Oh gods, you all should have heard the STUNNED-ASS SILENCE that followed Beechen's announcement. I think reality literally went "
." They did seem like they were genuinely trying to address fan concerns, though, and promised profusely that everything will be answered and dealt with.
Man, newsarama completely skipped over me bringing up the recent abundance of fill-in issues
in their article. IT SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT ME, DAMNIT. But seriously, everyone in the room had a pretty lengthy discussion about it, too. Oh, look,
CBR has it.. Anyway, DiDio basically said to not look at them as "fill-ins," but as integral, organic parts of the storyline. *
shrug*
Oh, yeah, and I was the one who asked about Tempest
. Both articles make Winick sound more...cohesive...about the notion that he actually was, though. His response was a lot more like "Oh, sure, uh...yeah, Tempest. That guy. Ah. Sure. He'll be back.
When I get to it. Yup!"
During the discussion about how much you get to change iconic characters, Mark Bagley brought up Spider-Man, and how much he liked Ultimate S-M being young forever, and how the biggest mistake Stan Lee made was to go through Peter's teens too quickly. He seems to be completely of the NEVER AGE ANYONE mindset, and even said that he thought it was a huge mistake for Clark and Lois to be married (to which I was
up the wazoo).
However, he also said that Marvel was totally making a mess out of the OMD/BND stuff
. Of course he was like "I totally have nothing bad to say about Marvel, totally!" about it, but his point got across.
Hmm, also...
newsarama said:
Will Wonder Girl, Robin, and the rest of the sidekicks ever stop being so "emo?" DiDio: "Have you ever met a teenager?"
There was quite a bit more discussion about this than just this. DiDio said that he personally really
liked the drama and the conflict that these hormonal kids go through. The querent brought up how annoying it is when everyone around Tim is just dying once every few months how
Robin is now darker than
Batman. DiDio then made a really weird point (or maybe I just didn't hear or understand it correctly) about how it makes sense for Robin to be darker
because he's gone through so much. So, yeah, bad news is that the whole nonsense between Tim and Cassie is going to be drawn out, even eventually incorporating some storyline/relationship elements from Tim's own series.
Let's see...that's about all I can remember that was obliquely left out of these articles.
I later went to JMS's panel, and asked him about Loki being a woman now
. I think he thought that I was more serious or even annoyed about it than I actually was. Anyway, he gave the ol' "he's a shapeshifter, and has been a woman before" answer, and how he's trying to go for a new angle right now, trying to come up with a different approach with his scheming. He revealed there's gonna be a great scene coming up involving She-Loki and some other Asgardians.
I was gonna try to get a second question in, about OMD, but someone else beat me to it. JMS revealed that, originally, "Back in Black" wasn't supposed to exist at all, 'cause it was weird for Aunt May to be in that hospital all year, but that Quesada wanted to tie-in with the movie, which he understood and agreed with. He then gave the standard "Even if I don't agree with it, Quesada is the boss and the one who makes the calls, and a lot of his calls have been great and helped Marvel and there's no hard feelings and" yada yada yada etc. JMS actually comes across quite amiable and fun in person.
That's...basically it. I also saw some of Street Fighter 4 and Lucasfilms stuff, but I'm sure y'all don't care about that
.
New Frontier was pretty great. It...feels more like a Bruce Timm work -- a JLU episode, if you will -- than it feels like a Darwyn Cooke work. Does that make any sense? I mean, yeah of course it does, and that's not necessarily a bad thing...unless you love Cooke and absolutely hate Timm's stuff. I don't, but I can see someone not feeling it.
Upcoming includes spoilers:
It stays pretty close to the book. [blackout]Intro of Dinosaur Island is omitted, as is nearly the entirety of Ted Grant's fight (we see bits of it on TV). Bits of Wonder Woman's stuff, including the Washington ceremony and relaxing in Paradise Island, were cut. No Pieface! John Henry is seen only on TV.[/blackout]. Some details were changed, such as [blackout]Hal and Rick Flagg being the ones to try and fly to Mars (and therefore the ones that Superman tries to save). Batman is present at the finale, and it was he who brought Ray Palmer into the team[/blackout]. The first part moved a bit slowly and was narratively jumpy, which is understandable since the first part of the book was pretty much all expository chapters. Still, it felt a little like "let's do the plot bunny dance of plot bunnies." Some of what
I thought were key emotional moments from the book were either gone over too quickly or skipped over entirely, imo; when [blackout]people like Adam Strange, Green Arrow, and Ray Palmer pop up near the end, it feels like the most random thing because not a one of them was seen, even briefly, for any of the preceding hour[/blackout]. Focus is on Hal and on J'onn, respectively.
Still, I feel like they did quite an excellent job with the material. The great moments that made you feel what you felt during the book are going to make you feel exactly the same here. The entire last forty-five or so minutes are just an orgy of great moments. Superman's thunderclap is made into such a badass thing on the screen. Flash vs Captain Cold, the ring-slinging, etc etc. Oh yeah, and if you think Faraday's just gonna roll over and die, you're in for a bit of a surprise.
That's...pretty much it. I'm going again tomorrow, but mostly for Summer Glau
.
