First of all… this place is a fire hazard! If there’s a fire I’m kicking teeth to get out of here. On to the panel. Bob Wayne MC’ing again. He’s calling out Johns and Lee and they’re showing pages form the second issue. Green Lantern fighting Superman and then Hal calls Flash to help him out of it. Flash shows up and spins Superman around. Pretty cool looking. Now they’re showing Lee’s pencil’s for Aquaman on issue #3. Johns jokes that Aquaman is the world’s worst superhero and what makes him cool is that everyone hates him.
A guy asks what Aquaman’s land powers are, Johns shoots back "the ability to kick your ass."
Now they’re showing issue three for some reason as they just showed Wonder Woman and Dark Seid. Wayne asks if they’re incorporating Kirby’s fourth world. Johns says they’re take is different and that they’re not going to do it the same as before. Johns says that he’s not going to wear knee-high boots and skirts. Lee says he’s going to wear a thong, but it’ll be very fourth world. (lots of laughs)
Dan Jurgen’s comes out and they show the cover to the fourth issue for Justice League International. Again, showing pages from the fourth issue. Interesting that JL proper doesn’t even have colored pages for the third issue and everyone else is on #4 or 5.
Talking about Aquaman now. They’re bringing out the art team. Showing the cover of the issue of #5. Johns says that Aquaman is fighting on a plane and he falls out and lands in a desert. Now we’re looking at issue#2. Johns asks if they art team makes sound effects while drawing. Issue #6 is going to be a Mera issue.
Moving on to Wonder Woman. Bob’s asking the team why they changed the origin to Wonder Woman, Brian says they enhanced it. Bob asks if he lost sleep on it and Brian says not at all and he was tired of the conversation being about her pants and wanted to make it about her genes. Obviously referring to the fact that she’s now Greek. Showing Strife and his new take on her. More pages really taken out of context it has no value. Brian is giving avery funny play by-play and asks for the next slide.
Flash now… apparently this is a panel for every character on the JL. Franny Manapul and the other Brian is coming out. Bob asks if this is his first major writing gig, he jokes that it’s his first credited writing gig.Showing pages and saying that the energy is better because it’s just two people for the entire process… I’d have to disagree. I do like the Spirit inspired credits. They do talk about one cool thing of how do you beat the fastest man alive and the answer is to make him stand still. Now Manapul is talking about the challenge of the Will Eisner title page so there… I was right. Sadly this is making me interested in the book again.
Savage Hawkman time with Tony Daniels, Bob asks if everyone is enjoying Hawkman and receives less claps then Daniels did. Daniels is a poor public speaker I can be bothered to understand what he’s talking about there are so many “ums” and “ands” going on. Basically he’s kissing the artists(Philip Tan) ass. Showing pages and without Daniels dialog to clutter the page it looks pretty good… I’m sure they’ll fuck it up. Daniels has plans for the entire year. Everyone is distracted by the next room overs speakers as they over power DC’s presentation. Daniels is still rambling on and it’s pretty boring. Talking about a new villain that will be the equivalent of Batman’s Joker… doubtful.
Mister Terrific is up next. I’m confused by the panel as it seems to be a bunch of characters thrown together. Showing #4 cover. Wallace say she was asked where Terrific’s adventures can take place and he hints at New Orleans and says it ends in Outer Space.
Moving on to Firestorm… I will now type my favorite lines from Futurama… just kidding. Snore fest… one of the firestorm balls looks like Iron Fists logo. Bob asks if he had some interest in Firestorm before, he says since the 90’s.
Fucking JT Krul is coming out to talk about Dr. Manhattan strike that Captain Atom. Cover sucks and I’m dreading the Q&A with this many people on hand. Assholes like to ask entire panel questions like “Who’s your favorite character that you haven’t worked on” and stupid pointless shit like that. Yeah, Captain Atom can do anything he wants… just like Dr.Manhattan. The doctors in the issue magically know that Atom is inside a boys brain and tries to cure the boy thus attacking Atom. Krul admits that he’s basically Captain Atom, but claims that he read the Charlaton character that Manhattan was based on… bullshit. Also the Flash shows up in issue three talk about desperation to keep sales high cameo already.
Now they’re bringing up the first woman of the panel who’staking over on Green Arrow. Anne admits that she’s the token female… not a good thing. She says that she’s instantly adding a female villain like Typhoid Mary for GA. Almost exactly since they’re going to be dating.
Bob Wayne asking about Booster Gold and his role in the new 52? Is Booster a blank slate. Booster’s experiences are intact, but he doesn’t remember anything. He can’t recall. Johns eggs on Jurgens asking if Skeets and Rip Hunter remember.
Q&A time
Asking about Wally West… blank looks.
Justice League pricing. Curse of Shazam is the second story arc with Gary Frank on the art and its Shazam’s relaunch.
Wonder Woman question… Asking why WW’s father is her father.Brian asks if she wants him to ruin it or read the book. He tells her to read the book.
Asking who the Hooded Woman is… Bob Wayne dodge’s the question.
Boy asks why to do the new 52? Panel is stunned. Johns asks what the first comic he ever read. Johns asks him if he likes the new 52, kid sound so-so on it. Lee is giving the press release answer. Basically to get new people as they’ve said from the beginning.
(I’m sure this will spin-off my hate filled questions)
Here we go already… asking about the inflated numbers that its old readers coming back and then asks about Catwoman and Star Fire controversy?
(This will be good.)
Wayne is saying that they’ve reached a little of all three categories such as current, old and new readers. Talks about the Nielsen survey and that they really think they’re reaching a lot of new readers.
Guy yells out why Star Fire is a slut. Lee says that they’renew books with different tastes and that it’s premature to judge the character.And that he assumes that Scott will address it in an arc… I’m sure he’s going to be forced to now. Basically it sounds like he snuck it in under the radar and now they have to deal with it.
(Seriously there is no reason to have this many people on the panel.)
Guy asks why Cyborg gets a promotion to Justice League? Johns answers saying basically he’s a good character and he’s always like him and he didn’t want to do the same seven character in JL so he was an important addition. Says that he’s plugged into all tech including the Bat computer which drives Bats nuts.
Lee is taking about Anne taking over GA and that she created Typhoid Mary… so she’s just going to do it again. Lee points out that they hired two woman before Comic Con International when DC was accused of not hiring women… that really doesn’t help their case and they’re starting to sound like the white guy on sitcoms that don’t have any black fans. This panel was really toned down and again missing the usual attitude of a DC panel and it wasn’t due to the lack of Didio I think that they’re taking a new approach after San Diego in order to not antagonize the fans and get a lot of bad press.In general everyone seemed to be biting their tongues and letting Lee take the hard questions as he’s been groomed by the parent company very well I might add.