I was pretty excited for Comic Con this year. Last year was the first time Jim or I had been to “The Con”, thanks to a contest we won from Lionsgate and The Spirit. After last years experience, I thought I knew what to look forward to, how to handle the crowds, lines, etc. I was only partly successful...
Initially I was going to fly myself and my two older boys out to the convention, but got sweet-talked into driving down so that my wife and mother-in-law could have a mini-vacation of their own. If I had realized that I was going to trade about 3 hours of flying for 20 hours of driving, I wouldn’t have never agreed to this new arrangement. Then there was the whole issue of having three extra people in our hotel rooms because we had to bring my youngest boy as well...
I better stop now, or I’ll bore everyone to death... ON TO THE CON!
I wasn’t quite as excited this year for comic book related movies. There were a few things I wanted to see (Iron Man 2, Jona Hex, etc), but it was hard to compete with last year (Watchmen, Wolverine, The Spirit, etc). I had a few things on my list that I wanted to accomplish, but we arrived VERY late Thursday, so I missed everything that day. Among them was a scheduled demo and interview for
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I missed that one, but I did swing by the booth later and the game looks AMAZING!
Friday rolled around and I started the day off with a demo and interview for
DC Universe Online. The boys and I spent about an hour with the game, and ran through everything with Michael Dauber, Studio Art Director for Sony Online Entertainment. I’ve still got to write up my hands-on preview for the game, as well as everything he shared with us about the game, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow (sorry!). Needless to say I’m VERY excited for this game and it looked great! Some of the features they’re including in the game blow my mind... Not to mention some of the funny hoops they have to jump through to attain the “E” rating they’re shooting for.
When we finished the demo, we were about to leave when I noticed some Catwoman posters they were getting out. When I asked them what they were for, I was told that Jim Lee was going to be signing them! We hopped in line (right towards the front as luck would have it) and we each got an awesome DC Universe Online poster, signed by Jim Lee, Livio Ramondelli, Oliver Nome, and JJ Kirby. Not only did they sign them, they actually drew comic characters on them!
After the unexpected signing, we were behind schedule, so we headed up to sit in on the Marvel Animation panel. They showed a few trailers for upcoming work including the anime versions of Wolverine and Iron Man. They also announced that there would be an anime version of Blade as well.
I wasn’t too impressed with the anime take on Wolverine... He just didn’t *look* tough, like Wolverine should. A little too skinny and needs a haircut... I know that it’s anime, but I was hoping they’d stay a little closer to the original... They did mention that they’re probably going to explore the Japanese storyline from the 1980’s limited edition that was released for Wolverine. That alone will get me to watch them regardless of how he looks.
The Iron Man teaser they showed looked great. If the actual videos look anything like this piece, the Iron Man anime will be awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen action like that...
They spoke a bit about the next season of Iron Man Armored Adventures, which was supposed to kick off last Sunday. Some of the new suits that will be appearing this season are an Arctic Suit, a Space Suit, and then a big hulking suit that he apparently has to wear to fight *somebody* big. The slide showed the armored suit alongside The Hulk, so I’m assuming that they will duke it out sometime this season.
The new Planet Hulk trailer looked good, although it’s a MUCH tamer and thoughtful Hulk. I’ve lost track of the Hulk comics, so I’m not sure if this is a storyline from the comics or something that they actually created for an animated feature...
A teenage version of Thor is on its way as well in 2011. Thor: Legends of Asgard features a teenage Thor teaming up with Loki to retrieve a mystical sword, which ends up causing all sorts of trouble. I’m not so hip on the “teen” versions coming out lately, but this one looks like it’ll be fun to watch.
We also got to spend some time with
Aion. Aion’s a new MMO that’s due to be released September 22 from Sony Online Entertainment. We were able to visit the booth and get our hands a little dirty. The game seems like it has a lot of promise, including chained attacks/skills and the ability to receive wings to let you go airborne once you reach the appropriate level. The game looks and sounds absolutely amazing. We’re looking forward to September rolling around so that we can spend a lot more time with it! You can see my full write-up
here!
With that, we decided to call it a day and get some dinner... End day two.
Saturday came around MUCH too early. I had a nice little schedule in place, but missed the first item on the list (screening for the new Eastwick TV show that’s going to be based on the books and movie). My big goal for the day was to get an autograph from none other than Stan Lee! He was scheduled to be signing autographs for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 at the Activision booth. I arrived two hours early and found that you had to have a ticket. How do you get a ticket you ask? Pre-order Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 at their booth and you could get a ticket. Easy enough... Except for the fact that they were all out of tickets! Depressed, I pre-ordered the game and got my free Juggernaut character and t-shirt...
Down in the dumps, I ran upstairs to sit in on the Aspen Comics panel. Some of you may have seen my write-up on this earlier, so I’ll keep it short. Needless to say I’m a big fan of Michael Turner’s Fathom series. They gave us an update on the movie (script has been turned in), who they want to play Fathom, etc. They then announced that Michael Turner’s Soulfire series would also be making the jump to the big screen.
After sitting in on the Aspen Comics panel, and getting my free Comic Con exclusive #0 Dellec comic (looks like it has potential), I had to get to the ballroom. The V pilot and Fringe panels were next on my list.
While I was in line, I met was chatting with a few guys about movies (Transformers, Wolverine... the usual comic book movie stuff). If I remember right, we somehow got into a conversation about the Superman movies, and naturally the “Throwing The S” topic came up. Shortly thereafter one of them mentioned that he visits ComicBookMovie.com every day. I couldn’t help but say “Yeah, that’s my site!” At which point he looked at my badge and said “Hi, my name is Michael!” I couldn’t help but include this in my write-up... After all these years of working on the site, it was awesome to meet someone that not only knew the site, but was a fan. (I’m awful with names, so if I botched that, PLEASE TELL ME!)
I made it into the room about 5-10 minutes into the screening. V was great. I’m a big fan of the original series and have high hopes for this one.
I was a little disappointed in the Fringe panel... I thought they would air one of the episodes from season 2, or at least some new footage... Instead it was mostly Q&A with the actors. Initially I was bummed, but it ended up being pretty fun. Jasika Nicole (Astrid) met an old friend from College and Joshua Jackson (Peter) and John Noble (Walter) alluded to some odd incestual romance (joking of course). The actors were great, and VERY entertaining.
With that over with, I decided to skip out on the True Blood panel and call it a day.
I attempted Hall H once, but gave up and didn’t make any further attempts. I wasn’t in the mood for camping out so I missed out on Iron Man 2, Jona Hex, etc.
All in all it was a pretty fun trip. I got to see some great stuff, add Spider-Woman and Elektra to my min-bust collection, and meet some fun people. I can't wait until next year... Maybe I'll even dress up!
For those that are interested, I've added a
Comic Con 2009 gallery to SuperHeroGames. It includes the 30 or so photos I took during the con. Some of them are pretty funny :o)