Me (left) & the girlfriend (right) Photo: opacity

6 hours of driving, 4 hotel rooms, 120+ comic books, TPBs, autographs, standing in line, eating fast food, ordering pizza, sleeping, coffee, Slim Jims, panels, disappointment, anxiety, awesomeness, and lots of damn walking.

That was C2E2 for me.

It began on a Friday, ended on a Sunday, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it. I met a ton of awesome people (writers, artists, web comic dudes, and other random people) and I realized–like I always do at comic conventions–that I love comics with all of my damn heart.

Do I have comic news? Not really. Do I have some cool stories? Definitely.

Check more after the break.

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Joss Whedon, director of "CHUD 2099"

As you’ve no doubt already read on Twitter, Facebook, various RSS feeds, and half the Internet at large, Joss Whedon is in final talks to direct Marvel’s upcoming “Avengers” movie, slated for release May 4 2012.

Whedon is, of course, well known for his various Whedonverse series’, as well as his runs on Astonishing X-Men and Runaways. Rumors abound of his potentially reworking the Avengers script to some extent, as well.

Geeks are rending their shirts like pre-pubescent Beatles fans. I, for one, am one part excited, one part hedging my bets completely.

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When I read about what the premise of Turf was going to be 3 months back, I thought, “HELL YES! Tommy Lee Edwards is on another book! Man I loved Marvel 1985!!”

Wait. Stop. Let’s get things in order here:

Turf appealed to me back in February when I was looking through my Previews book. It was a story being told to be about the mafia in New York City paired with none other than vampires and aliens. How cool is that? And then I saw that Tommy Lee Edwards was on the book and got all excited. I looked at the author (Jonathan Ross) and shrugged. “This could be a great comic,” I thought. “It’ll be cool looking, at least.”

Three months pass.

I walk into my local comic shop and this is in my stack. I open it up and get anxious to read it as it looks real wordy. Oh well, the art is fantastic. When I finally sat down to read this comic I was not even close to being prepared to taking in it’s brilliance. Somehow I survived.

More after the break. *mild spoilers abound, dear reader*

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He wasn't actually here for WonderCon; he wandered in off the street. The homeless problem in SF is staggering...

WonderCon is the middle child of the Comic-Con family. If San Diego is the overachieving oldest child, and APE is the free-spirited art school student, WonderCon is the slacker that is perfectly happy just doing its own thing. And I, for one, prefer it that way.

For one, I was pleasantly surprised that most of the panels were actually comics-related. Sure, I saw a panel about Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and got to see the Series 5 premiere of Doctor Who (which was exceptional), but almost all other panels had comics as their primary focus.

Plus, unlike Comic-Con, I was only unable to get into one of the panels I wanted to see. People may have complained about how crowded it was on Saturday, but it was a leisurely stroll compared to the lightest day of Comic-Con foot traffic. And San Francisco was not ground to a halt in the wake of WonderCon, although I do feel a small amount of power knowing that my people and I control an entire city for a week.

Anyway, on to the highlights:

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My back is bent.

It is sharing equal time with the wall and the floor near a convenient hutch of unloved condiments. I have crossed my outrageously long legs to avoid being chewed through by this dense, rabid throng of cackling robots and shy comedians.

Having spent years strolling the streets of various urban sprawls, I have the instincts of a back alley stray: cultivated boredom surrounds the calculating eyes of a mink in a dog kennel; a backpack, two decades old and just starting to thread, appears casually limp beside my reclining frame; my own water bottle (never drink the water in a landscape this bright, bleak, and sweaty); my papers are in order.

Ah, my papers. I am tired. I have been shuffled through a dramatic, confusing, half-understood series of events, all to exchange one set of identification for another. It’s like Brazil, but the costumes aren’t as good. (more…)

The final act of the 3ish year overarching plot headed by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost is finally beginning its end. We’re talking a five month crossover story contained within Uncanny X-Men, X-Men: Legacy, New Mutants, and X-Force (similar to what they did back during Messiah CompleX) where you have to buy all of these comics to get the full story.

This is the first issue; a one-shot.

What you need to know: Mutants across the world have been cut down to a mere 198 (well, 181 now according to this current issue) thanks to good ol’ Wanda Maximoff (see also: House of M). The kicker is that no new mutants have been born since then. Out of the blue, BAM, a mutant is born. And every group of bad guys you could think of who has tried to kill off the X-Men finds out. So what happens? Cable ends up finding this girl first–knowing with his memory of the past from his future–that she will save mutantkind. Then what does he do? He jumps into the future to save her, but Bishop follows. Why? Well, Bishop has to kill this girl, as she caused his past in his future to be a terrible place. For 18 years (3 years worth of comic books) the chase through time between Cable & the baby (who ends up with the name Hope) and Bishop goes on, and now Cable and Hope are back. As for Bishop… you’ll need to read Cable #24 to find out.

This is where we’ll start things. *spoilers abound*

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