I’m Ambush Bug from AICN's @$$hole Comic Reviews, and this year, my fellow @$$hole, Sleazy G and I hit the WIZARD WORLD Chicago Comic Book Convention at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. A lot went on in the three days we were there and a lot of alcohol was consumed, so Sleazy and I will try our damndest to recall the events at best as possible.
Sleazy: Both Bug and I hit a lot of the panels this year, but they didn't seem to have as many really big announcements as the last couple of years did. Of course, this might be because, thanks to circumstances beyond my control (read: my cohort Ambush Bug was always running late) –
Bug: I had to do my hair!
Sleazy: You don’t have any hair! Anyway, we missed the bulk of the big DC and X-Men panels. Still, there was some interesting comic book news to be heard. Over in the Ultimate Marvel universe, it turns out that the current ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE miniseries is the first of three. Warren Ellis will be writing all of them. The idea is that since the very beginning (specifically in ULTIMATE TEAM-UP, but also in THE ULTIMATES) it's been suggested that there's a huge conspiracy running behind the scenes. By the time ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE is done, we're supposed to have some idea what's going on, and it will lead directly into ULTIMATE SECRET. The cover are of the first year of SECRET featured what looks to be a new take on Captain Marvel, and no, the book shouldn't be a reworking of SECRET WARS despite the name. The content and name of the third part of the trilogy is as of yet unannounced.
Bug: Brian Michael Bendis’ AVENGERS DISSASSEMBLED was the talk of the show. The new Avengers line-up had everyone all in a dither. Out are old standbys Yellowjacket, Hawkeye, and Wasp. The incoming lineup: Wolverine, Spider-Man, Sentry, and Spider-Woman, joining Captain America, Iron Man, and She-Hulk. Bendis also said Luke Cage will be playing a part in the new series.
Sleazy: Bendis had the best line of the weekend. Somebody stood up at a panel and asked him how much more he was going to do to Scott Lang, seeing as how he already killed the guy twice in ALIAS and AVENGERS. Bendis' answer? "Next issue, he's gonna get raped by Dr. Light." Classic.
Bug: There’s a new BLACK WIDOW series coming soon and a BULLSEYE series featuring PREACHER artist Steve Dillon’s artwork. Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said that DAREDEVIL: FATHER #2 is completed and ready to be shipped out soon and Mark Millar promised that three issues of the ULTIMATES VOLUME 2 are completely finished and ready to go. He said that two more issues will be finished by the time the book hits the shelves in December and that the book will be monthly this time.
Sleazy: They've also got that YOUNG AVENGERS series, written by one of the writers from guilty pleasure "The O.C." Anybody who's seen the show knows Allan Heinberg is a huge comics fan, since he drops references to comic books (or shows them on screen and has the characters discuss them) in almost every episode. Quesada still swears up and down it's the best pitch he's ever had, and Bendis said he's jealous of the guy's ideas, so it may be worth checking into.
Bug: Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s WOLVERINE was hyped heavily and I have to admit the book looks really good. Lots of ninjas and sharks and claws. ELEKTRA has a new series focusing on the origin of the Hand. Joss Whedon said he'd love to do X3, but hasn't been approached yet. He said the only people talking about it right now are on the internet. He also said he needs to see if he can live through the first year of writing ASTONISHING X-MEN before he considers a second.
Sleazy: Additionally, there's a seven-issue fifth week event at year's end from Marvel from an all-star crew of artists and writers on WHAT IF... stories. Beyond that, we're supposed to see a somewhat more cohesive Marvel Universe than we have in the last half decade or so as more of the storylines affect each other directly. Looking down the road, there's a huge piece of news in the form of SPIDER-MAN: THE END, to be written by Stan Lee, but that's still in the development stage.
Bug: I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but during the Q&A at the MARVEL panel, someone asked a question about David Mack and if he would be doing anything other than KABUKI for the MARVEL ICON imprint. It was obviously an editorial question, and Joey Quesada began to answer, but Brian Bendis kind of cut him off and said something like, "We want Mack to work on more books, but he's working right now on Kabuki and is too much into it to do anything else. But we'd love to get Mack back on other books after that." It kind of made me wonder who's in charge there at Marvel when Bendis is cutting off the Editor-in-Chief.
Sleazy: Saturday, we got to the DC panel about 20 minutes before it wrapped up, so we missed all the announcements about new titles. We did get to hear the announcement, though, that there was gonna be some HUGE Bat-related stuff at the end of the Green Lantern panel. They were limiting the number of people who could go, so we had to haul ass to the DC booth to get wristbands, then wait in line. Thank God we heard the announcement, since we were planning on going to the GL panel all along, and would've gotten shafted if we didn't get the wristbands in time.
Bug: Yeah, it was a good thing I pushed over that three-year old to get our wristbands, otherwise we would’ve really missed out. At the end of the DC panel, BATMAN BEGINS writer, David Goyer showed the trailer that everyone has already seen on the internet and did a bit of Q&A with the crowd. Goyer says that he thinks this is the first time a live action Batman had been depicted correctly on the screen. Goyer was unable to talk about much, but one detail he mentioned was that they finally got the Batman’s cape right. It flows and swirls around Batman like it does in the comics.
Sleazy: After the DC panel, we wandered the floor a bit. Devil’s Due Publishing swiped up the survivors of the Crossgen implosion. Writers Chuck Dixon, Ron Marz, Marv Wolfman, and Joe Casey are starting an entire new super hero line for the company to debut soon.
Bug: Yeah, some of those new books look pretty impressive. As we walked out onto the convention room floor, there was a distinct smell of ass and turnips. I don't know if that had anything to do with the fact that I was walking behind Sleazy the entire time or not.
Sleazy: The super stars showed up this year at the Con. I saw Erin Gray from BUCK ROGERS who really has held up through the years.
Bug: And in the booth right beside her was Buck Rogers himself, Gil Gerard.
Sleazy: Boy, Gil looked…um…healthy.
Bug: Yeah, Gil Gerard looked like he ate Gil Gerard.
Sleazy: Yes, he was quite large.
Bug: Speaking of large, Leaping Lou Ferrigno was present at the Con as usual. Lou and I have a history, I don't know if Lou remembers that history, but just in case, I made sure he was on one side of the room while I was on the other. The courts have advised me not to talk about that though.
Sleazy: Angus McGuinnes who played X-Wing pilot Dutch in STAR WARS was there.
Bug: I believe the guy who played Porkins was busy.
Sleazy: Marc Singer was present too. He wore an obnoxiously loud turquoise shirt that screamed "Look at me! I used to be The Beastmaster!"
Bug: I ate a tasty hot dog and realized it was time for the GREEN LANTERN presentation, so Sleazy and I ran back to the panels, knocking over the same three-year old kid in the process.
Sleazy: The upcoming GL stuff sounds pretty solid. To be honest, I'm not too thrilled about the return of Hal Jordan. But the decision was made to bring Hal back, and I can understand why. I talked to editor Peter Tomasi for a while on Friday, and he's a swell guy. Polite, friendly, smart...and most importantly, he seems to have a genuine respect for the characters and their stories. Knowing that he's editing these books and that Geoff Johns is writing the return has actually won me over. These two guys are some of the best at DC right now. They've got love for the characters, respect for the readers, and a desire to tell each story as well as possible. I've gone from hating the idea to being excited to see what happens, and that's entirely because these guys have earned readers' trust time and again. It sounds like the GREEN LANTERN REBIRTH mini and upcoming GREEN LANTERN ongoing is going to be well worth checking out.
Bug: Johns was tight lipped about the series, but said that old school GL villains like Hector Hammond, Sinestro, and Black Hand will be seen in the new series. Johns promises that Guy Gardner and Batman will play a big part as well. Carlos Pachelo will be penciling the new ongoing after Ethan Van Sciver provides art for REBIRTH. The Green Lantern panel was cut short in order to make time for the special BATMAN BEGINS event and boy howdy, was it an event! After repeated warnings that recorders of any kind were not to be used, BATMAN BEGINS director Chris Nolan, writer David Goyer, and Nolan’s wife Emma Thomas who is producing the film entered the room.
Sleazy: These people are really, really good. They said all the right things about the writing and decision-making process. The movie may turn out to be amazing or it may be a stinker - it's far too early to tell. If it doesn't work out, it won't be because they weren't committed. Christopher Nolan is smooth as hell. He's attractive, well-dressed, intelligent and incredibly suave. The guy charmed the whole crowd, and then beat his retreat because he had to get back to filming.
Bug: So as soon as the Q&A was over, they showed a two or three minute montage of various shots of the film. Chris prefaced the preview by saying that he waits until the very end of shooting before he did any editing and that the scenes shown were in rough form with no completed scenes. The lights went down and it was so quiet, you could hear a fly fart.
Sleazy: There was some great stuff in the preview. What was shown was very impressive visually, and glimpses of Batman's gadgets and car were cool to see.
Bug: Christian Bale sword fightings with Liam Neeson on ice. They slide down a snowy hill, and almost fall off of a cliff. Batman opens his cape and dives on some thugs in an alley. One thug rushes past a dark doorway and is pulled into the shadows fast and hard. There’s a scene where Bale kisses Katie Holmes in what looks like the ruins of Wayne Manor. Gary Olman charges down a hallway in a way that reminded me of his performance as the dirty cop in THE PROFESSIONAL. Morgan Freeman shows Bale an armor prototype that looks a lot like the Bat-suit. One of the coolest clips was of Bale and Freeman riding in a yellow striped Batmobile prototype. Freeman asks, “Do you like it?” and Bale replies, “Does it come in black?” Then the real Batmobile crashes through a building. Batman falls from a building completely engulfed in flames and lands hard on a parked car. This is the flaming Batman I’ve always wanted to see, and not the Joel Schumacher version.
Sleazy: The highlight for me, though, was seeing a shot of the Scarecrow. That's not a character whose look is easy to get right on screen--it could easily look goofy or cheap, but it didn't. It looked pretty damned good in the few seconds we saw.
Bug: The Scarecrow really did look scary. He had a FRIDAY THE 13TH/ TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN-type mask with big stitches and straw revealing one spooky eye. Katie Holmes opens a door and there he is. She screams, he raises his hand and poof! Out comes a cloud of fear gas in true Scarecrow style. The crowd reacted strongest to this scene. The clip ended with a thug panting in an alley, screaming “Where are you!?!” He backs up and spins to see Batman hanging upside down inches in from of him. Batman says “Here.” And the screen goes black. When the lights went up, the crowd went apeshit. I mean it. Apes were literally throwing their shit. This was a really great clip. I can’t wait to see this film.
Sleazy: Soon after, the Con ended, Bug and I went across the street to down a steak and some liquor. Some lady had some kind of weird seizure at the table next to us and was escorted out in an ambulance. It is unclear whether or not Marc Singer’s turquoise shirt had anything to do with it.
Bug: Sleazy and I had a debate as to what kind of drunk Gil Gerard would be if in act he were a drunk.
Sleazy: I thought Gil would be the kind of guy who sits quietly at the end of the bar and stares at a half empty glass of scotch and sighs a lot.
Bug: And I thought he would be the type who gets angry at the waitress when she shuns his flirtations and screams “Don’t you know who I am? I was Buck Fucking Rogers!” And when the twenty something waitress says “Who?” he just flips the hell out and storms out of the bar and back to his hotel room to call room service for another order of buffalo wings and a mini-bar refill.
(Disclaimer: The @$$holes are not saying that Gil Gerard or anyone related to Gil Gerard is or ever was an alcoholic. This is just the kind of fucked up shit that we talk about over steak and liquor.)
Sleazy: Gil never showed up at the bar so we never had a chance to find out if our theories were accurate or not. Later we tried to finagle our way into the WIZARD after-party like we did last year, but we were denied.
Bug: So we moseyed over to the hotel bar and gabbed it up with a few friendly sorts like up and coming artist, Seth Davies. Just when I thought I could relax and enjoy a beer, Lou Ferrigno walked into the bar.
Sleazy: It was a good thing you were standing behind Gil Gerard.
Bug: Yeah, Lou couldn’t see me at all. Later, I was standing at the bar with Jim Starlin at one side of me and Brian Azzarello on the other. I decided that there were too many bald guys in one place at the bar so I excused myself and went home to pass out.
Sleazy: Sunday was a much slower day. The Vertigo panel didn't contain any big surprises--most of the projects they talked about had been previously announced. I'm most looking forward to Brian Azzarello and Frusin's LOVELESS, a post-Civil War western. The upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE was also discussed, as was Brian K. Vaughan's upcoming PRIDE graphic novel.
Bug: We talked a bit with with Brian K. Vaughan after the panel. He’s a really humble guy who sounds a lot like Jim Kuback from the Adult Swim cartoon MISSION HILL. He said that we’ll find out why Yorick survived the plague by around issue 30 in Y: THE LAST MAN. The panel was cut short by yet another sneak preview screening. This time from CONSTANTINE.
Sleazy 18 minutes of footage from the upcoming film was shown, followed by an appearance by director Francis Lawrence. This is one of those projects I've been expecting to suck. I've been following this character for all of his nearly 200 issues, plus miniseries, one-shots, appearances in SWAMP THING and other titles, etc. Like everybody else who reads this stuff, I figured Keanu was dead wrong for the role and hated that they moved it to LA.
Bug: I on the other hand, have never read an issue of HELLBLAZER, so I didn’t really have any opinions leading up to the preview.
Sleazy: After seeing the footage, some of my concerns have been addressed, but others linger. It looks sharp as hell, and the pacing and the palette look appropriately deliberate and creepy. There were a lot of moments (and entire scenes) that were clearly borrowed straight from the comics, most notable Garth Ennis' inaugural story on the book. Papa Midnight, Gabriel...they seem to be handled fairly well. There was enough in that 18 minutes to make me think it'd be a decent genre film. Unfortunately, there's a scene that's so completely out of character it makes me cringe: an obviously Blade-inspired scene with Constantine using a shotgun that looks like a cross and fires holy water rounds. It's so not the way John would ever handle things that it's hard to swallow. I'm still hoping for the best, and again, the director really sounded convincing when he talked about making choices that stayed true to the character, but I'm still a little worried.
Bug: I kind of liked the preview. It was moody and Reeves was pretty restrained. The exorcism scene and the scene on the bus with a youthful Constantine were especially spooky. After the preview, I asked Brian Azzarello what he thought of it. The former HELLBLAZER scribe said that the clip blew him away and that it reminded him of a David Fincher flick. Pretty high praise. After the panels, we wandered a bit more and knocked over that annoying three-year old again. I walked past a booth with some super hot Asian models sitting at it who said, “Heeyyyy!” to me as I walked by. I was feeling like Stud Hunkly there for a bit.
Sleazy: Yeah, until they said the same thing to that portly guy three steps behind you with the receding mullet.
Bug: Actually, I was amazed at the sheer amount of women at the con this year.
Sleazy: Yeah, there were quite a few. Maybe comics aren’t just for dudes anymore.
Bug: Hey, I’m not complaining.
Sleazy: What's that, you say? How was the Kevin Smith panel? Let me answer that question with a question: who fuckin' cares? This was a COMIC BOOK CONVENTION. I don't care that he sells 'em. He hasn't written one in three years (despite starting and not finishing two miniseries at Marvel), so I really couldn't be bothered to miss out on four hours of panels and interacting with creators to stand in line to get a wristband so I could stand in line to get a ticket so I could stand in line to get in to his event.
Bug: I am kind of sad that I left the con without knowing whether JERSEY GIRL will be adapted into cartoony figures or a miniseries though.
Sleazy: The thing is, though, the panels and announcements are really only half the story. The other half of the story at a con is the stuff you can't really condense and describe. It's getting to walk up to writers, artists, and editors you like and respect and talk to them like they're regular people. I know they take a lot of hits in this column, so I'd like to single out Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis in particular. These guys are funny, smart, charming, and extremely generous with their time. Everywhere they go they've got people approaching them or following them around, and they were always a class act.
Bug: I completely agree. You may like or dislike their work, but these guys are genuinely nice guys. They come to these cons to interact with fans and have fun, and it shows.
Sleazy: That's the best part of these things--seeing the human side of the business, and what great guys most of them are. There's something great about standing at a bar, chatting up a guy who does covers, or wondering why nobody's talking to Chris Claremont. I wish I knew where Millar got that hilarious "Betty Ford Clinic" tee he was wearing at the bar. Looking around a room and seeing people who work for supposed competitors grabbing a drink together, Rob Liefeld shoving pizza into his face, or Joss Whedon hanging out in a hotel sports bar? Classic. And I'll never forget the number of people brought nearly to tears by the sheer beauty of John Cassaday's hair.
Bug: Too often, the creators and fans of this medium work, read, and interact on the internet in a sort of vacuum. It’s good to get out sometimes, unplug yourself from the monitor, put down the comic book, and interact with all of these people. There is a creative energy at these cons that can’t be described, only experienced.
Sleazy: You realize that in most ways the creators are just regular people, and the industry really does feel like a family reunion. There are internal feuds, and people who say they don't see each other enough and then don't see each other until the next year, and people who are virtual strangers that end up drinking and laughing and feeling a little better about what they do by the end of the night, and it's a great thing to see.
Bug: All in all, this was another fun year at the con. I walked out with some inspiring interactions, some free stuff, and a super cool Elongated Man 7-11 cup. So thank you Mark Millar and Brian Bendis. Thank you Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi. Thank you Joss Whedon, Erin Grey, Seth Davies, Chris Nolan, Marc Singer’s shirt, Joe Quesada, Brain K. Vaughan, Leaping Lou, that three-year old kid I kept running over, and last, but definitely not least, thank you Gil Gerard for a truly enjoyable con experience.
