Comic-Con 2013: DC All Access Panel

DC ALL ACCESS THURSDAY

Here we go, kids. It’s Thursday, it’s 11:30 a.m. at San Diego Comic-Con, and so it’s time to get our panel on. This is the kind of thing we’re here for, to listen to the creators hawk their tawdry wares – er, tell us what they’ve got planned in the near future for their fancy pants superheroes. DC is stepping up to the plate first.

On the panel – Gail Simone, Tom Taylor, Jeff Lemire, Geoff Johns, Brian Buccellato, Derek Fridolfs, Mark Buckingham, Adam Hughes. That’s a good group. Let’s get to liveblogging the show.

First up is a great shout-out to “We Can Be Heroes,” the campaign to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, which has raised 2.3 million dollars. A new ebay partnership is auctioning off art and special Justice League cars to benefit the charity as well. Ebay.com/wecanbeheroes.

Also, Superman’s 75th anniversary is plugged, with panels and such in the future. Superman. Seventy-five freakin’ years. Wow.

DC’s head of sales Bob Wayne takes the mic to introduce the panel. Johns comes out first and plays a video we posted on Crave Online last week which explains the Justice League Trinity War shenanigans afoot right now. “The good guys lose and the villains win.”

Lemire comes out next, who’s co-writing Trinity War. Lemire says when the JL Dark gets mixed into things, with Deadman, Constantine and Zatanna is the ‘unholy trinity.’

Forever Evil story specifics are under wraps, but it features Luthor and Black Manta and Captain Cold and Black Adam (who is apparently not so dead). David Finch is drawing it. The main character is Lex Luthor.

Aquaman is mentioned next. The “Death of a King” storyline continues to reveal secrets of their past, the Dead King being the first king of Atlantis has a dark secret about what they did to Atlantis in Aquaman’s heritage. Johns says Aquaman would beat the Sharknado in a fight. People are apparently asking Johns if sharks could survive in a tornado as if he was the expert because he writes Aquaman.

Brian Buccellato comes out next, wearing a Flash mask. He’s on the Flash, you know. He shows off his cool Flash tattoo, too. We see Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion covers that he’ll be working on. “The Rogues are going to rebel against something,” he jokes. They aren’t world-dominators, so it seems like they’re going to rebel against the Lex Luthor regime. Rogues vs. Evil. ROGUES ARE HEROES. That might be pretty cool. Geoff Johns compares it to “The Warriors.” They come out and play.

Flash is currently dealing with a new version of the Reverse Flash, whose identity we don’t know in the New 52. Iris was trapped in the Speed Force has given some trapped people powers, but Iris doesn’t have them yet. We see Dr. Elias looking at a reflection of Reverse Flash, which may be a spoiler. Buccellato says “I don’t know if that’s a spoiler. It could be misdirection.”

Green Arrow is next, a Lemire book. He’s loving it, which he didn’t anticipate. He’s building a whole new mythology and bringing back Shadow and Count Vertigo. GA will cross over with Batman: Zero Year, where Queen crudely operates in Gotham City. The Villains Month thing he wrote creeped himself out. Green Arrow will take over the Outsiders, too. Lemire purposely didn’t watch ‘Arrow’ because he didn’t want to be influenced, but now he’s watching it and planning to take some elements for use in the book.

Animal Man, also Lemire’s book. Rafael Albuquerque of American Vampire will be the new artist. Since Rotworld, he’s been focusing on Buddy Baker’s celebrity and our culture’s obsession with it. A space adventure is in the future.

Trillium, a Lemire Vertigo project, gets play. The first issue is a double sized flip book, two narratives that meet at the end, but you can start from either side. It’s an eight issue sci-fi love story he’s writing and illustrating himself. The flip book will be unique to the single issues, and the trade will just print them back to back.

Fables is next, so Mark Buckingham comes out, the artist on the series. He’s in fear that if he says too much, his entrails will decorate the DC booth. We are actually seeing Bigby Wolf and Boy Blue and it is not a dream. They live in different parts of the world, and talk in the morning. A new story arc called Camelot focuses on Rose Red, who is with the embodiment of Hope. She’s a paladin of Hope, and she finally figures out what aspect of hope she represents, and thus she tries to build a new Camelot.

Some aspects of Fables have been woven into The Unwritten in a story arc. THey didn’t want to call it a crossover, because they’re forging something unique in a way to bring the worlds together in an interesting way. Frau Totenkinder was the character of choice, and they built it all up from there. Mike Carey is writing pages for Mark to draw, and Peter was drawing Bill’s pages. The crossover started in #50, the current issue. The two worlds are very compatible.

Gail Simone joins the panel, writer of Batgirl and THe Movement. Batman got punched recently in Batgirl. Simone calls the current art team the best she’s ever worked with ever. Pages shown of Jim Gordon teaching her daughter how to shoot a gun. Everyone’s at the edge of what they can take, and Barbara wants to quit being Batgirl because it hurts her father too much.

The Movement #5 in October is shown, featuring Virtue, “a woman of color who happens to be gay.” The group is going to take on the police. Freddie Williams II is doing a great job on art. It’s not slick, it’s gritty and dark. This is like the Teen Titans if they were created today – people on the ground with social networking and cover actions. Her secret goal is to have a Mr. Trouncer series. Rainmaker from Gen 13 has shown up in the book, “the Weather Witch.”

Adam Hughes, who did Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan comes out. Before Watchmen books are doing very well on the bestseller lists. Hughes says it wasn’t intimidating at all – he’s easy to draw, since he doesn’t have hair or pants and it’s less work, he jokes. He actually aged “president years” with how intimidated he was working on the project. He’s also doing covers for The Fables Encyclopedia. He also is the regular cover artist on Fairest, the sister book.

Derek Friedolfs, writer of digital-first Li’l Gotham. A lot of the writing gets done during convention trips, traveling with Dustin Nguyen and trading jokes. They had a year’s worth a stories, and they split them up and do half each, then trade back and forth until they run out of jokes and puns. It’s tough to paint on a monthly basis, but he gives props to Dustin for doing it. The next one comes out this Sunday as a Comic-Con themed story.

Tom Taylor comes out, writer of Injustice: Gods Among Us, the digital comic that’s doing very well, and he will be writing Earth 2. He is Australian and jokes about Buckingham’s ancestors colonizing them. Injustice is the breakup of the Worlds Finest Friendship, and now they want to tear out each other’s spleens. The print version has sold out five issues in a row. The Annual has Harley Quinn vs. Lobo.

Q&A Time!

Q: Will a Superman vs. Shazam fight happen? They fought a little bit in the first issue. Shazam will be fighting everyone in the Justice League Dark. Shazam and Constantine are two con men trying to con each other. SHAZAM IS A CON MAN1

Q: Without Captain Marvel, what will Mary Marvel’s name be? They’ll have names soon, but she’s just Mary right now.

Q: What will Johns do after GL? Shazam maybe? We’ll see next year.

Q: Any other alternate endings for Green Lantern #20? There were a couple brainstormed, but this is where he would go definitively.

Buccellato’s custom made Flash Mask from jefffowler@evilgeniusproductions.ca

A Vibe fan asks about plans for Doom Patrol. Bob Wayne is not letting anybody answer that question, which may mean that’s a surprise.

Q: Any chance of Lemire doing pencils for Animal Man? Stay tuned, he says. That sounds like a ‘yes’ to Johns.

Q: Black Canary and Green Arrow? Lemire thinks pre-52 Queen was so defined by that relationship that he doesn’t want to go there anytime soon.

A Booster Gold cosplayer asks when Booster Gold’s getting his book back. They joke that he’s from the future, he should already know.

Q: Will we find out about Barbara’s operation to get her legs back? Bits and pieces as they go along.

A lady is happy about Barbara Gordon’s trans roommate and how normalized and accepted, but will the trans part play more of a role with prominent trans issues? Gail says it’s part of the book and the goal is to treat it as normally as possible – there will also be issues handled in The Movement that may be handled differently, as it runs the gamut of sexuality and it’s a strong issue.

A fan of the DC deckbuilding game from Cryptozoic asks if they play. Johns says people in the office play it a lot, but they all cheat.

Earth 2 question for Tom – how much of what James Robinson had planned will he pick up and run with? Taylor wrestles with how to answer it. Robinson built a whole world, and they will follow that, but they’re focusing a bit more on Batman of Earth 2, whose identity is not revealed yet. They’re building on what he created, but also going their own way.