get the ff rights back and do a tv show and have doom show up in an avengers film.”
You’re half-right…well, it’s a pending half-right assuming the Disney/Fox deal is permitted.
“dc will decide its time for swamp thing to show up in live action again and have him pop up on both the flash and legends then spun off in his own movie and tv show.”
Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t turned up on the CW somewhere, though maybe they had high hopes for that live-action Justice League Dark movie.
“given him now being part of arrow ragman will get his own comic and at last his own action figure and will be hard to get.”
Again, half-right! There was a new Ragman mini-series that started in 2017. And there’s no official action figure yet, but a Google search turns up a lot of custom figures. I guess technically those are hard to get!
• • •
My old pal
Skinslip slides in with:
“At least two more Doctor Who ongoings will happen.”
We did get two mini-series, at least…so you were close!
“The Hasbro universe will add at least one more 80s toyline to boost sales”
There was a Transformers/Visionaries crossover comic that started just this month…but it was solicited in 2017, so I’m counting that at least as a partial hit (since, um, I don’t know that it boosted sales all that much).
“Big Trouble in Little China/Escape From New York will get a second mini series or become an ongoing”
No second series yet, but we did get another Big Trouble mini (“Old Man Jack”) so who knows?
• • •
Eric L takes the L mostly on one of the following:
“The DC Rebirth books will gradually return to a 3.99 price point.”
Very gradually…a series or two got demoted to monthly from biweekly, with the attendant $1 jump in price. I expect the trend to continue.
“The Wonder Woman movie will be critically acclaimed, but underperform at the box office.”
It was critically acclaimed indeed, but did amazingly well at the box office, too! Good news all around!
“The entire Watchmen invading the DC Universe storyline will be ignored or dropped entirely.”
Nope, it’s still going strong, what with the currently-running Doomsday Clock, now available at a comic shop near you!
• • •
Okay, that’s it for now! Tune in same Watchmen-time, same Watchmen-channel, for the next exciting installment!
It’s That Time of year again, where I ask you, the four or five remaining Progressive Ruin readers, for your comic book industry predictions for 2018 A.D., which you can place right here in the comments section of this very post.
The rules are, as always:
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, please! THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE, PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE IT. This rule also means “no multi-part list of somewhat-related predictions under one bullet point pretending to be a single prediction.” C’mon, take it easy on your pal Mike.
In a few days, I’ll start looking back at your predictions for 2017, going over the hits and the misses and the “I’m not sures,” so pack a lunch or three for that particular journey. But please, in the meantime, fill up the comment section here with your visions of the near future. Your participation remains a big part of what I enjoy about doing this website, and is always appreciated.
The Witching Hour #72 (July 1977) – art by Luis Dominguez
Now I’m sure we all have other things on our mind today, but I’m still gonna wrap up my look back at your 2016 predictions, and if you’re just joining us, you can catch up on parts one, two, three, four and five at those handy links there. Also, I’m still taking your 2017 predictions for the time being, so drop ’em in there while you can.
Okay, I’ve covered all the actual predictions, but a few of you had some things to say in response to my last couple weeks’ worth of posts. First off, Andrew mentions in response to my assertion that no webcomics have been adapted into film/TV:
“No actual webcomics have made it to any screen yet, but the first season of SyFy’s Channel Zero is taken from the short story Candle Cove by Kris Straub. He’s the cartoonist behind Chainsawsuit, Broodhollow, Starslip, Checkerboard Nightmare, and a few other things here and there.”
I knew about the show, and the original story, but hadn’t realized its webcomic connection. Thanks for letting me know!
DanielT corrects me on my mistaken belief that no TV shows based on Image properties had cropped up:
“Outcast. Though I’m not surprised you forgot/didn’t know about it because I NEVER hear or read anything about it.”
Geez, you’re right. You could have pointed a gun at me and demanded I name an Image Comics-based show that wasn’t The Walking Dead and I would never have been able to come up with it. I seem vaguely to remember even…giving away promo postcards? Something like that? Anyway, yeah, you’re right, I totally forgot about it. Don’t think I’ve even seen frame one of the show, or who’s on it or even what channel it’s on. Can’t know everything!
A.J. comments
“I gotta say, the section intros are genius. ‘James kings me with’ is inspired.”
Yeah, I do that mostly for my own amusement, though I should note the irony of giving your intro the single most boring one. Sorry about that…it’s been a long day! Anyway, I try to do one for everyone, though sometimes I got nuthin’, and sometimes I make a reference that wouldn’t be obvious to the casual reader, but just to that person in question. (For example, the commenter from Thailand where I used the word “ties’ in his intro.) And that’s how the sausage is made, everyone!
Allan Hoffman clarifies, in response to my Miracleman comments:
“Neil Gaiman has said there are administrative/legal things (yes, still) that are holding things up. When that clears up is anyone’s guess.”
It seems shocking that would be the case, since I thought Marvel through money at whatever barriers there were until they went away. But, I guess it wouldn’t be Miracleman unless there were ridiculous delays of some sort. Now you modern-day kids know what we elderly folks went through when MM was still occasionally coming out through Eclipse!
David Alexander McDonald has more to say…! (I tease because I love!)
“The redemption of Jay Garrick was actually what I’d expected — the thing with the Man In The Mask was a gimme, especially when fake-Jay’s doppleganger on Earth-1 was named Hunter Zolomon.”
Yeah, sorry about that, I sorta read your prediction as “the guy who claims to be Jay Garrick will redeem himself,” because I couldn’t remember the timing of the episodes vis-à-vis the time of your initial prediction. But you’re right…as soon as the Man in the Mask showed up, it couldn’t have been more “LOOK THIS IS THE REAL JAY GARRICK” if it had a caption pop up every time he appeared reading “THIS IS THE REAL JAY GARRICK.”
David also says, as a follow-up to his prediction that he’s spend money with my store
“I never did buy anything from you, but that was because the Dawn figure got sold the day before I went to pull the trigger on it. Ah well. YOUR TIME WILL COME, MIKESTER.”
I’LL GET YOUR MONEY YET, DAVID ALEXANDER MCDONALD!
Thelonious_Nick notes that my Paper Girls/Stranger Things comparison was closer than I thought:
“Ha ha–I thought Stranger Things WAS pretty much Paper Girls, though they changed the girls to boys for some reason. I really irritated my wife by pointing out the parallels/ripped off ideas for each episode.”
Was it really that close? I haven’t read Paper Girls yet, and only have watched the first episode of Stranger Things, which didn’t really grab me. Is this another Invisibles/The Matrix bit of hoohar?
David Alexander McDonald (what, him again?) notes in regards to Defenders reprints
“There’s a number of other Defenders comics releases aside from the Masterworks digital collections. There’s been a Defenders Epic Collection (The Six-Fingered Hand), Doctor Strange And The Secret Defenders, and Deadpool And The Secret Defenders is coming out next month.”
Oh, there’s definitely plenty of Defenders goodies available or soon available. I was just going off the “omnibus” comment, assuming complete, sequential reprints of the original series was meant, which is why I only specifically pointed out the Masterworks volumes. (If I recall correctly, only one of the Defenders Masterworks is currently available, which is why I pointed out their availability via digital means.)
MrJM dares consider the following possibility
“I think a Tarzan/Alf comic would solve a̶l̶l̶ some of our nation’s woes!”
Alf could’ve eaten Sabor and saved Tarzan’s parents, which…well, would have nipped all this “King of the Jungle” business right in the bud, frankly.
philfromgermany says
“Instead of getting on Vertigo’s nuts, people might wanna read some of the titles they put out, like Sheriff of Babylon, Fables ever after, Unfollow or Astro City…
Is this still good natured ribbing or should some people just look for a new hobby if comics makes them so bitter?”
Now, in fairness, the person who made the initial comment about Vertigo is a longtime customer of mine who reads probably 95% of Vertigo’s output. His reaction was more “I can’t keep up!” than “I hate all this Vertigo stuff!” honest! But, without impugning the quality of any of the Vertigo output, I do have to note that it’s not quite generating the interest or excitement it once did. A lot of comics aren’t, nowadays, so it’s not all on Vertigo. There’s just no “gotta read it” book with more widespread appeal that would attract attention to the imprint as a whole, like Preacher or Sandman or even Fables once did. And frankly, I keep forgetting Astro City is under the Vertigo brand now.
Mike Loughlin sez, he sez
“I like that they put the Young Animal series in their own imprint as I think Vertigo should be creator-owned (or at least co-owned) comics vs. DC properties. Incidentally, would love to see what the Young Animal creators would do with Tim Hunter or Black Orchid.”
I’ve often said to customers that DC’s Young Animal imprint feels like early DC property-based Vertigo, which seems to help sell it to more than a few folks who miss that particular era. I think keeping creator-owned books and the DC-inspired “edgier” books in separate imprints is a good idea, too, but I can’t help but feel maybe a new Vertigo title based on an established DC property could bring more eyeballs in that direction.
And finally, Bully, the Little Bull Stuffed with Just Plain Sugar, Honest cracks wise with
Hey, I’d buy an Angel Love hardcover treasury! that is, if I had enough money left over after buying my
[youalreadyknowwhatpicturegoeshere.jpg]
Well said, Bully and Angel!
Thanks for sticking through all this, pals, and let’s do it again next year! Don’t forget to leave me your 2017 predictions…and I’ll see you on Monday with some non-prediction stuff, hopefully!
We’re in the home stretch of looking at your 2016 predictions…parts one, two, three, and four are still right where I left ’em. And please, give me your 2017 predictions if you so desire.
• • •
Longtime customer Rob marches in with
“I’ve only got one, but from the last 6 months, it appears that DC Vertigo has a new strategy. So I predict that DC Vertigo will launch a new (ongoing or mini-series) title every week for the entire calendar year, in an effort to make me not care about Vertigo comics anymore.”
It seemed like they were cranking out a whole lot of ’em for a while there, didn’t it? They seem to have scaled back some now, while still searching for the new Vertigo “killer app” to put the imprint back on its feet.
Hwy, maybe if they did an actual weekly Vertigo comic…an anthology series featuring short chapters of old favorites and new concepts, just to see what people respond to. That sounds neat to me, if only because I’m not the person who’d be handling the logistics of it.
• • •
vester invests in the following:
“1. DC Comics will recruit an artist or writer who has worked in recent years in Marvel”
Darn it, I’m always terrible at this sort of thing because I never can keep track of or remember who’s going where and doing what to whom. I checked some of DC’s recent “exclusive creator” hires (for example), but it’s usually someone who’s worked for Marvel and DC among others. But I can’t think of anyone on par with, like, John Romita Jr., a longtime mostly Marvel dude, coming over to work on Superman, like he did a couple of years back. Maybe someone out there with a brain that isn’t old and decaying like mind can clue me in.
“2. The Iron Fist actor for the Netflix series will probably be a white person.”
Yeah, that certainly turned into a thing.
“3. Batman v Superman will be ok, but not AS GOOD as it looked like in the trailers and Ben Affleck will be named the best Batman in DC Comics movie history.”
Welllll…I thought it was okay, and I thought it was better than promised in the trailers, but I hear tell I may be in the minority opinion on this. I do believe most people thought Affleck made a good Batman, and are looking forward to his turn in a solo Batman film…however, there is only one Best Batman in the movies, and I think we all know who I’m talkin’ about.
• • •
Mike Loughlin laughs it up with
“Marvel sales will take a sizable hit, mostly due to 1) audience indifference and 2) Marvel Unlimited.”
On a case-by-case basis, certain new Marvel series launches haven’t…done entirely well, far as I can tell. But overall, their market percentage, per Diamond’s stats, seem to have hovered around the same levels throughout the year. Now, maybe per-unit sales have dropped across the board for everybody, and, say, 40% of the market at the beginning of the year represents a lot more than 40% at the end of the year, but relatively speaking Marvel’s in about the same position it was.
• • •
Mick slips me the following:
“1. Dynamite hires Jim Shooter to provide a satisfying conclusion to the Dark Horse Gold Key revival. This leads to”
I’d actually forgotten Dynamite had the Gold Key characters. No Shooter on the project, it appears, alas.
“2. Dynamite and Valiant work together to get Unity 2000 finished and published as a trade, along with most of the old Valiant/Acclaim stuff in all of its awkardly-licensed glory. This, strangely enough, leads to”
I’d like to read a completed Unity 2000. Again, sadly, did not come to pass.
“3. Jim Shooter updates his blog.”
He did! A few times!
• • •
Dan mocks my pain with
“DC will publish Absolute Editions of ‘‘Mazing Man’ and ‘Angel Love.’ Dark Horse will celebrate their 30th anniversary by releasing an Omnibus edition of ‘Boris the Bear’ including all the post-DH issues.”
Would buy the hell out of all these. Well, okay, I’d have to think about Angel Love for a minute. But I own all the ‘Mazing Man and Boris the Bears and would love to have nice, permanent editions of them. …I don’t know if there’s a market that would support this sort of thing, but it’s nice to think about.
• • •
Kid Kyoto has got no time for The Man’s rules with
“1-A second tier publisher (Valiant maybe, or even Dark Horse) will go digital only. Publishing is so much easier when you dont have to futz with those pesky atoms.”
Haven’t made that jump yet!
“2-The Legion of Super-Heroes will return in a new reboot. (Early 2017 prediction, the LSH will be cancelled)”
Close, but wrong year! Also, OUCH.
“3-Batman and Superman return to normal, for a bit anyway.”
Well, yes, kind of…Superman is back to “normal” in the most abnormal way, but we’re still seeing how that plays out.
“4-Image passes DC to become the #2 publisher, at least for a few months of the year. Maybe just one. But still the writing is on the wall.”
Boy, lots of people predict Image passing DC pretty much every year. If Image had more than one Walking Dead, that might happen.
“5-Big Vertigo push at DC, since nothing else seems to be working.”
Vertigo seemed to slow down a bit, in favor of other big pushes at DC!
“6-Which brings me to the big one… DC. Wow things are dire sales wise. I took the New 52 thing 5 (!!) years ago as a jumping off point and I think many others did too. So… what might work? Maybe move to the multiverse? Each title is a self-contained universe, not linked to the others. That would be neat huh?”
“Rebirth” is kinda/sorta a return of multiversal storytelling, in a way, considering what’s going on, so you’re not too far off!
“7-Which brings me to the bigger one… DC management. At this point Didio and Lee’s record has to be making for some awkward questions in Warner. I would expect new management soon.”
They’re still hanging in there!
“Sorry didn’t notice the 3 prediction limit…”
WHY, KID KYOTO, WHYYYY
• • •
Harvey Jerkwater nicely suggests
“1. ‘Batman V. Superman’ will be pretty good and do very large business, further encouraging other studios to push for (a) more superhero/comic book movies and (b) more shared universe movie series. This will lead to some horrible boondoggles. But not in 2016.”
I don’t know if BvS specifically encouraged more superhero movies, shared universe or otherwise, since everyone still seems to be pretty gung-ho about them right now regardless. I mean, Universal is still gonna do their Universal Monsters shared-universe movie thing, right? That would sound like a boondoggle, unless it gives us more Creature from the Black Lagoon, which would be great. Also, this movie would suddenly be official canon.
“2. Sam Wilson will continue to share the role of ‘Captain America’ with Steve Rogers through the year. The Fantastic Four will not return to the stands in 2016.”
Correct, and also correct. …I’m actually sort of getting anxious for a new Fantastic Four series. Hope it’s good.
“3. The ‘meatball party’ episode of ‘Teen Titans GO!’ will inspire a crossover led by Cyborg and involving meat products fired at high velocity. It will be awesome. I CAN DREAM.”
Had to look up this episode and what the hell is even going on over there. One can only hope the live-action Cyborg in the forthcoming Justice League movie follows this characterization.
• • •
DavidG whizzes
“The Suicide Squad movie will out gross Superman/Batman. Captain America will outgross both of them, but will prove to be the high water mark of Marvel movies.”
SS didn’t quite match BvS’s take, but Civil War did beat them both in the box office. It wasn’t Marvel’s top-grossing film, but whether it’s the high-water mark of Marvel films quality-wise depends on you, the viewer at home!
“Someone at Marvel will notice that the Inhumans are not and never will be the X-Men, and that there is a reason they have never sustained a title for more than a couple of years (hint: it’s because they are very very dull). So the X-Men will feel the love again, despite the minis use marketing push they give to the movies.”
They’re still trying withe the Inhumans, while also doing a new X-Men launch this year. Having their Inhumans and their muties, too, it appears.
“DC’s Rebirth will just make everything worse, hard as that is to believe.”
I think by and large people like “Rebirth,” to be honest, and it appears to have done a good job correcting some of the missteps from the New 52.
• • •
Bruce Baugh breaks the following
“Either Marvel or DC will start providing digital sales figures. Because of Amazon’s longstanding disinterest in doing things like that, the figures will be aggregated so that it’s impossible to distinguish sales via Comixology and anywhere else. The data and its limits will set off horribly ugly, horribly dull arguments.”
I don’t think they’ve been providing digital sales figures aside from generalities, as you’ve noted, but apparently Mad‘s recent statement of publication includes digital sales. Since Mad is published by DC, I’ll call that a hit! Now to see if we get specific sales figures on more titles in the future…not that I can recall a statement of publication appearing in an actual comic book lately.
• • •
Tec15 predicts
“1) Suicide Squad will comfortably out gross Captain America: Avengers 2.5, despite all the Hot Topic, Edgelord Joker jabs the internet makes.”
As discussed above, Civil War beat it out by quite a bit, though SS’s take was nothing to be ashamed of.
“2) Warner Bros will announce a number of AAA games based on DC characters. In response Disney will announce a mobile tie in for Marvel.”
Not a big mobile gaming fan, but there was a DC game app that seemed to have a bit of money put into it. And there seems to be no shortage of Marvel mobile games, judging by the number of screenshots I see on my Twitter feed.
“3) DC will announce a new digital first Lego Batman title.”
Not yet, far as I can tell, and if they don’t, it can only be because DC Comics hates money.
• • •
Crowded House pushes me out of the room with
“1. Superhero movies will continue to be massively profitable and will dominate the entertainment industry for at least a while longer, though the cracks in the facade of sustainability will begin to show.”
They certainly seem to be not leaving us any time soon. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, it looks like a bad superhero movie is now generally seen as a bad movie, and not necessarily an example of why superhero movies are going to die Any Second Now. That shores up the sustainability a bit.
“2. In response to these cracks, both Marvel and DC launch their newest plans to continue their dominance at the box office-a sentient virus that turns their viewers of superhero movies and TV shows into members of that movie/TV show. Now they can never end, because everyone you know will be touched by the virus, and you have to know what happens to them. And then you’ll be caught, and you’ll be part of them now. Yes. You are one with them, they are one with you. The superheroes never have to stop. Never. They will always be with you, in you, within you. Feel them in you. They come for you. But don’t worry, it’s all for the best.”
I, the living embodiment of Frank Miller’s The Spirit, finds this a tad farfetched.
“3. Disappointingly, none of post-end credits reveals at the end of any Marvel or DC movie will feature Herbie Popnecker.”
Our country’s second-greatest shame.
• • •
And that was that! Thanks for participating, everyone, and remember to
leave me your 2017 predictions! Probably one more post following up on your comments to these posts from the last couple of weeks, so I’ll see you Friday for the exciting epilogue to our journey!
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