Over the weekend I attended Wizard World Philly and had a blast. Let's recap:
Saturday:
- Started off with checking out artist alley. Picked up a kick ass print Phoenix print by Marvel Zombie cover artist Arthur Suydam and got it autographed by said artist. From there I proceeded to Powers artist Michael Avon Oeming, got a couple autographs, and got a great Iron Man sketch.
- I went to the Secret Invasion panel, which was decent. Saw the gorgeous cover for Secret Invasion # 6. I also jokingly asked for a Secret Invasion Nextwave tie-in, which Marvel Editor In Chief Joe Quesada took seriously and said that they would love the book back whenever Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen want to do it again. After the panel I had a long convo with Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers: The Initiative writer Dan Slott about how great Marcos Martin's art has been in ASM and he told me a good amount about what's planned for the future of ASM and The Initiative (best news being that Martin will return on art and John Romita Jr. will be one of the rotating artists on the book after his first arc with Slott). Slott also did an impression of a DC Final Crisis cover by putting two pieces of paper of most of his face, which was pretty funny considering the people filling the room were there for the Final Crisis panel.
-Went to the Cup O Joe panel later that day where it was announced that Marvel is officially doing a comic book adaptation of The Stand! If it's as good as the Dark Tower has been at Marvel I am in for quite a treat. Also got Joe Q to sign my sketch variant of Invincible Iron Man!
- Finished the day at the Chris Claremont retrospective, which was extremely interesting. He discussed his legendary X-Men run and his fantastic Dark Phoenix storyline, as well as how he did not want to resurrect Jean Grey.
Sunday:
- Attended Marvel's "Prize Or No Prize" panel, which was a blast. It was basically trivia for prizes. Kate was with me on this day and got to answer a question before me (twas Runaways oriented). The prizes built up through a 12 question endurance test, then I got my chance to win it all (including an advance copy of Secret Invasion # 3!). All I had to do was name 12 mutants depowered on MDay.
I answered 10 and choked...
HOW DID I FORGET THE BLOB!?!?!? And Rictor from X-Factor? COME ON!
- Final panel I went to was the Marvel: Your Universe panel. It was a fun discussion on Marvel books and what we like and dislike about them. Dan Slott told us a hilarious Spidey story from when he was 7 involving Spider-Man signing comics at a 7-11, Spidey coming up in the back of a pickup truck and Slott camping out and being amazed by all of this. Overall it was a really cool discussion and it was a nice ending to a great geeky weekend. Plus, I got a George W. Bush Skrull shirt, does it get much better than that?
