Comic Con from Afar: Third Annual Lamentation

I try to go to cons that are nearby me in Minneapolis. (Here's me with Lou Ferrigno and me in a TARDIS at the Wizard World con this year!) But I've never had the pleasure of attending the mommacon, the San Diego Comic Con. But I hang out on Tumblr a lot. So -

Welcome to the Third Annual Nerds-of-a-Feather Comic Con from Afar post, wherein one dorkly gal gathers up some cool stuff that makes her sit up and geek out from #SDCC14. This is a totally totally biased list of things I love.

ALL MARVEL, ALL THE TIME
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy last night, and it. was. freaking. fantastic. (though my sister-in-law disagreed: “Heroes in space? That’s just not believable”). So it was doubly awesome to hear that Guardians 2 is already a thing that's happening.

Some Avengers 2: Age of Ultron footage was shown, which I would give my left nut to see. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver! They can’t call them mutants, since that would impinge on Fox’s licensing of the X-Men - even though both characters were in X-Men: Days of Future Past. You can catch a glimpse of them in this lovely retrospective from Marvel (but it's just the same brief moment from the end of Winter Soldier) :


Ant-Man too had a teaser shown, even though they haven’t even started filming.

The big panel ended with this delicious dish - Josh Brolin (Thanos) wearing the Infinity Gauntlet!!

LEGEND OF KORRA

Nick announced that Korra was moving off-air into digital-only the day before the Korra SDCC panel. Thankfully, show creators Konietzko and DiMartino helped me turn down my worry. We’ll still get all of Book Four.

WARCRAFT
The World of Warcraft movie still has more than a year of post-production, but they showed a bit of footage. Director Duncan Jones, said "We really want to make this an origin story. We want to show how the world of Azeroth falls into conflict between orcs and humans.” Well, I’ve only got one thing to say to that… For the Horde!

OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS

Of course there’s tons more stuff - Sam Raimi made more promises (this time an Evil Dead series!!), WarGames is getting remade, Firefly Online is still not here (but still using the Papyrus font), Jack Black is doing R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps movie, Mockingjay blah blah blah - but we gotta wrap up with the cosplay.

Comic Con from Afar -- Second Annual Lamentation

I'll spare you the boo-hooing. If you're trolling the various #sdcc tags on Tumblr like me, you've had it up to here with the drama of a million geek girls virtually howling to a geek moon. SDCC 2013 is so packed with hot dudes in nerdy shows and geeky reboos, the fanfiction practically writes itself. I will try to contain myself.

Sure, it'd have been totally awesome to have run into a scrawny dude in a Bart Simpson mask only to later realize I missed my chance at running away with The Doctor (or at least copping a feel), but I think I'm having more fun experiencing the San Diego Comic Con from the comfort of my own iPhone. There are no lines, the photos make it look like everyone is dressed up instead of just the hardcore geeks, and I get the pleasure of immediate gif-gratification for every priceless moment.

Without further ado, here goes my yearly SQUEE over AWESOME THINGS AT COMIC CON.


FIREFLY ONLINE
No, I will not let go of Firefly; you can pry this orange hat out of my cold, dead hands... after I relapse into a MMORPG coma when Firefly Online is released next summer. It's not much of a trailer, but it still gets my blood pumping.


KORRA: BOOK TWO
If you haven't watched The Legend of Korra yet, you're seriously missing out. Not all of the episodes are available on nick.com, so do yourself the favor of torrenting Book One (the first season). Check out how sweet Book Two looks! I can hardly wait until September.

(Remember that time I went to the Mall of America to ride the Avatar rollercoaster?!)

ALL THE PANELS
Holy cow, and big ones too. Simpsons 25th Anniversary, X-Files 20th Anniversary, BSG 35th Anniversary... So much nerdery. Here's a good collection to get you started.


MARVEL v. DC MOVIES

... Ready.... Fight!

I think I'm obligated to state that it's been confirmed that Batman will appear in the Man of Steel sequel, and that seems pretty cool, I guess. But the announcement that The Avengers sequel will be subtitled Age of Ultron and that Karen Gillam (Amy Pond on Doctor Who) shaved her freaking head for a role as a bad guy in Guardians of the Galaxy is even cooler. 

HOW SHERLOCK SURVIVED

Here's Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, Sherlock) and newly crowned King of the Geeks, Benedict Cumberbatch (The Hobbit, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Sherlock), doing funny things and melting hearts:

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee. That's all I can muster. Sorry.

VIKINGS

I'm not even sure if they did anything but show up to SDCC, but this dude (Travis Fimmel) and this chick (Katheryn Winnick) are two of the hottest people on TV and I was happy to see them.

OTHER NOTABLE CELEB SPOTTINGS

John Barrowman (Good ol' Captain Jack from Doctor Who, Torchwood) & Misha Collins (Supernatural)

Stephen FREAKING Hawking introducing the Big Bang Theory panel

Katee Sackhoff (BSG), being B.A. like usual 

Weinery Prince of Nerds Wil Wheaton (TNG) & Zachary Levi (uhhh, Chuck?)

And while we're on Next Gen, here's another fangirl aneurysm/the sandwich I want in on: James McEvoy & Patrick Stewart

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovnyyyyyyy 

And, bestill my heart, Nathan Fillion and Matt Smith, together at last




And finally this: Evan Peters (that kid from American Horror Story), Nicholas Hoult (that kid from Warm Bodies, Jack the Giant Slayer, About a Boy), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), James McAvoy & Michael Fassbender (Prometheus)

THE BEST COSPLAY EVER

No, really, EVARRRRRR

There were a lot of great costumes! Here are some of my favorites: Link, Poison Ivy & Two Face, Classic Transformers, hot-ass Lady Loki, hot-ass Lady Loki 2, Deadpool, Mrs. Captain America and Business Clone Trooper, Gandalf, Darth Maul, hot-ass Lady Cap, OMG T'challa the Black Panther, Space Balls, Galactus, Predator, Hit Girl, TARDIS, Tenth Doctor and Captain Jack doppelgangers, etc, etc

But nobody ain't got nothing on the best cosplay ever, Tom Hiddleston as Loki IRL--

  The day Tumblr broke.

Comic Con from afar

It's that time of year when I can hardly keep up with my Reader feed because it's filled with awesome announcements on all things nerdy -- must be ComiCon! There is a LOT to report, but here are a few things I'm freakin' out about: 

AVATAR: THE LEGEND OF KORRA, the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, was renewed for a second season, which means there are 40 more episodes to look forward to!! Tor has some great ideas about what it'd be fun to see in the future, but the really good stuff are these sneaky pixx from the Korra panel at ComiCon, showing new outfits, new characters, new locations, and new creatures. 

Now I love love Korra just the way she is, and I know she's a different Avatar in a different time in a different show, but I'm really looking forward to more flashbacks of Aang, Sokka, Katara and Toph, mostly because I didn't really think they got the characters right when we so briefly saw them. Sure, they've grown up, but why was Aang so serious, even if he is the Avatar? Same for Sokka! "Goofball" is, like, the first thing you'd say to describe them, and stripping the humor from those two characters was pretty much the worst thing about the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. (Maybe I'll just see if there are any grown-up fanfic-- oh, yeah, of course, here it is. And for good measure, here's the grown-up grown-up stuff.)

(FYI, if you're into Katara/Aang as your OTP, it's called KATAANG -- which I discovered by googling "ktang," one of the sounds that Rick Jones's wristbands make when struck together to call Captain Marvel from the Negative Zone. I was looking for a graphic for this post about comics and language, but instead found a bunch of incredible KatAang fanart, like THIS. You're welcome.)

(Also -- I just learned this a couple of days ago and it blew my mind -- Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender is voiced by Mae Whitman, the chick that played Ann on Arrested Development (and Roxy in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Her? Really?!)

I'm also definitely hoping for more past-life Avatar awesomeness. So far, we've really know the stories of Korra, Aang, Kyoshi, and Roku. 

But the ten-year FIREFLY REUNION is all we really care about, right? So grab your Jayne hat, your tiny plastic dinosaurs and box of tissues, because here it is in all its glory:

Jose Molina, Tim Minear, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Sean Maher, Adam Baldwin and god himself, Joss Whedon all ended crying. My boyfriend Nathan Fillion summed it all up rather well: 

“When Firefly died, I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. What I realize now, looking over this room, is that the worst thing that could have happened is if it had stayed dead.”

Robert Downey Jr with Iron Men!

But what I love most about Comic Con is -- well, first maybe I should tell you I'm kind of a dork. My favorite thing about Comic Con is, of course, the COSPLAY. (#nerdalert I've done a little myself... see Billy & Phoebe. They're from books you've probably never heard of. #latfh But you should!) My favorites are exclaimed!

• Here you'll find GENDERSWAPPED Geordie, Indie, Avengers, Han & Leia, Rocketeer, Tin Tin, and a really really ridiculously good-looking lady Wolvie (!).
• Here you'll find KIDS as Amidala, Hawkye, Flash, Dalek (!), Finn & Jake (!), Edward Scissorhands, and Sakura & Chung Li (!).
• Here you'll find the Engineer from Prometheus (!), Henry Jones, LSP, Carmen Sandiego, FemShep (Mass Effect).
• Here you'll find Nausicaa (!), Princess Mononoke, Ghostbusters, Batman & Bane, Scott Pilgrim & Ramona Flowers, Rorschach, Mary Poppins, Duffman, Bilbo Baggins, Disney princesses, Xena, Spy vs. Spy, Earthworm Jim, Sailor Moon, Silver Surfer (!), Arthur & the Tick, and Darth Vader grilling up Jar-Jar Binks' head.
• Here you'll find Galactus (!), hipster!princesses, regular princesses, hipster!Zelda characters, Futurama, Jem (!), MegaMan, April O'Neil and one of the TMNT, an Oompa Loompa, and zombies zombies zombies.