Comic-Con 2009 is over and, hopefully my craving for a Cafe 222 waffle will fade away soon. But as usual, the weekend of sensory overload left behind plenty to discuss and anticipate.
If a TV show, film or video game is looking to establish its geek cred, Comic-Con is the destination to accomplish that. And, while it doesn't dominate the event, comic books are still a major part of the weekend. So lets try to work our way through that busy, busy weekend. (Somehow actually being there is not as exhausting as reading about other people being there.)
NPH sings a song of mayhem
Its hard for superhero fans to avoid keeping an eye on what's going on in animation since there's so many solid animated adaptations of superhero titles and at Comic-Con, we learned that two new projects will include out actors in the voice cast.
Io9's Graeme McMillan calls it "better than Dr. Horrible" citing:
it does have a giant telepathic gorilla waltzing with Aquaman, a nefarious plot to become the richest man on Earth by uniting us all in a mind-controlled musical utopia, and more visual in-jokes about both comics and music than you'd think could be fitted into half an hour
There's no word yet on when the episode airs or second season will begin but I'll try to watch for the date and include it in the Queerview.
Meanwhile, the Cartoon Network has another superhero series debuting, one that involves Marvel characters. Not only will Marvel Super Hero Squad feature an star-studded voice cast but it will also offer the kind of mix of A and D-list heroes that has been a successful part of Marvel's team books.
The voice cast has plenty of gay-faves, including Michelle Trachtenberg as Valkyrie, James Marsters as Mr. Fantastic and Taye Diggs as the Black Panther. The most inspired bit of casting, however, sees George Takei as the voice of Galactus.
With the show also including the likes of Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Dormammu and The Enchantress, this is sounding like Marvel's version of Justice League Unlimited
And, suddenly, jaw-reattachment surgeries were big business
Easily this year's biggest announcement was the news that Marvel had picked up the rights to Marvelman, a comic that's been on most-wanted reprint list for years.
Marvelman (or Miracleman as it was also known) started in the 60s, but is best remembered for the revamp Alan Moore gave the series in the 80s and Neil Gaiman's follow-up run. However, the rights to the series has been a matter of debate for at least a decade.
So far Marvel hasn't announced their plans for Marvelman, beyond a special-edition t-shirt and poster, but a reprint of the classic Moore and Gaiman stories seems inevitable.
Doctor Who himself aka John Tennant!
John Barrowman flashing his million dollar smile!
Russell T Davies begging the crowd not to retcon him...
He's working on a couple pilots for NBC, but since Bryan Fuller is also working on his first comic — an adaptation of the much lamented Pushing Daisies, he was asked if he would be interested in writing superhero comics.
The answer reportedly was an enthusiastic "Yes!" though there's no follow up question about his dream project. Hmm, why do I keep thinking he'd serve the Legion of Substitute-Heroes well?
Nine minutes in The Village
AMC's new version of The Prisoner, with Ian McKellen as Number Two has left TV fans wondering if this remake could even come close to the legendary nature of the original. We might be closer to an answer thanks to a nine-minute preview of the mini-series that premiered at Comic-Con.
What do you think? There are plenty of plenty of visually stunning moments.
Future doubly imperfect
While the elephant in the room at the Futurama panel was that the voice actors were missing, there are some promising plans for the series' return.
The story I'm most interested in seeing involves Amy and Bender falling in love and eventually marrying, leading to a story about marriage equality. The human-robot marriage is controversial and a "Proposition Infinity" gets in the way of it. Hopefully, Futurama will be able to handle the issue with its usual wit and style.
Meanwhile, other stories coming up include a look at the 31st century version of Twitter (which is dominated by Mom) as well as the origins of Dr. Zoidberg's employment and Scruffy's history.
Being Human just made the jump across the Atlantic and started running on BBC America this weekend. To promote the show, the network flew the cast including out actor Russell Tovey, Aidan Turner and Lenora Crichlow to San Diego to the meet the fans.
The adorable Russell Tovey
Lenora Crichlow looking very much alive
Aidan Turner not showing much bite ... at the moment
Blood in the arena
We've been waiting to get a peek at Starz' upcoming Spartacus series ever since we heard that the series would include a gay character. And over the weekend Comic-Con audiences got to see the following trailer:
I have a feeling this one will match Oz in delivering the homoeroticsm while also getting straight men to tune in.
In further news...
- The Friday night timeslot may have worried some fans but worry no further. Eureka, SyFy's dramedy, which has a number of hot nerds has been renewed for a fourth season with either one or two episodes being done as musicals.
- When Scott Pilgrim hits the big screen there will be an "old school" video game adaption to go along with it. The game will be a side-scrolling fighter game. I'll be eager to see if Scott's gay roommate Wallace Wells is a part of the game.
- It's been a few years since Peter Milligan and
gave us an issue of X-Statix but that may change soon. At the X-Men panel, plans for X-Statix stories were revealed. I wonder if we'll see dead X-Statix members brought back or a new team.
- While there was plenty discussed at the Caprica panel, it doesn't sound like it included any talk about the gay character that Jane Espenson told us about. I guess we'll have to wait for the series to get going in January.
- Good news for the fans of los bros Winchester. At the Supernatural panel, creator Eric Kripke said that while he originally planned to end the show at the fifth season, solid ratings means there will be more seasons after the fifth. The extra seasons, however, won't mean that Kripke's original five-year plan for Supernatural will get stretched out. Instead, a sixth season will mean a "new chapter" that goes past the planned ending for the series.
- Doctor Who fans may have been disappointed with the news that, contrary to rumor, there was no plans to bring the franchise to the big screen. However, they did get to see David Tennant kiss John Barrowman. They also got to hear (Executive Producer) Julie Gardner joke that "John Barrowman just stole things off the set so he could be strip-searched on the way out."
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