Vinny provides some thoughts on where your favorite fiction is going in 2019, and the future of this site.

Back in June, we presented some thoughts on the year so far. To kick back into action, we’ve decided to re-visit those topics. Heck, we might even add something in there.

Professional Wrestling
AEW 2019

The past few months have moved exceptionally fast. Back when I wrote the first iteration of this, Kenny Omega had yet to win the IWGP Heavyweight title, All In was still in the future and WWE Raw…well, yeah, it sucked pretty bad back in June.

As it stands now,  All In has morphed into All Elite Wrestling, Kenny Omega and the rest of The Elite are (apparently) no longer with New Japan Pro Wrestling nor, perhaps more surprisingly, The Bullet Club and the WWE publicly acknowledged just how bad Raw had gotten. These days, Professional Wrestling is defined by revolution. Changes happening so rapidly that one would be hard to press to guess where we’ll be in another six months. Wrestling is on the rise, and you can now add promotions like the NWA and MLW to the list of surprising successes

What I can say about the future is this:

For this renaissance to continue to thrive, some in the industry must accept that in a few months, they may no longer be the rebels. One of the oldest tricks in the book has been to cast the WWE as the enemy and play off of that perception. Just look at what ECW accomplished for a few years. The thing is, to prove what everyone is saying these days, that WWE ISN’T the top of the business, you have to start acting like they’re equals. New Japan has done a good job of this, but they’re the exception.

That has to change.

Comic Books

Comics 2019

Since June, both Marvel and DC have been on a bit of a creative roll. Marvel successfully established a new guard of top books like Venom and The Immortal Hulk, and DC re-established the Justice League brand into something that few of their fans would want to miss. The key to all of this has been some wonderful creative teams being granted the control they need to truly innovate.

Perhaps the biggest misstep in recent months was Marvel’s handling of the X-Men franchise. Though they had gained a lot of momentum going into the Uncanny X-Men relaunch with their four well-liked team books, they not only blew their big reveal for the end of Extermination in their solicitations, but let Uncanny fall into a bit of a mess. I hate saying things like this, but sometimes books with teams of writers just don’t work right. While the concept is there, Uncanny always feels a bit clunky.

Regardless, comics feel like they might be heading in the right direction. Most companies have finally realized that they have multiple markets to address and seem to be making strides to satisfy all of their customers. DC Comics has jumped ahead in this regard with the launch of DC Black Label, DC Ink and DC Zoom. It is this type of thought that may make 2019 a great year in comics.

Film

Godzilla (2019)

Okay, just like last time, let’s focus on what we’re good at. 2018 stood as one of the coolest years in Sci-Fi/Superhero Fantasy, even if just for the sheer amount of films that came out. Since the last article, we’ve seen movies like Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Bumblebee all see success in the eyes of fans. Even critically panned films like Venom found their place. That said, Mortal Engines did not fair as well.

The unfortunate effect of this will likely be the announcement of more films from existing franchises and the continued unwillingness of studios to put their full force behind new concepts.

But I have to admit my hypocrisy, as I foam at the mouth for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Shazam! and Avengers: End Game. The truth is that franchise films have been quite good recently, and it is likely a trend that will continue for at least a few more years.

Dissecting Fiction

So, some of you probably noticed a pretty big gap in content here.

That’s my fault.

Back in June and July of 2018, we were getting some of the highest numbers in the site’s history. A reversion back to some of our earliest concepts was working, and the dream of promoting a site with unique opinions on unique topics seemed like the next big step. However, in the next couple of months, things changed drastically. Career paths were changed, successes were had and departures took place. By the beginning of winter, DF was a very different site.

That’s not a bad thing.

On 2019, we will not only be focusing on what works, but on the type of content we’ve always wanted to do. Yes, the webshow is dead. One of the biggest issues we’ve had over the last two years was creating a show that could keep up in the competitive YouTube environment and, while we did recognize where it was going, we never quite kept up. In the coming year, we will be presenting and alternative to the webshow, one that has been requested time and time again.

You’ll know it when you hear it.

Happy 2019