SDCC News Round-Up, Day 1

19 Jul

Stewart here, and welcome to the first of several posts on news coming out of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. While I am not in San Diego, Elizabeth Ann is, enjoying the sights and sounds (and likely the sweat smell), like Wednesday night’s showing of new pilots, like Almost Human, from the producers of Fringe, which I hear is something worth checking out in the fall. Since most of the heavy news didn’t happen on day one (the big panels are this Friday and Saturday), this gives me a chance to focus on comic news in this installment. But first:

TV!

As I mentioned, Wednesday night have the showings of Almost Human for Fox and Tomorrow People for CW. The former interests me because it has Karl Urban in it, and the latter I don’t know much about, except for the fact whenever I hear the title, I think of that same titled Ziggy Marley song from the 80’s. Seriously, look it up. Plus, some rumors came out regarding the next season of Arrow, and a certain Green Arrow-connected hero (or heroine?) who may appear. But, we’ll see about that when the Arrow panel comes up later this weekend.

Bones gets an android cop for a partner in Almost Human

The only big panels in the TV department Thursday was for the 20th anniversary of The X-Files, and the final season of Dexter that’s currently on right now. I’m not too sad to see Dexter go, only because of the spotty last few seasons (although this season I hear may be enough to get me regularly watching it again).

Also, who wants a Simpsons/Family Guy crossover episode next year? (long silence) Look, don’t everyone raise their hands at once. That is slated for next fall, and right now I’m thinking this may the most precarious combination since bacon and hot dogs: I’m sure its tasty, but it won’t be good on my insides.

MOVIES!

A couple of big movies next summer made their presence known, with some peeks at the Sentinels from the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past, and some inadvertent (and quickly removed) photos of some of the cast that ended up on the film’s Tumblr page, including a first look at future X-Man, Bishop. The big panels this Friday, like the one for Amazing Spider-Man 2, should have more tantalizing tidbits.

Colossus (left) and Bishop (right) from the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past

COMICS!

The big comics panel on Thursday had to be for the 10^th anniversary of The Walking Dead. With a series still going strong into 100 plus issues, and a TV show that seems to be one of the most highly rated shows on the air right now, it seemed a given there was some news to pass along. Not much news on the show’s upcoming season came out of this panel, but there was discussion about the 12 issue story arc, “All Out War”, starting up in October, the book’s official 10 year anniversary.

On less zombie related news, Vertigo, DC’s mature comics imprint announced a slew of new titles coming out, after spending the last year slowly shuttering titles like the long running Hellblazer and other titles like Scott Snyder’s American Vampire, going on indefinite hiatus. As to last year’s announced Sandman prequel book by Neil Gaiman? Well, more details on that were hinted to be forthcoming at the Sandman panel on Saturday.

The Marvel and DC panels mentioned a lot of their push into digital comics, and really, not really any jaw dropper news came out on these events, except one thing from DC writer extraordinaire Geoff Johns: Aquaman will not fight a “sharknado”, and even if he did, he would win. If you think wimpy Aquaman wouldn’t have a chance, you clearly haven’t read his current book, because “wimpy” is a word I would not use for Aquaman now.

Oh, and here’s a weird piece of news: Archie from Riverdale? Yeah, a new series is coming out where he faces the undead. I’m guessing the whole Betty and Veronica debate will get settled depending on which one of them gets zombified first.

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So, that’s the news from the first day of SDCC. Not much, but with the movie and TV panels looking to take up the next two days, except some more salivating news. Until tomorrow, stay classy, San Diego!