Wizard World Chicago and the casts of Back to the Future! The X-Files! Netflix’s Daredevil!

Wizard World made its annual Chicago visit with some of the usual suspects (Hi Normal Reedus!) and a few huge reunions including a rare appearance by Michael J Fox.

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Wizard Chicago is always a nice way to wrap up the summer with one last affectionate nerdfest before fall begins. The show takes over the entire convention center with a truckload of celebrities and a ton of vendors and artists. This year the marquee draw was a Back to the Future reunion with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson. Yes, all three of them! I had a poster with Christopher Lloyd already on it so I just needed the other two.

Wizard does not allow photos anywhere near the celebrities, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say Lea Thompson is using the Delorean since she looks terrific. She’s also really nice and friendly as we chatted about her Broadway run in Cabaret (amazing).

At first, autographs for Michael J. Fox were ONLY a part of the VIP packages, but a few weeks before the show, they released a few autograph tickets. I luckily nabbed one of the few. They ran the signing quickly (no personalization which isn’t a surprise) and we weren’t allowed to really say anything so we flew through the line. Michael looked great and took care to make sure he signed in the right color for each item. Unlike some celebrities, he’s not afraid of blue Sharpie!

 

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Another big reunion was for The X-Files with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi and William B Davis. There was pandemonium around those booths.

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While I didn’t love the second movie, I loved the teaser poster and I needed David to finish it off. He was also promoting his latest novel so his signings time were a bit limited, but I managed to meet him on Sunday. Gillian and Chris Carter took the center so David went for the corner.

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Netflix is killing it with its Marvel shows and the cast of Daredevil had plenty of love in Chicago. Charlie Cox, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Rosario Dawson and Elodie Yung had sizeable lines all weekend. I just needed Rosario and Elodie to finish off posters (that’s my theme for the weekend).

Elodie was lovely and absolutely game to do an Elektra series for Netflix. She urged fans to pester Netflix to get it started.

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Rosario was personable and revealed/confirm that she will show up in the upcoming Iron Fist series. She’s popping up in all the shows so I called her the “Nick Fury of Hell’s Kitchen.” She lit up and threw both fists in the air in a victory sign. I think she’s down with the nickname. Lol!

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There were other busy celebs with Carrie Fisher and Danai Gurira having lines that took up considerable real estate. Really, Wizard needs to start to hand out numbers so people don’t have to spend hours waiting in line when they could be meeting other celebs and shopping the vendors and artists. They could reduce the number of staff they need to manage lines, fans would be less frustrated/anxious and vendors would see better foot traffic. Win-win people!

But those weren’t my only autographs! I stumbled upon a signing for the new The Tick series on Amazon. The Tick is one of Amazon’s potential new series that’s up for preview right now. Go watch the pilot (free for everyone, including non Amazon Prime people) and rate the show. I’ll write more on this later, but showrunner Ben Edlund promises that we could see ninjas in the new series!

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It’s not officially a con unless you see Lou Ferrigno! Lou was inducted as an honorary Public Safety Officer of Rosemont. This ensures low crime rates because who wants to mess around when the Hulk may come after you?

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Wizard took over the entire convention center so there were lots of vendors with some interesting cookies…

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…and interesting original art.

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But of course, there was tons of cosplay! We had the three-way horror smackdown fans have been looking for…

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…a stormtrooper found the droid he was looking for…

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…and this guy wished they had a bigger boat.

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Mulan was strangely popular this year so these ladies (and gentlemen) will bring honor to us all.

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As always, there were lots of cosplay from the Marvel universe (love the family here!):

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But Harley Quinn from the movie may be the most popular new character. Thankfully the pre-teens wore actual shorts, but I think I saw a lot of, um, cheekiness from the ladies.

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I had a rare sighting of Illyria and Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan aka Lorne. Alas, she did not do the Dance of Joy!

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I’m guessing this lady is just as jazzed about the next season of Twin Peaks due out next year on Showtime. So many Log Ladies coming out of the woodwork these days!

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And thus wraps up my 2016 Wizard World Chicago adventure!

Stay tuned!

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