“Why doesn’t he just Reacher these guys?” – Kevin Smith. Striding into days two and three of San Diego Comic-Con, the crowds get bigger and the lines longer. There’s more buzz as talent continues to arrive and the town swells with attendees and locals having a looksie. After a hilarious and candid panel Thursday (takeaway, Ben Kingsley was his worst guest), I picked up graphic novel WTF is a Podcast with Marc Maron by Brendan McDonald and illustrated by Brian “Box” Brown, chronicling the landmark interview show that recently ended. Z2 Comics hosted McDonald and Maron at their booth for a well run, fast moving yet facetime appropriate signing. Walking the floor a bit more, Marvel’s booth was showcasing costumes from the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday along with a giant Sentinel head from X-Men. The big news of the weekend being Ryan Gosling is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ghost Rider.
On the comics and panels front, Todd McFarlane’s annual hour turned into an Image Comics reunion with founders Rob Liefeld and Mark Silvestri along with partners Eric Stephenson and Robert Kirkman. It was an inspiring reminder when 7 upstart artists took a chance on themselves to form their own company to rival Marvel and DC. Team Usagi Yojimbo gave us an all encompassing update on creator Stan Sakai, who has been attending the show for 48 years! The ronin rabbit adventures started in 1984 and don’t look to be slowing down. Artist Alvin Lee of Udon’s Street Fighter comic made a rare con appearance as he pivoted to video games over a decade ago. It was fun to dig through my early 2000’s collection to find the best covers featuring moody, muscular and kinetic versions of Ryu, Ken, Guile and the World Warriors.
One booth had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone on Terminator and Cobra tee shirts and there’s a regular dose of Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken around the floor but no Jean-Claude Van Damme sightings on tees or toys yet. Although he did come up in the Alvin Lee/Street Fighter line. Magnum PI, Miami Vice and Knight Rider have some new figures coming out and I’m excited to have plastic Tom Selleck and Don Johnson on my shelves. Cosplay wise there’s been a surprising number of Gambits around but not too many others from X-Men ‘97. A couple hulking Absolute Batmans and one tall Apocalypse.
Around the convention center there were less physical offsites than years past but Hulu Animayhem had Futurama and King of the Hill on display, Adult Swim with a giant Rick and Morty playground, another X-Men Sentinel head outside for the new Wolverine video game and Apple hosting a Silo experience. HBO Max/DC’s Lanterns was an exciting ticket where groups of Green Lantern Corps recruits showed off intelligence, bravery and strength with a little maze runthrough and escape room. After “graduating” and reciting the oath, we all received nice GL rings.
August sees the season 4 premiere of Amazon’s hit show Reacher, and they held their first comic-con panel with star Alan Ritchson anchoring. Maria Sten joined to launch spinoff Neagley following in September. The former military police investigator turned nomad who helps people, solves crime and beats people up real good has been a recent favorite and star Ritchson always comes off as funny and honest offscreen. He was in fine form here, appreciative of the opportunity but also real about the “Hollywood Dream”. Ritchson is booked on projects through 2028 which means less time in the lives of his wife and kids. He also shed light on the long running rumors and calls to play Batman but he seemingly laid them to rest saying it wasn’t really in his future. But he talks to DC regularly about another character…