SDCC 2014 News Wrap-Up!

Stewart here…

As the latest San Diego Comic-Con has wrapped, I thought it would be fun to look at some of the big news that dropped over the weekend at the place I consider “geek nirvana”. So let’s get to the real reason it’s called comic-con with…

COMICS!

–While the new movie is filming, Star Wars in comic book is moving location in 2015 from its longtime home of Dark Horse to Marvel. Marvel was home to the Star Wars line from ’77 to the late 80’s, and is letting the saga back in with several new titles set in the era of the original trilogy. There’s a regular Star Wars monthly title, a monthly title on Darth Vader set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, and a miniseries of Princess Leia, and all done by some of Marvel’s biggest guns.

Early John Cassaday artwork for the first Star Wars ongoing series from Marvel coming January 2015.

Marvel continued to lay out the boom even after the early announcements of changes to Thor and Captain America, and the “death” of Wolverine (and by “death”, I probably mean “not permanent death”). For one, there’s a new SHIELD series which is more like the mega budget version of TV’s Agents of SHIELD. Then there’s the big Avengers/X-Men crossover AXIS, which pits both teams against HYDRA and The Red Skull (who, if you didn’t know, now has part of Professor X’s brain grafted to him, giving him X’s powers. Yikes. ). If that’s not enough Avengers stuff to tide you over until the new movie, there’s going to be an original graphic novel, Rage of Ultron, dropping before then. Plus, Marvel is celebrating its 75^th birthday, but had to it without Stan Lee at the con this year due to a throat problem.

There. Happy now that Agents of SHIELD didn’t have enough superheroes in it?

–DC and Vertigo are chugging along with their respective titles. There was talk about the DC weekly titles running involving Batman and The New 52, but also more info on writer Grant Morrison’s upcoming opus The Multiversity, and a surprise of a story involves a long lost script from Harlan Ellison for the 60’s Batman TV show about Two-Face (yeah, who knew, right?) will be done for the Batman ’66 digital comic in November. Another big story is the end of Vertigo’s Fables, which will happen on its 150^th issue (along with the end of its spinoff, Fairest, around the same time), and promises to have lots of surprise and of course, death.

–The Eisner Awards, celebrating some of the best comics out there, dropped some big wins for Image’s sci-fi book Saga (continuing series, writer, and painter), Vertigo’s The Wake (writer and artist), and Image’s Sex Criminals for best new book. Two surprising wins came from the Hernandez brothers’ seminal Love and Rockets series, which marks the first time the brothers themselves have won Eisners for their 25-plus year long run on the book.

MOVIES!

–Almost like clockwork, the MCU panel delivered some nice teases and footage from the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, along with almost all the cast in tow (and Josh Brolin aka Thanos with an freaking Infinity Gauntlet!). Besides doing some damage control talk and cast additions (and subtractions) on Ant-Man, there was the announcement James Gunn will be back for the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy (you know, the one coming out this weekend). No announcement to who will be the Sorcerer Supreme for the Doctor Strange movie came, but early front runners have been Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix. At least we’re aiming high.

The cast of the movie that will probably destroy everything in 2015.

–The Legendary panel delivered more geeky film stuff in showing footage from Duncan Jones’s Warcraft movie (in 2016!), Guillermo del Toro’s chiller Crimson Peak, that Godzilla 2 with director Gareth Edwards is being developed now with a lot more of the giant lizard’s monster buddies (Mothra! Rodan! Ghidrah!), and the announcement of a prequel type movie to the original King Kong with a working title that kind of explains everything you need to know: Skull Island! Do I smell Legendary setting up a major giant monster franchise with this news? Let the Godzilla/King Kong/Pacific Rim team-up rumors begin!

–Warner Bros. (Legendary’s former home) wasn’t without some jaw-dropping stuff, like the appearance of one Christopher Nolan and another Matthew McConaughey to talk about the upcoming Interstellar (and of course, show some sweet footage). Then, there’s the appearance of some of the big cast behind Batman v Superman (literally, appearance, not questions) and the reveal of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman in full on Amazonian garb.

Wonder Woman, now with big honking sword.

Despite the feeling I’m looking at some deleted scene from that recent 300 movie, WW’s garb looks pretty good.

But the winner of this panel was the showing of footage from next year’s post-apocalyptic car epic Mad Max: Fury Road, which trades in Mel Gibson for Tom Hardy as the nomad Max in the series’ return after a 30 year absence. Already most of it has made its way to our retinas (you Comic-Con cats got to see way more of this apparently), and if it hasn’t for you, here you go:

(exhaled) 2015 can’t come fast enough.

TV!

–Marvel talked about the returning Agents of SHIELD and the midseason fill-in of Agent Carter, dropping some more info on the former about recent announcements of the appearance of Lucy Lawless as a veteran SHIELD operative and Reed Diamond as a HYDRA baddie this season. Also, we did get a brief video appearance from Patton Oswalt’s Agent Koenig and…Agent Koenig…to start off that panel:

–DC, in its continued takeover of the TV landscape, rolled out a lot of hype for their new fall shows Gotham, Constantine, and The Flash. Not to be outdone, Arrow gave us a tease of next season (No island flashabcks! Det. Lance alive! Arsenal! Possible doomed date with Felicity!), along with the reveal of Count Vertigo (not the dead one from last season, but a new one) and…gasp…Ra’s al Ghul among the villains to be expected when the show comes back in October. No mention of when John Barrowman’s Malcolm Merlyn is popping up (let alone what happened to his daughter Thea after last season) but since he’s a regular now, it may be soon enough.

So once again, I missed out on a good enough Comic-Con, but hey, there’s always next year. So did you go to San Diego this year? What were the big things you saw there? If you didn’t go, what did you like hearing about and wanted to see (mine was the 24 panel, but that’s a matter of personal taste)? Please, comment below…