WonderCon 2015 Recap

Last weekend in Anaheim, California over 60,000 people gathered to attend Wondercon, California’s second largest comic convention located in the heart of Southern California. Run by the same people who put on San Diego Comic Con every year, Wondercon was a chance for creators and fans of popular culture and art to gather and embrace all things comics, art, television, film and more.
To witness the vast amount of people from comic book fans, to cosplayers to exhibitors was incredible and whenever an event of this large of a scale can help bring thousands of people together with the same interests and fandoms it is deemed a success. Much like San Diego Comic Con, people traveled from all over to attend the convention and although walking around the main floor was much like being in a sardine can, the endless amount of exhibitors, booths and panels kept everyone entertained as there was literally something for everyone.
Friday, April 3 was the first day of the convention and one could sense the excitement of the beginning of the convention weekend. One of the first panels that day was hosted in one of the larger rooms and was all about DC Comics and what fans can see and expect from DC Comics in the near future, specifically centered around the Batman universe. With Batman’s 75th anniversary last year, Batman has been a huge topic for DC as of late and the future of the Dark Knight is always something fans want to hear about.
Moderated by DC All Access’ Tiffany Smith, she asked DC Comic creators Babs Tarr (Batgirl), Brenden Fletcher (Batgirl, Black Canary), Tom King (Grayson) and Greg Pak (Batman and Superman) all about DC’s most beloved characters and where they are headed. After briefly talking about the ending to Batman/Superman, one of the most exciting parts was hearing that the Black Canary would be making a new debut as a more punk rock version of herself. Tarr also talked greatly about her love for her work on Batgir, saying that she loved the opportunity to work on “bad ass” female characters and that she would like to do more of that.
Other big topics discussed in the Batman universe was about Gotham Academy which focuses on the kids of Gotham and while Batman is the main character, King wants to focus on the kids and bring a kind of Nancy Drew and Harry Potter feel to the story line and Grayson which is all about Batman’s first ward, Dick Grayson.
Besides the great panels such as the one discussing Batman, there was a special celebrity autograph signing reunion by the original Superman film cast including such celebrities as Margot Kidder (Lois Lane) and Marc Mcclure (Jimmy Olsen). It was pretty impressive to see a majority of a cast from such a classic and well known film series in one location.
Saturday was even more jam-packed than the first day. By noon all parking for the convention center was taken and it seemed as if thousands more people had come than the day before. The two big panels that day were special preview screenings of The CW’s iZombie and Fox’s Gotham held in the giant Arena.
For the iZombie panel there was a brief clip reel played of some of the highlights of the first season of the show and what to expect. The panel members consisted of executive producers, Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright and stars of the show Rose McIver, Rahul Kohli, Malcom Goodwin, David Anders and Robert Buckley. The show, which has already began airing on The CW, was being compared frequently to Veronica Mars and Thomas wanted everyone to know that in no was was iZombie trying to compete with AMC’s The Walking Dead. Although both shows were based off of popular comics, that is basically the only thing that makes them similar and the fact that there are zombies. However iZombie is all about a zombie named Liv, played by McIver, who is actually making use out of her horrible situation (she works in a morgue and eats the brains of the dead to help solve their murder cases). She is nothing like the horrifying walkers from The Walking Dead. Thomas also talked about the show making its own liberties with the story line, saying that changing certain things from the comic for the sake of the TV show had “logic to it.”
Overall the cast talked about their time working together and what made them similar and different to their characters that they played in the show. It was fun to hear the behind the scenes information such as how McIver’s make-up everyday takes 1 hour and 45 minutes or that the ‘brains’ she eats on the show is actually coconut gelatin and she spits it out in a spit bucket. After the panel it definitely made me want to watch the show and they did a great job of hooking in some new viewers from this Wondercon appearance.
The Gotham panel that followed was just as equally entertaining. Producer John Stephens was there along with the show’s stars Ben McKenzie (James Gordon), Robin Lord Taylor (Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin) and Cory Michael Smith (Edward Nygma). With just four more episodes to go until the season finale, there was a seven minute preview of the up coming episode which focuses greatly on the Fish Mooney character and her escape from the hospital she is currently trapped at.
One shocking aspect of the show Stephens talked about was that the fans of the show will probably never see Bruce Wayne put on the Batman suit at any point during the series. That was particularly shocking because the show seems like it is going to be about his young life and would just naturally progress into his older life and him turning into the Batman.
The show Smallville on the CW back some years ago did just that, where the whole series had been about young Clark Kent and his build up to Superman. During the final episode he finally puts on the famous blue and red super suit. Perhaps the show runners of Gotham didn’t want to follow in those footsteps.
Smith talked about his character Nygma and that the audience will definitely see his character take a turn towards his infamous villain-side, since most of this season we haven’t seen Nygma really that evil yet. Smith revealed that something coming up will finally send Nygma over the edge and he won’t be able to deal with that situation like a normal person would.
Closing out Saturday night was the popular Wondercon Masquerade Ball. This masquerade is in honor of all of the cosplayers who put so much time and effort and money into their costumes. It is a chance for them to be acknowledged every year for their dedication and it always draws hundreds of people to the arena to see what type of extravagant costumes will be on display.
This year many groups were acknowledged for their costumes as a whole rather than individual costumes. A group of colonial marines from Alien were honored for best group outfit from a popular movie. They ended up winning an Xbox One and a rare collectible. The crowd favorite and winner of Best Workmanship went to Azreal the Archangel and the Queen of the Dead, who’s costumes were definitely movie quality, ended up winning $500, a statue and a roar of applause from the audience. The winners of Best Presentation went to a group of cosplayers who portrayed characters from the film How to Train Your Dragon, where they dressed as Hiccup, Toothless and Astrid. Finally, the last award of the evening, Best In Show, went to a group who portrayed characters from the film Big Hero 6. They styled all of the characters of the film perfectly down to every costume detail and even had a fully armored Baymax and the villain from the film.
Sunday was the last day of Wondercon and the two big events of that day were the Nerdist panel and The Flash panel.
Famed celebrity nerd, Chris Hardwick, moderated the Nerdist panel where many of the popular contributing talents of Nerdist Industries where there to talk about their latest projects on the podcasts, web series and upcoming pilots that are to air on television.
Perhaps the biggest piece of information though had nothing to do with Nerdist itself, but was when Harwick announced a huge bit of information regarding the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. Hardwick revealed that the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles would be having an 11 movie marathon featuring all of the Marvel hero films which would then lead up to an exclusive premiere of the new Avengers: Age of Ultron film later this month before anyone else is able to see it.
Only 400 tickets were available and anyone who was brave enough and had enough caffeine to stay up for all 12 movies would be entered in a contest to win tickets to The Antman premiere in Los Angeles.
After the Nerdist panel The Celebrity Cafe was lucky enough to go to a small press meeting with some of the stars from The Flash and interview Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Candice Patton and executive producer Andrew Kreisberg. The stars were able to reveal a lot about the show, the current season and where it is headed for upcoming seasons and what fans could expect.
After the press meeting the stars headed out to the big arena to show a preview of the upcoming episodes and answer any fan questions.
Overall Wonderon 2015 offered so many popular panels that were star studded and entertaining. The convention floor was covered with countless booths selling art and other pop culture merchandise and the cosplay costumes were a great show unto themselves. One could say Wondercon was a great success this year. However right after the convention ended it was announced that Wondercon would be moving to Los Angeles for 2016 much to people’s dismay.
Only next year will we be able to tell if Wondercon will be as successful as it was this year.