LUCIDMEDIA

Fan Expo: Sci-Fi Heroes and Big News from the Big Two

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Wednesday, 02 September 2009 14:02

It was another ruckus year at Fan Expo, perhaps more ruckus than any year previous, at least so long as I have attended. Getting in to the event Saturday presented an unusually long wait, as by the time 11 am rolled around, security was getting stingy with who they were letting in, saying that the convention was already at capacity. Obviously, a lot of the pass holders stuck at the top of the escalator were peeved.

There was the usual assortment of guests, retailers and fans in costumes, especially some strange bedfellows. I saw a Cobra Commander and Wonder Woman couple, a Terminator and Stargate SG-1 soldier couple, and in line for autographs I saw a Ghostbuster with Catwoman. But enough about that, what did the celebrities have to say?

The guest of honour at this year’s Fan Expo was Leonard Nimoy, who’s had a very good year returning to the role of Spock in the smash hit remake of Star Trek, getting the choice role of the mysterious William Bell on Fringe giving voice to The Zarn in The Land of the Lost. (Well, two out of three ain’t bad.) Still, not a bad comeback year for a man who will celebrate birthday 79 in March, and he’s still got a decent singing voice too. Nimoy sang a few choice verses from the hit "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" that appeared on the Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy album; a copy of which one fan had at the ready when the subject came up. Nimoy invited him to the stage to get the record signed, which started a flurry of other people’s copies of Nimoy albums making their way to the stage. And these are record records, people. Vinyl and everything. It seemed to mean a lot to Nimoy that people thought fondly of his contributions to music, and he diligently signed every album that came to the stage. Of course, the usual Star Trek remembrances were recalled, including the origin of the Vulcan salute. The best story had to be the one were Nimoy read a memo from Desilu Studios, producers of the Original Series. They paid Nimoy an extra $100 per week for a secretary to help with his fan mail, but according to the memo this $100 was not to go to the cost of pens and paper. Those he had to provide himself.

It was Leonard Nimoy’s name above the marquee, but he wasn’t the only member of the original Star Trek in attendance. Original Chekov Walter Koenig took a lot of questions, not just about his Trek character, but also about his role playing the villainous telepath Bester on Babylon 5. He even got the “say ‘nuclear wessels’” jab for one fan, but I suspected this was a reference to his classic appearance on Futurama with the rest of the Original Trek cast. Amongst Koenig’s most memorable moments during his Q&A were a couple of spot on impressions of William Shatner and George Takei, and answering a question about his favourite genre by saying that he liked a good love story, which received a very positive reaction from some of the female fans. And did you know that Koenig met with one of the Next Generation writers about appearing on the show? It never got past the discussion stage even though Koenig came up with the perfect story. What was it? Well let’s just say it involved Klingon officer Worf, whose adopted human parents were Russian, and a hallucination involving the scariest Russian Worf could think of.

Continuing on with our music and Star Trek theme, Deep Space Nine Captain Avery Brooks ended his Q&A on a song. After being asked by a fan if he could sing a spiritual, Brooks left the stage momentarily and came back with a number that soothed the typically rambunctious Fan Expo crowd. Brooks talked a great deal about acting as a craft, his race, his experience as a director, theatre actor and convention guest, and, of course, Star Trek Deep Space Nine. On the subject of the latter, Brooks says that naturally, he’d be interested in pursuing his DS9 character, Captain Benjamin Sisko, but he added, “They better hurry,” to the laughs of the audience. Of the ten years since DS9 closed shop, Brooks says that absence makes the heart go fonder. To the best of my knowledge though, nobody asked about his favourite Spencer for Hire memory. Or perhaps this was the wrong crowd.

Billy Dee Williams may be best known for playing Cloud City Administrator and Han Solo frenemie Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but it was other big, two-timer role that many fans wanted to talk about. “That’s the reason I did it, I wanted to play Two-Face, I was really looking forward to it,” said Williams in response to fans question about his playing the part of Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman. The part was recast for the sequel Batman Forever, but did Williams feel any resentment that Tommy Lee Jones was called up to fill his shoes? “YES!” he exclaimed loudly to the crowd before laughing at the shock he gave the fans. “I’m a very good actor,” he said half-jokingly. Williams was also asked about his theatre work (and quoted a little Shakespeare), talked about being the voice of Colt 45 and reminisced a little about that galaxy far, far away.

I think Beau Bridges’ appearance at this year’s Fan Expo marked the first time I had seen a member of the cast from either of the two previous Stargate shows, but then again it was a big year for the Bridges’ family at the Expo with Beau’s brother Jeff being featured in the Tron Legacy panel Friday (see article from Monday). Like others before him, Beau broke out into song during his Q&A, singng a selection from Guys & Dolls, and framing it by saying, “I don’t know if you’re familiar at all with the show, but I hardly recommend it.” He talked about his other work since the end of Stargate SG-1, including his appearance on Desperate Housewives, which segued into an amusing story about he and his son where saved from drifting out to sea in a wayward paddle boat by Nicolette Sheridan. Additionally, he recently took on a role in the TNT show The Closer (which airs on the W Network in Canada), where he plays a retired police detective returning to the force to solve an old case. Where’s the drama? Let’s let Bridges explain, “I’ve got to get back [to LA] tonight and get into my high heels.”

Mary McDonnell was supposed to hold a Q&A, but she excused herself last minute to attend a memorial for Battelstar Galactica producer Harvey Frand. Subbing was Aaron Douglas, who as fans will recall joined Edward James Olmos during his Q&A at last year’s Fan Expo. Douglas had fun razzing the crowd about the Toronto Maple Leafs (“I can’t wait until Toronto has a hockey team too!”), Star Wars (“I love all three Star Wars movies.”) and on when he became a Cylon (“I was always a Cylon.”). He did some impressions, made a few Family Guy references and took audience questions in earnest. Has he ever received a toaster from a fan? “I have received no toasters, but I have signed some, and I name every one,” said Douglas. Now safely finished his work on Galactica, Douglas revealed the truth about how he found out his character, Galen Tyrol, was a Cylon: he saw it on an episode breakdown at producer/director Michael Rymer’s house three months before being told by showrunner Ronald D. Moore.

Comic News

The DC Nation panel is always an exciting affair when being hosted by executive editor Dan Didio. Say what you want about the man’s policies and direction as head honcho of DC but he brings more enthusiasm than anyone else working in comics I’ve seen. This year there were a lot of hot topics from the DC bullpen: Blackest Night, Batman Reborn, Flash Rebirth, and Donna Troy’s nickname(?).

Didio’s also big on audience interaction, and said that every year when he goes to conventions there’s a character cause célèbre that’s due for a reboot, and at Fan Expo the unanimous choice seemed to be Wonder Woman. In San Diego last month, Didio answered a fan’s question by saying that he’ll consider renumbering Wonder Woman proper with the #600 starting with issue #45 if he received 600 postcards from fans requesting the change. So far, he says, he’s received 55.

But by far the biggest thing happening at DC right now is Blackest Night and coming up we’ll see a fight between the JLA and the Blackest Night JLA and we’ll learn just how deeply emotions and their control play into this scenario involving the multi-couloured Lantern Corps.

Meanwhile it seems that Blackest Night writer Geoff Johns is doing for Flash with what he’s done and Green Lantern, and setting up a similar trilogy that will explain in more detail the nature of the Speed Force and introduce the concept of the Negative Speed Force as heralded by the recent return of Professor Zoom. Unlike Green Lantern: Rebirth, said Didio, the goal with Flash: Rebirth wasn’t to fix something that’s broken, but tell a story about a man reuniting with a world and its people after being gone for so long and whether or not he can find his place again.

As for Batman Reborn, Didio says that the writers and editors have a clear path so far as where they intend to take the Batman family of books. “The goal is to make sure each one has a different direction… a different flavour.” Part of that new flavour was Grant Morrison’s pitch for the new Batman & Robin, which, in part, circles around the change in the dynamic of the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder where in Robin us now the broody one with Batman offering his partner some light.

On the subject of digital comics, Didio said that it’s business concerns and compensation for writers and artists that’s holding up developments on that front. “In providing digital comics we want to make sure there’s a royalty system in place for the talent […] At this particular point, the model isn’t there yet.”

Like clockwork, the next hour brought the Marvel: Dark Reign panel, in which the latest developments in the company-wide Dark Reign storyline specifically, and the Marvel Universe generally, were discussed. And as much as Norman Osborn has his hands in everybody’s pie lately, he’ll be stepping things up with The List, which is a series of eight one-shots being released in September. “Norman has a much bigger plan than [anybody] expects,” explained C.B. Cebulski. “The one thing we can agree on is that the Marvel Universe is always changing.”

Among the new Dark Reign books will be Dark Reign Spider-Man which will be written by Dan Slott with art by Adam Kubert. In the main Amazing Spider-Man title look for a big, new threat and the return of the classic Spidey villains. Along with the recent reappearance of Dr. Octopus expect to see new versions of old favourites like The Rhino and Electro. Meanwhile, the new big bad will be called The Gauntlet, and it’s the evil that Madam Web sensed in her story in Amazing #600. More details will be revealed in issue #612 in November. And that “psychic blind spot” will also be getting an explanation soon. (It was even mentioned by Joe Quesada in my interview with the Marvel editor-in-chief, read it a week Wednesday in Lucid Comics.)

Along similar lines, there’ll be a new Anti-Venom miniseries where he’ll cross paths with The Punisher. And speaking of dark opposites, the panel said that fans of Dark Wolverine should be pleased with developments in the next year. Old villains, including Apocalypse will be returning to plague the X-Men again in 2010 and the road from Utopia will very soon see Deadpool knocking on the team’s door. For Dr. Strange there’ll be two new developments starting this fall. The first is an miniseries this November simply titled Strange about the Doctor’s struggle to fins his place in the world now that he’s no longer Sorcerer Supreme, and the other is the new ongoing series Dr. Voodoo, which will be about Strange’s successor, the former Brother Voodoo.

As for new adventures featuring Canada’s own super-team, Alpha Flight, the consensus was don’t hold your breath. “We want an Alpha Flight we can be proud of,” said Marvel PR rep Arune Singh, adding that like with anything at Marvel they were waiting for the right idea. “We can easily put together Dark Alpha Flight.”