The Word on WonderCon

We didn't make it up north for WonderCon this year, which is too bad because it sounds like it was a great show.  The first major show of the year, now that the scheduling conflicts of past years with New York Comic-Con have been worked out, WonderCon is increasingly becoming a West Coast complement to San Diego's mammoth summer show. (Both shows are put on by the same not-for-profit group.)

The Hollywood programming in particular has grown quite impressive and corrects one of the difficulties with San Diego's late July dates, which is that most of the major Hollywood summer pics have already come and gone by the time Comic-Con rolls around. WonderCon offers a chance to check out the stuff you'll want to see this summer before heading down to San Diego.

There's lots of great coverage out there from the usual suspects, i.e., news sites and blogs that were there to cover the show such as Newsarama, CBR and Comics Continuum. Here's a few of the film-related highlights, culled from such reports:

* “Iron Man” director Jon Favreau appeared for a Q & A, showing bits of new footage from the film. He also confirmed the “Hulk” crossover scene, says he'd like to do the Tony Stark alcoholism storyline in a sequel and would love to do the “Avengers” movie. A new trailer is set to debut on this week's episode of “Lost."

* Since I've seen nothing on these sites about "The Dark Knight" and "The Incredible Hulk," I'm going to assume they were missing in action at this con, though new trailers for both films are in the works.

* WB Animation debuted “Justice League: The New Frontier” Saturday night, including a panel featuring the creator of the comic its based on, Darwyn Cooke. Original movie comes to DVD tomorrow, though we saw it quite a while back and were very impressed by the adaptation.

* Animation fans also got a look at the premiere episode of “The Spectacular Spider-Man,” a new animated series that hits the Kids WB! lineup in a couple of weeks. Series is already in production on a second set of 13 episodes, with Marvel and Sony figuring out where to air them now that Kids WB! is going away.

* A packed panel got a first look at “The X-Files 2,” complete with appearances by David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz.

* Disney presented clips from “Prince Caspian,” and brought out director Andrew Stanton to show a bit of footage from the upcoming Pixar pic “Wall*E.”

* Lucasfilm showed "Star Wars" Lives! The house that George built promoted both its upcoming “Star Wars: Clone Wars” animated series, the premiere of which gets a theatrical release on Aug. 15, and the long-anticipated “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” videogame. They also gave a plug to “Indiana Jones” by showing the trailer for “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” as well as a Jones Lego videogame and the final DVD release of the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.”

* James McAvoy stopped in to plug “Wanted,” introducing a quick look at the film before heading down to yesterday's Oscars ceremony.

* More folks on their way to the Kodak included Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, answering questions about “Get Smart” along with director Peter Segal. Roland Emmerich also showed some footage from “10,000 B.C.”

On the comics side, there was a lot of DC-related announcements as the company plugged its upcoming superhero plans, including “Final Crisis,” the new weekly title “Trinity” and writer James Robinson taking over Superman, (Expect Marvel to make more announcements at Wizard World Los Angeles next month.)

* J. Michael Straczynski, who recently ended his exclusive status with Marvel, is going to be writing some comics for DC, including new “Babylon 5” material. He also has two books at Image and will continue to write “Thor” for Marvel.

* Boom! Studios announced new projects from novelists Gary Phillips and Matt Forbeck as well as one by Adam Rifkin, director of Detroit Rock City.

* In a move that surprised no one, Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's “Demo” will return as a Vertigo series.

* Spotlight panels were held for artists Darwyn Cooke, classic Marvel artist Herb Trimpe, “Fables” creator Bill Willingham, and “Heroes” contributor Tim Sale.