WonderCon 2012 Recap: News And Highlights

Now that WonderCon has wrapped up, and both DC Entertainment and Marvel Comics have their official recaps on the Web, it seemed like a good time to catch you Monday morning folks up on what happened over the weekend, on the off chance that you weren't able to read the literally dozens of stories we wrote between Friday night and this morning. The weekend started off strong, with likely the most talked-about panel of the convention: Marvel's House of Ideas panel gave fans their first hands-on opportunity to see how the new Marvel AR app will work with feature-enhanced version of upcoming comic books, while editors answered questions for fans unable to make it to the front row and actually touch those items. DC, meanwhile, spent a lot of time talking to fans about the upcoming Batman: Court of Owls crossover and the Swamp Thing/Animal Man story that Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire are writing. They cast a pretty bright spotlight on up-and-coming writer Scott Snyder, who plays a major role in both events. They also talked a great deal about the world of the New 52 and the ways it might still be taking shape. Movies and TV played a huge role in the weekend's proceedings, as well; filmmakers and actors swarmed the floor doing interviews and promoting their projects while trailers debuted for Superman vs. The Elite, the Ultimate Spider-Man pilot(want to know what the best thing about that series is? Marvel asked the writers...), Prometheus (twice), Young Justice: Invasion, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Starship Troopers: Invasion. They also screened footage or images from The Dark Knight Returns and Looper. Rumors circulated that there would be a Dark Knight Rises surprise after reports surfaced that Christopher Nolan had screened a rough cut for Warner Brothers executives, but nothing came of it. And we found out that Michael Bay's upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie will feature a quartet of heroes who aren't mutant turtles but instead members of an alien race. All the while, Marvel was busy teasing new comic book projects, including confirming rumors that Ms. Marvel would change her name and costume to become the new Captain Marvel. Spider-Man was pretty much everywhere. They announced a new X-Men series starring Dazzler and Kid Nightcrawler, along with creative changes to both the X-Men and Ultimate X-Men titles.  The latter changes, along with tweaks to the Hulk and Incredible Hulk books and Dark Avengers, were announced at Marvel's final panel of the weekend, last night's Next Big Thing panel. DC, meanwhile, stayed away from announcements for the most part and spent the weekend showing off their successful New 52 line and doing the parry-and-thrust with fans about Before Watchmen. Something that looks like a viral-marketing Dark Knight Rises spoiler started to circulate on Sunday but that was unofficial. All the while, DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee showed off the process behind a Batman drawing he was doing (just updated, by the way!), while DC showed off his Before Watchmen: Nite-Owl variant cover.