Chalk it up to weird timing or bad planning. Even before DC Comics makes all their big REBIRTH announcements at Wondercon on Saturday, the publisher didn’t mind holding panels. DC All-Access opened their big weekend. Even with such a fantastic line up of creators one has to wonder why you’d ever let the words “ALL ACCESS” be prevalent when the information was still very much restricted. On the panel Ming Doyle, JT Krul, Jason Fabok, Annie wu, Jamie S Rich, Mitch Garads, LEGO Builder Nathan Sawaya. All of whom were great to hear from about current things at DC.
It’s a strange position to be in. Drop an announcement? Be an hour long tease? DC attempted to make the most of the hour by shilling Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, in case no one who was here for a DC Comics panel had any idea the movie was released in theaters today. At least they were smart enough to include the Suicide Squad trailer as well.
Yep. This was going to be about all things DC but we won’t show you new footage or anything you can’t find on the internet. Thankfully the people on the stage were writers, artists, and builders you wanted to hear from regardless.
Such a great group of talent on the panel wasn’t there to talk about movies. Ming Doyle started by talking about Constantine. Her fun from writing the series came from being able to tap into her own “dark side” to voice Hellblazer. Issue #11 will see Constantine come to Los Angeles. Ming had to leave the panel early.
Justice League #49 interiors were shown as well as the cover to 50 with Lex Luthor on the throne. At the time Jason Fabok wasn’t in the room yet. Oddly enough when the crowd was asked if they’d been loving the Darkseid war arc there wasn’t much noise for a cheap pop moment.
Annie Wu talked about Black Canary and how music figures into the series. Go to blackcanarymusic.com for a three track EP. Brenden Fletcher and his musical friends are the band playing on the songs. Wu’s been challenged by the visual incorporation of music in comics.
JT Krul talked about the new Bloodlines series with Aspen Comics artist V. Ken Marion. The foundation of the series is the same with an infection changing people in to dark creatures. However this new series will be more of a horror story. Bloodlines will still be very much apart of the DCU but a series that spotlights a different aspect of that world.
The presentation shifted into DC TV with a trailer for the iZombie episode that aired this week followed by one for AMC’s Preacher. We’ve seen it and will be talking with producers and cast later today (End self plug).
After the Lucifer trailer, Jamie Rich talked about the new Lucifer series written by Holly Black. In one of DC’s better synergies, Black has managed to tell a new story for original fans and people coming over from the show. Pages for Unfollow #5 were shown with upcoming artist teases Marguerite Savage and RM Guerra. Mitch Gerards talked about Sherrif of Babylon. Most of his praise was for writer Tom King’s story on the book and how it comes from King’s own experience in the CIA. It was great of Mitch to trooper on with the slides being incorrectly credited as written by Ming Doyle and Art by Alberto Ponticelli.
Vertigo will also see a Batman story written by Paul Dini. Dark Knight a True Batman Story is based on an event that happened to Dini where he was actually beaten up. Art duties on the book will be done by the amazing Eduardo Risso.
Jason Fabok, who was late to the panel, finally got to chime in on the current Justice League arc Darkseid War. The story has elevated Fabok’s profile including being the artist on the cover of the Wondercon program. He teased very major bomb drops for Justice League #50.
Next was supposed to be a Lego Brick video but a commercial for the Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow on CW just would not be denied. This panel will go down in history as being marred by clearly needing a technical rehearsal. Let’s hope they actually practice for tomorrow’s Rebirth press conference.
A preview of the Flash/Supergirl crossover was shown to the audience. It got an overwhelming pop from the crowd.
Finally The Art of the Brick: DC Comics played. Nathan Sawaya talked about the lego Bat Signal at the DC booth on the show floor. Sawaya wanted to do an exhibition about good vs. evil, to him no better material exist for that than DC Comics. The team spent 5 weeks on the Bat Signal using over 75k bricks. His favorite was a Batmobile that used over 500k bricks.
Next was a short preview for DC Superhero Girls. The short vignette showed teenage Wonder Woman and even principal Amanda Waller. These characters have a flair for today’s audience yet seem grounded in the lore. Wonder Woman was shown as a teenage girl on Themescyra with braces and acne.
There was no audience Q&A but the crowd was invited to attend tomorrow’s Rebirth event. As far as DC panels go nothing about this felt necessary and not being able to at least ask the creators about current books seemed odd. Whatever DC has planned for tomorrow, it had better be huge.
