By Ricardo Serrano Denis
“I am waiting for the world to notice our existence.” -Mr. Glass
In a corner, beyond the giant She-Ra installation, a floor down the SYFY lounge area, after the National Cartoonist Society booth, lies what is quite possibly one of the most impressive and comics-appropriate booths on the convention floor: The Glass movie station. It is a recreation of Mr. Glass’s comics shop, which can be seen in the trailer that was revealed at SDCC.
The shop showcases a careful selection of comics, separated into a HEROES and VILLAINS section accordingly, reflecting Mr. Glass’s philosophy and eventual moral condition at the end of M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, where his true intentions were revealed as a kind of forced origin story thrust upon David Dunn (Bruce Willis), a superhero borne out of tragic circumstances.
The HEROES sections carries Superman, Spider-Man, and Captain America comics, all characters that audiences could connect to David Dunn. The VILLAINS section features Joker comics, Lex Luthor, Magneto, Sinestro, and other characters that are notoriously known as schemers that serve their own twisted interests. The VILLAINS comics all feel like they are gospel to Mr. Glass, his own personal education captured in single issue format. And it makes the booth all the more impressive.
The booth evokes a sad sense of nostalgia and it feels like stepping into the mind of Mr. Glass himself. The colors are bleak and the mood is dark, making the comics’ brightness and shine seem uncomfortably out of place. Comic book racks seem like gothic spires and the overall feel of the shop imbues the comics contained within it with a kind of dangerous power.
Much like Unbreakable before it, Glass looks to offer another meditation on the nature of comic book storytelling and just how much it can say about the human condition. It’s a dark love letter to the medium and its capacity for making us believe superhumans can one day be real, for better and worse.
If you are attending NYCC this weekend, do yourself a favor, and go over to the Glass station. It truly deserves to be seen.
