Sunday, March 31, 2019

WonderCon 2019: Another Year in Anaheim

 By Jonathan Bilski


The sun gleamed off of Bumbleebee outside and the Shazam! wardrobe lit up the entrance to the Main Hall at this year's WonderCon. The Anaheim Convention Center was busy with other reporters trying to start analogizes about the con with Bumblebee. So, I'll go like it died, which it hasn't at all, but I'm still bitter it's not in the easier for me to get to LA Convention Center. Oh, and I'm sure it'll be great there when Star Wars Land opens at Disney. And I know it's called Galaxy's Edge.
What can be said that hasn't been said before about the awesome con that just isn't as painful as going to Comic-Con. It was a light affair this time around with highlights for those wanting to catch up on maybe a superhero movie or TV show due out later; like in April.

Friday had the cast from Dark Phoenix showing up, though it seems Marvel/Disney knows it's not gonna be a hit with the much bigger Avenger's Endgame coming out this April. There's still no word on when we get The New X-Men, a horror take on the X-men movies, that's basically been shelved because of the Fox/Disney merger. I'd be lying if I said I said I cared more about that film than the X-Men main series that hopefully doesn't coming back from Thanos' snap.

The Tick on Amazon showed off its premiere episode of its second season with a panel and Gregg Clark, got ya, his name is Clark Gregg, showed up to promote the some-how still going Agents of SHIELD.

Main Hall still could be covered in a few hours if you didn't line up for any particular panel.

We're not sure how to put it, but some of the con seemed lacking this year with no involvement from the video game community, booth wise. No Nintendo, Capcom or even Bandai. We missed seeing a video game booth showing off some gaming goodness, but these game companies might have been stretched thin with Pax East the same weekend.

No booths really stood out this year for being over the top. If you're going to a con, go big or go home with trying to delight fans, booths that did not impress me this year. DC Booth you were cool, but that's one out of way too many that weren't as cool.

The only thing that really caught my eye was the booth for DOOB-3D, which can turn you into an action figure. Cosplay and have a pretty silly version of you on your desk or a very strange present for family member during the holidays.

The highlight for me continues to be venturing through Artist Alley and seeing pillows, bags and t-shirts based on Internet memes made real by an artist who can give it a cartoony look.

Another fun part was the cosplayers, if you looked in our cosplay section, you see people spending the whole time there really just posing and taking photos with those who devout themselves to looking like a Disney character.

I wonder what WonderCon will bring us next year. It's starting or Spring and leading into our Summer of superhero films.

The news highlights from the WonderCon so far:

-Child's Play film panel confirmed that Mark Hamill (The Joker, Luke Skywalker) will be the voice of the mechanical Chucky.

-WB/New Line showed off trailers for Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Annabelle Comes Home, the stupid horror franchise about a killer doll.









 As always artist alley had so many inside jokes and callbacks to animes and video games. You really need to walk the aisles to catch if your favorite or niche character is featured on a keychain or shirt.
















WonderCon 2019 Cosplay


Here's some of the cosplay at this year's WonderCon. No real distinct trend that we could see. Just people looking good.







 more photos after the jump

Friends of Humanity at WonderCon 2019



The Friends of Humanity once again attended this year's annual WonderCon in Anaheim to take back the con for the humans. You can see the many confrontations with the mutie scum throughout the con in this following gallery. Remember, never trust a mutie!


 Stupid mutie kids!



 This hurt, but all for the cause.
more after the jump