How to use this Page

Over the weekend at Emerald City Comic Con , Marvel’s Vp of animation Cort Lane threw a one man panel with lots of teases for most of the Marvel animated shows and a preview of Avengers Assemble returning only to  ‘Disassemble” .

Ultimate Spider-Man will return to finish its season in July with a new storyline titled S.H.I.E.L.D ACADEMY. Many of the characters Spider-Man recruited at the beginning of Web-Warriors will be joining him again. Even Trition from the Inhumans and Squirrel Girl are coming back. Fans can also look forward to the threat of Arnim Zola, voiced by Mark Hamill, in a look that can only be described as Kang from Ninja Turtles meets Apple Computers. In addition Robert Patrick will be voicing The Whizzer, yep that guy.

Fans also got a look at the entire first episode of the “Disassembled” arc. If you want the spoiler run then highlight this blank space.

Episode begins with a Captain America-less Avengers battling the Adaptoid. Spider-Man joins the team in order to combat the robot who can mimic all the powers of the Avengers. Cap joins the fray alongside S.H.I.E.L.D as he’s been working for them since leaving the team an episode before. He’s even in his Winter Soldier film based costume.

The audience finds out Adaptoid is actually Ultron in disguise and he’s been after Starks tech the entire time. In a desperation move, Stark enacts his “final protocol,” destroying his labs and Avengers Tower to stop Ultron.

Cap and Stark are clearly building towards a mini inner Avengers civil war. Spider-Man is trying to hold things together, but ditched the Avengers. Cap has called for a new Avengers team, seeing Falcon, Black Widow and Hulk join his team, while Tony, Hawkeye, and Thor ban together.
The Avengers have officially disassembled, giving Ultron exactly what he wanted.

During the fan Q&A we got a few teases about the animated Marvel U:

-No kid Avengers plans.

-Plans are in the works to have animation produce something that takes place in the Marvel cinematic universe.

-No X-Men plans since those rights are still controlled by Fox, which include animation. They’ve only been able to get away with using Wolverine in his solo character costume incarnations with no X-Men ties.

To close things out, Cort showed the Guardians of the Galaxy prequel shorts leading up to the premiere of the animated series. First was Star-Lord part I. It takes most of its cues from the film version of the team, even going so far to say it may be a fill in for missing information. What we saw deals with what happened when Peter Quill was beamed aboard the alien ship as a child. In this version he’s had the Element Guns all along but is just now discovering their power.

A preview was show of Rocket Raccoon’s short. We see the moment he escapes the lab and becomes partners with Groot. You’ll hear the famous “Ain’t no thing like me…” line and it’s even got mature tones of his acceptance that he’s lost anything that will connect him to his species.

Marvel’s animation presentation was the most informative of all their ECCC panels. Cort’s division has made the Disney merger benefit Marvel without having to sacrifice much in the way of character voice.

Hopefully during Wondercon we’ll get answers to when fans will see the Guardians prequel shorts, what’s coming up in Agents of S.M.A.S.H and what the future holds for Ultimate Spider-Man once its third season ends since typically most Marvel animated series after 1997 only last between 3-5 years.

Would you want to see Marvel animated do something in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Marvel held a fan panel for their upcoming Secret Wars event. Their big ECCC panel wasn’t an announcement dropper, but it did reveal some key information readers have been curious about. On the deus was C.B Cebulski, Rick Remender, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Charles Soule. Moderator, Mike Marts jokingly asked Cebulski how he wanted to start things.

“Fight!” Remender chimed in.

Remender then jumped in to talking about Hail Hydra, his contribution to Battleworld. As we knew, the book will be about Ian Rogers being caught in a Hydra ruled world. Remender gushed about once again re-teaming with Winter Soldier collaborator Roland Boschi.

Soule was up next talking about Attilan Rising He compared it to Casablanca of all things. The writer talked about the book having a civil war in it and also taking part on the Civil War piece of battleworld where Captain America never surrendered to Iron Man.

“Aviation Porn” were the words used to describe DeConnick’s Carol Corps book. The intriguing part of the story is that there are no stars in Battleworld’s sky. This made for the interesting conflict of Carol wanting to go up to explore the sky while others wanted to keep her down.

The panel then opened up to Q&A:

It opened with a point many readers have been wondering about. With the current Marvel U ending what memories and continuity will be erased?

Cebulski made it crystal clear, everything that came before will still count. They stood behind their statement of this not being a reboot.

A fan asked about the Fantastic Four’s place in the Marvel Universe and if they’d been downplayed because of the movies?

Cebulsk defended the publishing position of the films not influencing the comics. He even revealed that there would definitely be a Fantastic Four book post Secret Wars.

The question of Secret Wars being used to undo the status quo of Wolverine, Captain America, and Thor was brought up.

Remender interjected, “What comes out of Secret Wars is secret but it will not undo the work we’ve done.” The example of female Thor’s success was given. Jason Aaron will be telling that story for as long as he wants because it stuck with readers.

Another fan asked about Miles Morales being the Marvel U’s main Spidey.

“Peter Parker is still going to be around, he’s not going anywhere.” Said Cebulski.

The last question was about a possible return for Richard Rider (Nova).

Mart’s answered by letting everyone know Duggan has more story to tell with the current Nova Sam Alexander.

The panel wrapped and no matter what Secret Wars is coming. Marvel did try to make it clear that if you want to skip the orbiting books and stick to the spine story; readers can do that. We won’t have to wait long to find out if that’s true as the event is rapidly approaching its launch date.

Are you relieved to find out Peter Parker will still be in the Marvel U? Do you buy that this isn’t Marvel’s reboot? Who do you want for your Captain America going forward?

DC Comics brings its upcoming  event to Emerald City with their DC Entertainment: All Access Weeklies and Convergence panel.

Among the panelists for this fan sales pitch are Dan Jurgens, James Tyion IV, Ray Fawkes, Maruerite Bennett, Stuart Moore and the writer of the manin series Jeff King.

After the introductions were made the group started out by showing clips from DC All Access and Dan DiDio’s video that was suppose to hype and explain Convergence. At least now it’s a better sales pitch than ” Hey this is what we’re doing while we move boxes around.” The cover for issue 0 was shown and Dan Jurgens talked about the issue coming out of next week’s Futures End finale.

Convergence 0 will have a monster 6 page scene, if you’re willing to buy three copies of the book to piece together the spreads that make it up. Jeff King talked about “balancing the epic” as far as his experience coming from the world of television. The end of Convergence will tie up Morrisson’s Multiversity.

Stuart Moore talked about the Legion Convergence story. They’ll be battling the Atomic Knights in a “contrast between hope and despair.” The story will be Superboy centric in a point where he’s in the transition to becoming Superman.

Batman Eternal was up next.

Tynion, talked about the journey it was to do a weekly comic. Issue 52 has Fawkes and Seeley draw pages in the book as well as write. Julia Pennyworth, was brought back as an idea by Fawkes. Tynion and Snyder came up with the notion of having Selena Kyle be the new kingpin of crime. Tynion’s also bursting about the upcoming events in June with Batman’s new direction.

Jurgens talked about Futures End and it being the place which introduced the radically different Brainiac. Next week’s conclusion also leads into June’s Batman Beyond. May will see an 8-page preview of Batman Beyond. Jurgens also talked about artist Bernard Chang doing the best work of his career.

Bennett talked about World’s End. Writing these characters on a different world gave her more freedom. The cover of issue 26 with Darkseid holding Earth 2 Batman was shown. It’s intense! There’s two people on this panel that have killed Superman.

Audience Q&A was up next:

Favorite contribution?

Tynion’s favorite, Eternal’s turning point in  21 with the reveal of Hush. Bennett’s was the relationship between Batman and Huntress when Thomas Wayne dawned the cape and cowl.

When asked about why we should buy Convergence, King admitted his history with the DCU was limited and spent days at a time going back through the key moments and all the Elseworld books.

Convergence 0 answers a question the missing hours of Superman’s life from Action Comics #35.

Oh look Gail Simone just showed up.

Stephanie Brown?

Tynion answered, “she’ll be appearing in a few other places and have stories with Harper Row.”

Simone talked about the Nightwing and Oracle Convergence story. According to Simone, Dick and Barbara are the only ones trying to not simply survive the dome. It’s the Nightwing/Oracle story she’s always wanted to tell.

Marguerite Bennett’s next book will be in August and it’s going to be announced soon.

The panel came to an end. Convergence begins next week with the finale of Futures End and Convergence 0.

A lot of Dark Horse Comics were announced yesterday with opening day at Emerald City Comic Con, but probably none more anticipated than the one we already knew about, Fight Club 2. Saturday morning, Emerald City opened with an hour long discussion dedicated to the upcoming comic form sequel. On the panel: Artist Cameron Stewart, cover artist David Mack, Scott Allie, and of course the creator Chuck Palahniuk.
An insanely packed room at the Washington State Convention Center was treated to a preview of the upcoming book right when you walked in the door. As we knew the story picks up years after the events of Fight Club and it looks as though his son has a little bit of Tyler in him. This is also looking like some of Cameron Stewart’s best work, ever.

Dark Horse’s Aub Driver moderates the festivities. Chuck opens up talking about the FCBD issue. “It’ll be the end of the book in graphic novel form.” Allie asked Chuck about the reasoning for doing it as a graphic novel. David Mack and Chuck have been friends since 2006, after he wrote a letter to which he responded with a box of goodies and a letter. They’d been talking about ideas like life, love, and other stuff in the universe. Bendis also had a little bit to do with the genesis. From a dinner party Bendis and Mack hammered the idea of how different publishing comics is.
If Palahniuk was going to talk about Fight Club for the rest of his life then why not do it in a “Lovecraft” fashion and expand the story in two directions. Cameron Stewart came on board after 2013 when he contacted EIC Scott Allie about the book. He adapted one of the later chapters of the novel into a three page comic as proof of concept.

Chuck talked about making Stewart research what he wanted him to draw. In Stewart’s words, it was “deeply upsetting”, though he talked about how that was a good thing with this project. Scott talked about how surrealism was a big part of Chuck’s work and this was the perfect team to do it. A comparison to the last issue of Stewart’s Batgirl, a comparison was even drawn because of Barbra fighting her own mind.
A walk through of the preview interiors was done by the panel. Chuck talked about naming the character Sebastian, because he used every other name he knew in his other fiction work.

We’ll never see GUTS because you can’t literally depict someone being disemboweled.” Cameron Stewart’s work is perfectly cartoony for what the writer wants to depict.

The panel opened up for questions.
ANy other callbacks beyond Marla and Sebastian?
“Yeah”

Gas station worker went back to college?
“I’ll find a place for him now.”

Sebastian’s real name?
“Dealt with in FCBD issue”

Other books in comic medium?
“Invisible monsters by David Mack, Rand done after the Franco movie comes out.”

One of the new stories in Chuck’s upcoming collection will be a girl version of Guts called Cannibal.

what do you prefer, comics or novel?
“Writing a graphic novel is live having a terrific workshop.” Though he’s full of ideas, he doesn’t necessarily know where they’re going to end up.

With that the panel came to an end, we’ll be at the Marvel: Black Vortex to Secret Wars later.