Today the happiest place on earth was not Disneyland, but was actually across the street at the Anaheim Convention Center, home to this year’s WonderCon. It managed to be everything I love about Comic Con in San Diego, but without the massive crowds. Sure, there were cosplayers galore and plenty of comic book industry people walking about, but one could walk around without feeling claustrophobic and being bumped into constantly by a bunch of B.O. reeking mouth-breathers.
Upon arriving, I went downstairs to the basement to pick up my badge, from there I made my way up the escalator which spat me directly out onto the exhibit hall floor, where I took in the beautiful sights of geekery all around me. At last, I was at home amongst my fellow geeks and nerds. I walked around the convention floor, letting my eyes take in everything around me and checking out the booths. Before too long I found myself walking down autograph alley, slowly taking in the faces of the pseudo-celebrities all around. There was Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk himself; sitting across was Cassandra Peterson AKA Elvira (she still looks super-hot at 60), John Saxton (Nancy’s dad from the original Nightmare on Elm Street), Cindy Morgan (Yori from Tron), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Ray Park (Darth Maul, Snake Eyes) and more. I actually gave into my inner fan-boy and got an autograph and picture with Ray Park, a genuinely nice guy who could no doubt kick my ass and yours at the same time.
Despite the smile, I was terrified for my life ...the man is a sith lord, a ninja and an evil mutant after all
After making my way to the Geekscape booth and shooting the proverbial geek-shit for a while with a few of my fellow Geekscapists, I decided it was time to go check out some of the panels the Con had to offer. I went to site in on a spotlight panel on J. Michael Straczynski but was a few minutes early so I took a seat in the back to wait. After a few minutes, a girl walked up to an elderly gentleman sitting directly in front and said, “excuse me, but I just had to tell you that I’m a huge fan and absolutely love Babylon 5”, she then proceeded to shake uncontrollably in a geek frenzy before asking if she could take a picture with JMS, himself. Holly crap, JMS was sitting directly in front of me?! Had I known this prior, I too would have probably been in a geek frenzy. This is the kind of stuff that can only happen at conventions such as this. His spotlight panel was pretty good, but I only sat in on half of it before I left to catch a Marvel Panel on Amazing Spider-Man. The panel consisted of artist Humberto Ramos and ASM editor Tom Brevoort, and they talked a little about what’s in store for Spidey’s 50th anniversary. First up was the next major story arc on ASM, titled ‘Ends of the Earth’. It will pit Spider-Man against Doctor Octopus and the rest of The Sinister Six. After a brief discussion about ‘Ends of the Earth’ and a preview of covers for the arc, they talked about some of the other things in store for Spidey. The most shrouded in secrecy thing happening in the Spider-verse this year is Spider-Men which the panel said they couldn’t say anything about other than it will debut in June and will be a historic event for Spider-Man. Rumor has it though that this will be the first crossover between the classic Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Marvel U.
Spider-Man, rumored to be the first Classic Marvel/Ultimate Marvel crossover
The last thing I went to for the day was the premiere of the new DC animated movie Superman vs. The Elite. While it was not DC’s best effort to date it was also not its worst. I did not care for the character design for Superman, and the over-all story seemed to drag a bit, but the last 20 minutes or so were pretty bad ass. Also, it did have perhaps the coolest opening credits sequence of any DC animation that I’ve seen; it was like the love child of Super-Friends and The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks . Followed by the movie was a pretty lame panel which I will spare you the details of, but was capped off with the first trailer for what is perhaps the most anticipated DC animated movie to date…The Dark Knight Returns. It was only a minute or so long, but it looked amazing and had me drooling for more.
All in all, my first day at WonderCon was a great success and I can’t wait to go back for more. I wish that WonderCon was going to stay in Anaheim for years to come, because as an Orange County local, only having to drive ten minutes to get my geek on at a convention is pretty badass. And now this geek had best get his beauty sleep, so he can get his geek on for Day 2. More to come…