Tagged: Mike Gold

Now that we’ve taken a look back at the year – and boy oh boy, was that an interesting year – we can now look over the rainbow at what’s coming down the pike. Intelligent theories meet best guesses with a dash of wild-eyed visions; crystal ball, there’s so many things I gotta know… what’s coming in the New Year?

We’ve seen what the growth figures have been like for electronic reading, and now we can say there is no sign of slowing down. An estimated 70 different types of e-readers are expected to be on display at the Consumer Electronics Show later this month, and rumors have it that Apple is looking to purchase 65 million screens for iPads in the coming year, where book reading platforms are in the top 5 and two comics reading apps are in the top 20.

With the departure of Paul Levitz, Karen Berger is now the longest serving editorial employee at DC. But she’s on the other end of the country from where the action seems to be moving, and her sales figures haven’t been super-inspiring. Yes, Sandman moves lots of trade paperbacks a year– but what has she done for them lately? How many Big Events can they shove into the ever-narrowing pipeline? What if Green Lantern bombs? How do these new kids on the block respond? More THUNDER Agents? We will be told Wonder Woman is being given a bold new direction by a
new writer. This time the jacket will have fringe on it. The
DCU will get a few steps closer to being right back in the silver age.
Kyle Rayner and Wally West should buy some plots next to Ryan Choi any
day now.

How many Thor miniseries came out last year, in preparation for trade collection in time for the movie release? How about Captain America minis? Will the Spider-Man musical take flight – or will somebody get killed? Spider-Man himself will not die. Marvel’s Fear Itself will tie into Phobos being angry that daddy Ares was killed during Siege. The Avengers line-up will change and a new Avengers title will rise. Then, towards the end of 2011, we’ll have more Avengers mini-series than Richie Rich has tax shelters.

And then there’s the sword of Damocles hanging over the entire print industry. Steve Geppi’s financial problems are still touchy, not noticed as much because everybody’s had a softer year than most. Right now, we get the impression that Diamond’s treading water and has been able to refinance any cash flow problems, but shutting down their West Coast warehouse has to worry some folks about their future viability. But the real problem is with the Borders Book Chain: they closed the year not paying its creditors and returning tons of warehoused product. Sadly, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million aren’t doing all that much better.

The Green Lantern movie will be better than Spider-Man Turn On The Dark… we think. The Green Hornet movie will not. Please, please, please prove us wrong.

Beware the FINAL PICKLE. It’s coming.

Dr. Mid-Nite, Dr. Doom, Dr. Who, and Dr. Strange will start a competing talk show to take on the syndicated The Doctors. The show will however fail when Dr. Doom’s “Top Ten Super Health Tips for 2011” begin with SUCCUMB TO DOOM’S WILL!

The JLA line-up will change and spin-off into a new title, and no one will buy that book either. DC will quickly reconsider their no-crossover policy to jump on the Avengers bandwagon. Marvel will laugh.

Reed Dies. Sue Dies. Johnny Dies. Ben Dies. Franklin Dies. …. H.E.R.B.I.E. Dies. His parts will be distributed at random in the “final” bagged edition of Fantastic Four.

With the entire Disney Animated Universe being milked dry by BOOM! (and, increasingly Disney-owned Marvel),
look out for Avatar’s cleaning of the wonderful world of DiC.

Odin will return from the dead in a very angry state of mind. And a new pair of glasses.

Stan Lee’s characters for BOOM! will be forgotten by the summer, but don’t worry… Striperella will hit the shelves in the fall. And get ready to forget Stan’s new Archie titles!

The Walking Dead series will end with a unique twist: It was all a dream. Then Tom Welling shows up.

Marvel’s relaunching of the CrossGen Line will prove once and for all there was a good reason CrossGen went out of business.

Robert Kirkman will release only 17 new IP’s for Image.

And the surprise of the year: that Aunt May is going to outlive Miss Grundy.

How about you? What does your magic 8-ball reveal?

(Marc Alan Fishman, Mike Gold, Glenn Hauman, and Alan Kistler contributed to this piece.)