Today was Force Friday, when — traditionally — Star Wars takes over several of the convention rooms with all sorts of news and goodness from a galaxy far, far away. But with Disney moving most of the Star Wars news and reveals to Star Wars Celebrations and D23, SDCC was pretty thin on Star Wars content this year.
I made it into the Star Wars publishing panel, which was probably the closest thing to a panel about the future of Star Wars canon. We heard that the upcoming Poe Dameron: Flight Log (scheduled for release in November 2016) will chronicle Poe's survival on and escape from Jakku after the opening scenes of The Force Awakens, and the panelists promised that it will coordinate with the ongoing Poe comics and reveal new details about his character.
Chuck Wendig was also on hand to discuss his ongoing Aftermath series, and teased that in the final installment of the trilogy, Empire's End, the Empire will end. (Spoiler alert?) We were also shown the back cover of Empire's End cover art: a painting of the upturned AT-AT in which Rey makes her home in The Force Awakens under the caption, "Every end is a new beginning." Chills.
We also learned that a gorgeous new Art of Rogue One will be released concurrently with the film. Just look at that cover art!
'The Art Of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' Unvieled At #SDCC https://t.co/GhroqA4COg pic.twitter.com/QJ5Z6IqXx6
— Star Wars Underworld (@TheSWU) July 22, 2016
Sadly, there were no new details about the upcoming Thrawn novel from Expanded Universe hero Timothy Zahn, but we were told to stay tuned for more information at New York Comic Con in October. Reveals ahoy!
I spent much of the midday bouncing around a bunch of panels, including the Dark Crystal publishing panel and The 100 panels. I even got sucked into the annual Entertainment Weekly "Brave New Warriors" panel, which is basically an excuse to assemble really hot male actors in one place for convenient ogling. This year's panelists included Josh Holloway (Colony, but let's be real, everyone remembers him as Sawyer from Lost), Dominic Cooper (Agent Carter, Preacher) and Eric Dane (The Last Ship, and, evidently, Saved By The Bell).
I mean, if you have to kill time by staring at hot guys... Such is the burden I bear for you, the audience. You're welcome.
The panel highlight of the day for me was seeing the Agents of SHIELD (AoS) panel.
They had a nice sizzle reel recapping the past season, a sweet blooper reel, and a teaser trailer revealing that Ghost Rider will be in the next season! Stay tuned!
Vengeance has a new name. Welcome to Marvel's #Agents of SHIELD, @IamGabrielLuna! https://t.co/iPv4dmGNTO
— Agents of SHIELD (@AgentsofSHIELD) July 23, 2016
Meanwhile, on the convention floor, the cosplay was definitely ramping up to the Saturday apex. Here are a few of my favorites:
Halo. Is it me you're looking for?
Werk, you fools!
I also had a few spare moments to swing by the PRISM Comics booth, which is just a glorious, bustling, happy place of LGBT comics and geek culture. It's so positive and happy. I loved my visit.
Things started to get blurry after that. We met up with some Irish and Australian folks we met a couple of SDCCs ago, and things escalated quickly.
I have an R2-D2 bandaid on my arm. I don't have any cuts. Comic Con!
#SDCC
#SanDiego
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