Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinPlaying the waiting game since 1969

Your 2025 Predictions, Part Two: FM & AM.

§ January 14th, 2026 § Filed under predictions § No Comments

Before we start, I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. I refer you back to this 2023 post which sums up my feelings about Adams and his strip.

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And here we are with part two of our look back at your 2025 comic industry predictions, with part one being just this past Monday.

And post your 2026 predictions in the comments at this link while you can!

So here he comes, here comes Mike Loughlin, he’s a predictor on wheels

“1) The market for graded comics will shrink to the point that at least one comic book grading company will go out of business.”

We sorta talked about this last time, in regards to scandals rocking the graded comic world. Far as I know, it’s still going strong, even though I personally stay out of that particular marketplace best as I can. There’s money still to be had in trading these things (well, some of these things) around, so we’re stuck with them for the time being.

“2) Absolute Swamp Thing will be announced, and maybe even published by the end of the year.”

No, which is good, because I have a semi-pitch for an Absolute Swamp Thing series, which only requires me to 1) get into writing comics, 2) making a name for myself, and 3) getting DC to listen to me, so give me, like, two or three weeks.

“3) At least one James Tynion IV comic will be optioned for a tv show or movie, probably Something is Killing the Children.”

SIKTC, as we industry insiders call it, apparently is getting both a TV show and a movie! At least, a deal’s been signed to do so, we’ll see what actually happens.

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Patrick Gaffney takes it easy on ol’ Mike with only one prediction

“DC will hire either one of the Chris’s (Pratt, Hemsworth, or Evans) to try to counter RDJ’s return to the MCU.”

Well, Chris Pratt may have an “in” for a DC Comics movie, if this article is accurate. (Not as Batman, but James Gunn seems to have another role in mind for Pratt.)

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Bret Sector cuts in with

“1) There will be a treasury-sized crossover book published of Absolute Superman meets Ultimate Spider-man; its success will lead to other treasury-sized inter-company crossovers and a plethora of Absolute and Ultimate titles…Absolute Ambush Bug – nuff said!”

That would’ve been something. If Marvel brings back their Ultimate line, or has some other outside-the-regular-universe line to compete head-to-head with DC’s Absolutes, and everything goes on for a bit, maybe they’ll think about doing a crossover. If Marvel and DC are still talking, of course.

“2) The blueprint for the original Ultimate universe of titles will start to be followed -Secret War, crossovers with the regular Marvel universe, and ultimately Ultimatem…looking forward to the new iteration of Ultimate Adventures.”

They seem intent on ending the Ultimate line for now…but is Endgame going to cross over with the regular Marvel Universe? I don’t know. I still think the Ultimate line is going to come back eventually, and maybe that’ll repeat the cycle you mention.

“3) The Emperor Doom storyline will end with Dormammu as the leader of Latveria and Doom as the Lord of the Dark Dimension.”

Not yet…but the repercussions from the Doom storyline are still going on, so maybe things will eventually turn out as you hoped!

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demoncat_4 purrs out the following

“1 dc will at long last publish the legendary swamp thing meets jesus issue.”

It didn’t come out last year, but it was announced!

“2 disney will try and buy dc and then marvel and dc will do a jla vs avengers film with james gunn and kevin feige working together and it will blow the box office away.”

This apocalyptic vision has not happened…yet, but I bet we see Disney try to buy Warner Bros. (and DC) at some point in our future.

“3 james gunm will reveal he is doing both a live action and animated version of kingdom come with mark hamill voicing batman”

Not announced, but I have to admit I like the idea of Mark Hamill voicing Batman. Seems oddly fitting.

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Sean Mageean is keen on these

“Instead of a Blackhawk film, Steven Spielberg will pivot to producing an Airboy film set during WW II starring Timothee Chalamet as Airboy, Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Valkyrie, David Harbour as The Heap, Michael Fassbender as Airwolf, and Margot Robbie as Black Angel. Chuck Dixon will be a consultant.”

Does Spielberg even still have the option on Blackhawk? Anyway, this didn’t happen, which is a shame because “David Harbour as The Heap” cracks me up.

“Paramount Pictures film adaptation of the Atlas/Seaboard character Devilina will be filmed in a retro-’70s Hammer Horror/Amicus/ grindhouse aesthetic and will be a surpris hit, thus boosting the Atlas/Seaboard brand. As a result, Tarantino will decide to direct a Planet of the Vampires film.”

I’d like to see some kind of motion on the Atlas/Seaboard media adaptations. I really think something like the Grim Ghost is most likely going to be first out of the gate if/when these start, but I like your idea for the Devilina project.

“Marvel Comics will greenlight a limited series by Jaime, Gilbert, and Mario Hernandez called ‘Romance and Monsters’ that will have stories set in 1960 featuring Patsy Walker, Hedy Wolfe, Millie the Model, Chili, Klagg, Gor-Kil, Mummex, Titano, Groot, and Fin Fang Foom.”

Sean, I’m sensing these are less “predictions” and more “Sean’s Dream Books/Movies.” But I’d totally read this if it were real.

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Joe Cabrera hails these

“1. There will be at least one court case with DC suing some crypto bro outfit trying to capitalize on the Superman movie using Krypto’s name”

Can’t find anything (it’s really hard to Google, by the way), so maybe no one was brave enough to challenge Warner’s lawyers.

“2. DC will announce an animated show starring ‘Mazing Man”

I would have loved this. That tiny bit we got of ‘Mazing Man in an episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold just wasn’t enough.

“3. The Fantastic Four’s big post-credits reveal will be … the Beyonder?!?”

Oh, I can only hope the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes on long enough to get the Beyonder. White-suited Secret Wars II Beyonder, specifically. Our greatest tribute to Jim Shooter.

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Jesse’s got himself a few predictions

“1- At least one parallel publishing universe (absolute/ultimate/etc) will end.”

The Ultimate line is ending, but not done yet. (And like I said, I don’t believe it’s done yet.) And DC ending the Absolute line would be the height of stupidity, given it’s the company’s big moneymaker now. And frankly, I can’t think of other company imprints dying out last year, but those Big Two sure overwhelm everything else.

“2- Marvel will finally come up with a comprehensive vision for their line.”

I…am not 100% certain what this would entail. Like, DC’s whole “All-In”/DC K.O. thing, where all the superhero books are either focused on “refreshing the premise” or playing into the company-wide crossover, maybe? I don’t see any company-wide equivalent at Marvel, though they have their franchise-specific events tying together all the X-Men, for example. But otherwise, DC’s books seem to have a shared direction, the Marvel books seems more…individually directed.

“3- The speculator market will slow down”

Versus how it was during the initial year or two of the COVID pandemic? Sure, it’s slowed a bit. But it’s always present, especially around the Absolute line.

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Jason cuts in with

“Trump (and possibly Musk) variants will be hot for a minute like Obama ones were in ’08. Except every publisher will be forced to issue an ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m trying to delete it’ apology afterwards.”

Shockingly, I didn’t see much along the lines of political variants like these this year. Kind of a…different environment, both in the Real World and in the comics business, for these to proliferate like they once did.

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Chris Mautner makes with

“Tariffs are going to make things VERY difficult for publishers, especially with regards to graphic novels. Expect to see cheaper, less ornate collections come out.”

I haven’t seen publishing, or prices, take the hit I was expecting. I imagine some difficulties have set in behind the scenes, but I’m having trouble digging up specific stories. At one point, one distributor announced that comic supplies were going to go up in price…but I think they scaled that back when the tariffs got yanks, or something. The on-again/off-again/nobody knows what’s going on aspect of the tariffs have been such a mess that the industry can’t seem to form a response to them. But for now, it all appears Business As Usual.

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William Burns has some hot takes with

“1. Corporate comics move in a culturally conservative directions, particularly in queer rep.”

I think the publishers are still trying for some representation and support for LGBTQIA characters and creators, while keeping their heads down to avoid unwanted controversy and attention (such as the firing of trans writer Gretchen Felker-Martin). A step forward, a step back, same as it always is.

“2. With great fanfare, someone will bring out an AI-written and illustrated comic. It will be terrible, but that won’t stop people trying.”

I haven’t seen any put out with “great fanfare” — it always seems to be slipped in where hopefully nobody’s paying attention, and then called out when it’s noticed. There was one particular circumstance with a Kickstartered book that I’ll address in response to someone else’s predictions.

“3. Somebody finally gets their act together and brings out a Sally Bananas collection.”

I have to admit, I’ve never heard of “Sally Bananas” by Charles Barsotti, which I looked up and found this example on eBay (which you can click and make bigger):

…and frankly, I think I may have had some kind of stroke. But, who am I, the world’s biggest Frank Miller’s The Spirit fan, to judge? But no, sadly there has been no collection.

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And let that be an end to it, at least for today. Thanks for reading along, pals, and come back Friday for more!

Your 2025 Predictions, Part One: Take-Offs and Put-Ons.

§ January 12th, 2026 § Filed under predictions § 3 Comments

We made it! Somehow we all survived to January of 2026, which means of course it’s time to go back and look at your predictions for the 2025 comics industry! Who got a hit? Who missed? What will Mike overlook in his rushed research? Let’s find out! (And don’t forget to leave your predictions for what’s left of 2026!)

Kicking things off is Chris Gumprich, who foresaw

“1. Diamond will go out of business, causing a few smaller publishers to collapse, but nowhere near the disaster it would have been 30 years ago.”

To the stunning shock of everyone, there is still a Diamond Comics, taking orders and shipping things out, though admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve received a package from them. (However, there are supposedly two or three boxes of various things I’ve ordered over the last couple of months that are on their way.)

Most of the comics business has departed Diamond for other climes, mostly Lunar/Universal and Penguin Random House, plus a handful of other smaller distributors, so unless you’re doing major trade in, like, anime statues, Diamond disappearing entirely and/or being replaced by whatever it is their new owners have planned, we’re likely not to notice. If you just sell comics (with maybe only the barest smattering of merchandise), like I know I do, I imagine you’ll be fine.

“2. DC will announce a joint DC/Marvel blockbuster movie. Kevin Feige will reply “That’s the first I’ve heard of this.'”

Recently on Bluesky, I posited the question “how long before we see an official Star Trek/Star Wars crossover?” Leaving aside the responses from folks who needed to tell me they think it would suck (which wasn’t the question), and the people who took the opportunity to yell at me about how it would be impossible (“Star Trek could never travel in time to the Star Wars ‘long ago’ era!”), the general agreement was that it would take Disney buying Paramount. Or everything entering the public domain.

My thought was that it would take either or both properties bottoming out entirely, every possible penny squeezed from the I.P., before desperation set in and the respective owners would be receptive to such a thing. In short, things would probably have to be pretty bad before Lucasfilm/Disney (and it would have to be them, since Trek happily crosses over with whatever) would deign to do this.

Now I don’t bring this up for you guys to start discussing this in my comments. In fact, I’m telling you not to. Don’t do it. I bring it up because something like this would have to happen before DC and Marvel’s respective movie universes bump into each other in a big ol’ feature film. Comics, sure, that’s not a problem, usually, just creators and publishers hashing it out and getting it published and deciding who gets to publish their Superman/Spider-Man comic first and get the majority of the sales, and who publishes second and has theirs ignored.

But once we get into movies, then we start talking about real money being spent and hopefully made, with big business decisions and lots of lawyers and so on, and it turns into a huge hassle. And right now, despite appearances in some cases, both the Marvel and DC Studios have too much currently invested in their movie projects to be at the point where they’d throw in the towel and finally say “okay, fine, let’s make that Iron Man Vs. Batman flick.” Yes, maybe some of the movies they’re doing right now aren’t getting the traction they want, but we’re probably several flops/a decade or more away before getting to that point of desperation.

So, in short, no, 2025 did not see an official Marvel/DC movie crossover. Maybe an Easter egg or other background thing, sure, but no headlining project.

“3. I don’t know if this counts as a prediction because it’s of something that WON’T happen. Gary Spencer Millidge will not release the final storyline of STRANGEHAVEN in 2025. But he’ll get close.”

I…don’t think he has yet, Hard to tell from what I can see of his Patreon, but I presume he’s working on it!

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Thom H. heaves out the following

“1. James Gunn’s Superman movie will be a huge hit, out-performing any of Marvel’s recent movies at the box office.”

It wasn’t a billion dollar blockbuster, like Deadpool/Wolverine, but the new Superman film did very well in this nearly-post-superhero film market, taking in more at the box office than any of Marvel’s entries last year. Now, in terms of actual profit, man, I don’t know, I’m not an accountant, but I think Superman, at least, showed a little profit, which is already better than some of the more recent DC films.

“2. Absolute Martian Manhunter won’t sell well, but it will be a critical darling.”

It actually did very well, going into multiple printings. I mean, it’s not selling like Absolute Batman, but nothing in the DC/Marvel superhero realm is selling like Absolute Batman.

“3. Tom King finally gets to write a Legion of Super-Heroes story?”

Not that I’ve seen, unless I missed something. The “Dark Legion” popped up in Superman this year, after their debut in the DC All-In special a while back, but those are by other hands. And a new Legion series is coming soon written by Joshua Williamson.

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Mela writes

“1. Marvel/Disney will announce an X-Men movie, and it will somehow take cues from both Krakoa & the expected series’ status quo, satisfying no one.”

We’re not quite there yet…after this next Avengers movie, which features at least some of our X-pals, and probably the one after, we’ll hear what’s going on with the new X-movies.

“2. There will be another go at the Legion, and it will appeal to nostalgia for the 90s post-Zero Hour team this time instead of the 70s/80s era.”

Just a little early, again! I noted above that a new ongoing starts this year, but we did see an alternate Legion team in 2025.

“3. Not sure if it counts for a comics prediction, per se, but AEW will do a promotional theme night for the Gunn Superman movie.”

Well, I’ll be darned, they did.

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Daniel T tees of the next batch

“1. Most of the predictions will be wrong.”

Well, sure, just the nature of the forecasting business. Still a better hit rate than most “psychics.”

“2. Superman: The New Movie will not do as well as The Batman.”

The Batman‘s box office take was about $150 million more than Superman, but then Batman’s always been an easier sell.

“3. Comics will continue to be published, but DC is most in danger of losing its periodical line if Zaslav gets around to noticing it.”

I think Zaslav had other stuff going on last year to worry about…though now maybe DC has to worry about what Netflix plans to do with them.

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Jerry Smith rigs these

“Either DC or Marvel will just say, ‘chuck it,’ and stop the madness. They will stop publishing comics and license out all of their characters and titles to another entity. IDW? Dark Horse? Who knows. Everything will start over with new #1s, which will sell like wheatcakes at first, then be under current norms by issue 6. Stories will be even worse than Marvel’s present output, as modern comics writers are not Stan Lee.

“I might be a year or two off on this prediction.”

I feel like this is one of those events that could happen someday…like, I don’t see it happening soon, but if it were announced at the San Diego Comic Con this year I’d be all “yeah, sure, took ’em long enough.” I think the comics themselves are doing…okay enough to not worry about big changes like this. Especially DC, as it seems to have hit paydirt with the Absolute line, but again, we’ll see what happens once Netflix takes over.

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Chris V wages his vendetta with

“1.)The ‘From the Ashes’ X-title relaunch will end up a failure as pushing out eighty new series within four months will prove untenable (there may be a slight exaggeration at the number of new books). The majority of titles will be cancelled within one year. The line will settle down to a sane four or five ongoing titles, as that is the appropriate amount that a line of comic titles can bear in the current market.”

Aside from some “Age of Apocalypse” re-do this past year, the X-Men line has been fairly stable, with a handful of new short-run titles that came out to…well, mixed reaction. If it were just the main titles, things would be fine, but the endless one-shots and side series and whathaveyou are a problem, generally solved by ordering low since X-fans seem to be largely avoiding those anyway.

“2.)The DC Absolute line will hit its nadir as it attempts the Absolute Ultra the Multi-Alien series. DC begins to rethink its priorities in the fallout.”

I almost discussed this in my response to Jerry above, but even though right now the Absolute line is doing exceptionally well, adding yet more titles will likely dilute the imprint. I’d love an Absolute Ultra comic, but literally everyone else would see it as a cynical marketing move. As long as DC keeps the line at a reasonable number of titles, it should continue to do well.

Or DC could just make the entire line Absolute. I’ve seen it noted here and there that the next regular DC Universe publishing initiative, “Next Level,” will be inspired in part by the Absolute titles, so there’s that.

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DK is here to say

“1) SUPERMAN will outperform FANTASTIC FOUR handily, its a much easier sell to mainstream audiences. Nobody needs oodles of exposition to understand “Superman fights Lex Luthor and kisses Lois Lane” versus “okay we start off in a 60’s inspired parallel Marvel Universe where actually Shalla-Bal is the Silver Surfer and let’s lead with Galactus which invokes the Council of Reeds…'”

As noted previously in this post, Superman did outperform Fantastic Four, but not by a lot (“he says, talking about $100 million or so”). It’s hard to say why, exactly, beyond the points you make. Both have been preceded by plenty of films of varying quality in the last couple of decades, so that they were able to attract the audiences they did is an achievement in and of itself. I think ultimately Superman just looked like a more interesting experience compared to the FF flick. And only one had a cute flying dog!

“2) Neil Gaiman’s personal scandals will escalate and bump him permanently off finishing MIRACLEMAN, he will pass the torch on SANDMAN to another writer to keep the royalties coming in.”

It was reported pretty early on that the final chapter, The Dark Age, is off the publishing schedule. Anyway, you can see what I’ve written on the subject in this category here.

As for Sandman, I’m going to guess it’ll be a while before we see that group of characters again. They turned up in the recent History of the DC Universe series to a fairly widespread cringey reaction, so they may need to…go away for a while. Eventually they’ll be dragged out again and reworked by somebody (I keep half-joking about “Tom King’s Sandman). And I’m sure you meant the “handed off” bit figuratively, but any new creator taking over the franchise would be ill-served by getting Gaiman’s “blessing.”

“3) There will be a much much bigger Comics Grading/Slabbing scandal that actually puts one of the grading companies in legal or financial jeopardy and causes large scale doubt in the hobby over what you are actually getting in the slab.”

I have to admit, since I do my best to avoid that whole side of the marketplace, I am unaware of any specific controversies there (aside from some book being sent in twice and getting two differing grades). Googling “[name of the primary grading company] scandal” turns up several results, mostly from 2024. And searching “[the other grading company] scandal” brings up stuff just from last month, mostly regarding cards. It appears there are lots of shenanigans afoot, at any rate.

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Okay, that’s a pretty good start to this series of posts, I believe. Come back Wednesday, and we’ll see how more predictions have turned out!