NYCC – Day 1 Panel Recap! Geoff Johns! DC Animated! Mark Waid!

Hey Geekscapists! For those of you who haven’t been, New York Comic Con is steadily shaping up to be the East Coast’s answer to San Diego. Truthfully, I know that it can never BE San Diego (and judging by recent decisions, nowhere else can be either) but damned if everyone concerned isn’t giving it their best try. This is my second year attending, and by all accounts the event is steadily progressing to be as large and as important as possible in terms of size, scope, guests, and exhibitors. There’s literally way too much for any one person to see and do here, but over the next few days I will bring you coverage of as much as humanly possible. Here’s a brief rundown of some panels I attended today (Day 1).

Spotlight On Geoff Johns

This panel was a bit frustrating. There were a few tidbits of news, but nothing too earth-shattering. The discussion was built around audience Q & A, so things tended to wander a bit-and questions ranged from the appropriate to the inane. Summing up the most cogent bits of information I gleaned from the panel:

John Stewart will have a bigger role in Green Lantern Corps. There will also be a crossover between the three Lantern books in Spring of 2011.

With regard to Aquaman, Johns has significant plans for him in the months ahead. He feels Aquaman should be more of a leader in the DCU; to illustrate he discussed a scene he would love to write, but hasn’t: Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman ask Aquaman to rejoin the JLA. Aquaman tells them if they need a leader, he’ll be there. Next page, Aquaman calls a meeting of the JLA to order. All of which makes me despondent over the state of the Justice League books. And hopeful for an Aquaman ongoing.

Johns couldn’t tell us too much about the Green Lantern movie, but we did get to see the teaser posters, and he confirmed, the trailer will be in theaters attached to Harry Potter. Start counting the days.

In response to a question of whether or not there would be a Justice League or World’s Finest type of team-up movie like the Avengers, the answer seems to be no. Johns stated that DC’s characters are too big for that; they’re bigger than Marvel’s characters, more iconic. Compressing the stories, screen time and screen space for all of them into one two-hour movie would be diminishing. And while the idea of a Justice League movie is always pleasing, his logic makes definite sense. But, on the plus side,he said that once Warner Brothers finishes with Harry Potter, we could expect maybe two DC movies from them each year.

Upcoming storylines in brief: In Brightest Day, we’ll have White Lantern Batman in issue #14. Green Lantern #59-60 will focus on the Indigo Tribe and answer a lot of questions about them. Flash #7 will be a Rogues Gallery issue focusing on Captain Boomerang. The next major Flash storyline will be the first half of next year, featuring Hot Pursuit, a policeman speedster who uses a motorcycle and has a surprising identity. Johns joked (or DID he…?) about a Dex-Starr Red Lantern Valentine’s Day Special. Where he meets Krypto.

On another note, Johns talked about DC’s price freeze, keeping the majority of their books at $2.99. A fan rather adroitly pointed out that comes with a 20 page count instead of the standard 22. And on this note that provokes more ambivalence from me than anything else. I’ll move on.

Irredeemable/Incorruptible Panel with Mark Waid

These books are two of my current favorites, so a solo panel with just Waid and his editor was too good to pass up. He’s an entertaining and informative speaker. My personal favorite anecdote dealt with traveling in Singapore after the release of the Irredeemable story where Plutonian sinks it to the bottom of the ocean. If you’re ever in a similar predicament, turn your depiction of genocide into a compliment by saying how beloved the country in question was and how much their demise hurt global economics and morale. However, this may prove less effective when meeting with cultural ministers in the U.S. Embassy.

My second favorite anecdote dealt with the custom scent company Black Phoenix, who has a line of scents based on the characters in Irredeemable. Apparently, the scorched Earth smell they came up with for the Plutonian is somehow NOT desirable.

With regard to storylines, major shifts are coming up, particularly for Irredeemable. After the shocking reveals of last issue, Waid confirmed that yes, it was not a head game, Plutonian was speaking truthfully: Modeus is definitely in love with him. Issue 18 will establish the new dynamic between the two, now that everything has been laid out on the table. Issue 19 will continue that shake-up, and the global situation will also begin to see some change. Some of the other heroes will begin to take action in the absence left by the Paradigm.

Speaking of the Paradigm, we may have some more one-shots coming up exploring those members of Irredeemable’s supporting cast. With regard to the universe being opened up to include more ongoing books, Waid said definitely not, at least for a while.

For those of you waiting to see Max Damage and the Plutonian go head to head, you’ve still got a while to wait. The books will slowly draw together, but the story line where they come up against each other won’t take place until well into year two for both books.

And lastly, for still a bit further down the road, year three will begin exploring the Plutonian’s origin. The kicker? The Plutonian himself may not be in full possession of the facts about said origin.

DC Animation Screening

Comic convention crowds are a funny thing. They’ll collectively greet people like rock stars that the average American would walk by without a second glance. Case in point: when Bruce Timm took the stage for this presentation on DC’s upcoming animation projects he got a roar; some people even got to their feet. But I can understand, Timm is a guy who’s been successfully bringing superheroes to the small screen for almost twenty years. And to a crowd like this, he probably had more meaning to their collective childhood than the public educational system.

The first project on deck was Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam, the debut/featured title on a compilation DVD of four non-feature length stories starring secondary DC characters including the Spectre, Jonah Hex, and Green Arrow. While the new Superman/Shazam is another short, only clips were on display for the audience. Given that at last year’s convention, we were treated to the entirety of the new Wonder Woman feature in the screening, followed by a panel discussion, this was a little underwhelming.

The footage however, was pretty entertaining. While not drawing on a clear comic book storyline and art style as much of recent DC feature narrative has been doing, Superman/Shazam definitely has an influence from the recent Superman/Batman Public Enemies. It’s an origin team up story, and the action and story beats shown in the clips were solid. It’s also clearly got a sense of humor; Billy learns the hard way in one scene that using the Wizard’s name will always transform him, regardless of how bad the timing is.

But Superman/Shazam was just a warm up act for the real draw; premiere footage for the upcoming All-Star Superman DVD movie. While Timm acknowledged the designs took some work to balance, they are quite faithful to Quitely’s artwork, only the characters…don’t all look like former heavyweight boxers. Which is pretty much everything we could have hoped for.

We got to see three clips, and if they’re any indication, Timm and company are being extremely faithful to Grant Morrison’s storyline. The first clip was the film’s opening, featuring the spaceship rescue on the surface of the sun; everything was there, including Dr. Leo Quintum, Lex Luthor’s clone attack, and Lois and the Daily Planet staff (including Cat Grant making with a spicy double entendre) as she writes coverage of the rescue in advance. The second clip was a segment from my favorite chapter in the series, where Lois gains superpowers as her birthday present from Superman, and Atlas and Samson show up to vie for her affections. High comedy of Superman arm wrestling them both, mixed with romance as Superman and Lois tour Atlantis and share a kiss on the surface of the moon. Last up was a clip from the prison sequence featuring Parasite and Luthor. Timm admitted that not everything from the book made it in, nor is everything the same (and given the series ran 13 issues, and the movie will likely be in the 90 minute range, how could it be?). But while we only got a brief taste, so far, I’m pretty enthusiastic about All Star Superman. Timm says it’s probably his favorite of the DC DVD movies to date, and from what I’ve seen, I may come to share that opinion on release myself. This was one of the best Superman storylines of the last, or any decade, and it looks like DC Animation is trying hard to live up to that standard.

That’s all for today. See you tomorrow!