“This planet is a game preserve. And we’re the game.” – Predators. It’s 72, not too sunny and beautiful here in San Diego, the perfect weather for walking over to the mammoth convention center. A Star Trek wrap on the Marriott, a Peanuts pop up here, Coca-Cola offsite over there and the crowds were not too bad yet. It does take a moment to activate the crowd/con brain of figuring out where to go, how the exhibit floor is laid out and dealing with people on their phones, swinging around giant bags or folks with strollers and carts. But alas it’s a small price to pay for all of the con-stimulation as you browse booths and wares.
Spotted a beautiful Conan the Barbarian statue featuring the likenesses of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sandahl Bergman. Then it was action figures of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren from Universal Soldier. Then another set of JCVD and Bolo Yeung from Bloodsport. If you had a few grand sitting around there were giant Robocop and ED-209 statues too. You walked through the toothsome gate of Castle Grayskull at the Hasbro booth which had a Masters of the Universe Sword of Power on display following the 2026 live action movie teaser. The Fantastic Four has a giant presence at the con with photo moment and movie costumes at the Marvel booth and it’s definitely the most prevalent cosplay I saw throughout the day. There were several Galactus, Galactus’s, Galactusi? on the floor and a couple Doctor Dooms too.
Beloved anime Gundam Wing is celebrating 30 years with a sizable activation and I snagged a free tee-shirt as swag has become less and less normal at these confabs. Over at DC you could check out the Superman suit from the movie and reenact the cover of Action Comics # 1 which doubled as a car insurance advertisement. Being Thursday, it’s generally the lightest day crowd wise so you had a little space in parts of the floor while others were throttled. Funko corner with Mondo and Loungefly wasn’t too bad and I spotted Michael Biehn (The Terminator) signing at one end of the floor, Sam Jones (Flash Gordon) in the middle and Alec Baldwin (The Shadow) at the other.
On the comics front I had issues of Alien Pig Farm, Batman Hush 2 and Heroes Reborn Fantastic Four signed by William Stout, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair. Rob Liefeld gave a signed comic to all attendees of his late day panel. Celebrating 33 years of Youngblood and Image Comics, The Rob brought up former Extreme Studio mates Marat Mychaels, Norm Rapmund and Danny Miki who took the full house down 90’s memory lane of their comics revolution, rock star crowd store signings, huge paychecks and the life size Youngblood battle cruiser space ship that landed at four conventions before being sold to a paintball center because it cost too much to transport and set up.
Remember the G.I. Joe episode where Zartan and The Dreadnocks disguised themselves as hard rock band Cold Slither to brain wash the Joes? Well for one night only you could see them perform live! Brick by Brick and Hasbro hosted the rocking affair to a full house and fist pumping set that included the Cold Slither anthem and later the Jem and the Holograms theme song. Seth Green and John Cena were rumored to be in attendance but I didn’t see either of them even though we did see Green earlier in a hotel lobby.
