Adventures At Comic Con

Comic nerds and Anime fans rejoiced and gathered last week at this year's 6th New York Comic Con, an annual fan convention put on at the Javits Center in New York, NY. Starting in 2006, Comic Con has been a home to a variety of pop-culture; dedicating itself to showcasing varieties of comic books, graphic novels, video games, movies, and television. Manga and Anime have also become a huge part of the convention since the merging of Comic Con and the New York Anime Festival in 2010. The convention ran from Thursday, October 13th to Sunday, October 16th with a recorded 100,000 guests in attendance.

 Having going to Comic Con in 2008 and 2010, this was my third year at the convention and it was just as exciting, if not more, than the past years. While getting to the Javits center can be a hassle, there's no numbing down the excitement as soon as you start to see people in their costumes. The majority of attendees dressed up as Anime, Videogame, or Comic book characters. I dressed as Pikachu from Pokémon for the event. Walking to the event can feel strange, as random New Yorkers will stop you and ask "what's going on?" or "can I take your picture?," but once you get to the center of it, it's as if you've suddenly been accepted again; surrounded by others dressed to the nines as characters from their favorite shows, books, or movies. Workers check your pass outside the doors, and then you enter a world of wonder. A MEGA Bloks statue of Master Chief, a giant Optimus Prime, and a hanging Spiderman state greet you as you make your way into the first room: a giant hall of cutesy Anime and Manga vendors, glass cases filled with props from Watchmen and Inception, and a plethora of merchandise waiting to be bought. Special guests of the Anime and Manga culture were also in this hall, including Junko Takeuchu, the voice actress for Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto. In the next hall were the comic book vendors and artists, including the likes of Robert Kirkman, the writer of The Walking Dead and Stan Lee, the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics, as well as the co-creator of Spiderman, The Hulk, Iron Man, and a few other Marvel classics. Online comic artists were also in this room, like the artist from the popular online comic The Oatmeal and the four artists from Cyanide & Happiness. 

A big part of Comic Con this year, though, was the huge Avengers panel, where guests flocked around to catch a glimpse of the special appearances. The special guests included Chris Evans, who plays Captain America, Tom Hiddleson, who plays Loki, Mark Ruffalo, the actor who plays Bruce Banner, Kevin Feige, a producer from Iron Man, Cobie Smulders, and Clark Gregg. Included in the panel, though, was a special screening of unseen footage from The Avengers. The footage from The Avengers centered around Bruce Banner, who's hiding somewhere on the coast of the sea. The Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, is sent by Nick Fury to bring Banner back to S.H.I.E.L.D., where Nick needs him. The Black Widow tells Banner that the tesseract, a potential weapon that can wipe out the planet, has been stolen and their gamma rays aren't strong enough to track it. Banner, an expert in gamma rays, is asked to come to S.H.I.E.L.D. to help locate the item. Tricked by Black Widow into thinking they're alone, Banner gets angry and the camera zooms out to show a ton of S.H.I.E.L.D agents surrounding the house, followed by a montage of characters. The trailer sparked excitement among the crowd and special guests, who also admitted to talks about a sequel

Overall, I would have to say that this year's Comic Con was a huge success. From the video game and movie panels to the extensive dressings of the guests, Comic Con is definitely the place you would want to be as a fanatic and lover of all things geeky.