Wizard World Chicago!! Gotham Screening! Walking Dead Cast! Doctor Who! Captain America Cast! Cosplay!

August in Chicago means it’s time for the annual Wizard World Chicago Comic Con! This year’s edition featured celebrities, cosplay, generously wide walking aisles (thank you!) and a screening of the most anticipated show of the fall season!

Picture this Wizard World Chicago 2007: It’s the annual comic con in Chicago (then the second biggest in the nation) and the organizers spring a surprise The Dark Knight panel! The movie is filming in Chicago and without any warning, Saturday attendees (me included!) got treated to a mysterious panel – no information. David Goyer appeared at a panel during Batman Begins filming so perhaps he’ll show for this one.

At the appropriate time, all the attendees lucky enough to score a wristband nervously sat waiting for the panel to begin. They start to announce the panelists one by one: Jonathan Nolan (good), Christopher Nolan (whoa!), Aaron Eckhart (The new guy! Harvey Dent! Will he be Two Face in this too?!?!) and then they announced Gary Oldman! As Gary strides in to take the stage, the crowd erupts in cheers so loud, that Gary’s head snaps around mid-stride, surprised at such a warm cheer. Then Christian Bale entered the room and the roof blew off with a standing ovation.

So it seems only appropriate this year we get treated to a screening for the new TV series, Gotham. Instead of Gary Oldman, we have Ben McKenzie as Detective Jim Gordon since Gotham is really an origin story of the crime and rise of superheroes/villains in Gotham and is less about Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman.

To accompany the screening, Fox brought a few of the cast members including Camren Bicondova (Selena Kyle aka Catwoman), Erin Richards (Barbara Kean who is Jim Gordon’s finance) and Cory Michael Smith (Edward Nygma aka Riddler). With a late start and some technical difficulties due to a huge downpour, the Q&A lacked Q’s and A’s so it was more of a quick chat from Cory to say he’s super excited about the show and episode 7 will blow our minds.

Cory Michael Smith and Camren Bicondova

Erin Richards and Camren Bicondova

I’ll do a formal review for the show later since there’s lots more to talk about now! Wizard hosted quite a few celebrities this year with a bunch of The Walking Dead cast members including Michael Rooker, Sarah Wayne Callis, Scott Wilson and, of course, Norman Reedus. (Notice how the Dixon brothers like to wear their shades…)

We also had a lot of Star Trek in the house with the full cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation! Most cast members were nicely lined up together while Patrick Stewart was getting his own mob.

Although Wil Wheaton wasn’t here, Wesley Crusher was…

We had several other X-Men were in the house with Shawn Ashmore.

The big news for many Doctor Who fans – Matt Smith and Karen Gillan’s first visit to Chicago! Karen’s schedule went through some tough changes which is a lesson to all Wizard attendees – follow them on Facebook for updates!

From the world of Marvel we had Michael Rooker and Karen Gillan who represent for Guardians of the Galaxy, this summer’s #1 movie (take THAT Transfomers!). Also, we had J. August Richards (aka Deathlok from Agents of SHIELD, though I will always think of him as Charles Gunn from Angel!)

From Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan were also here!

My sister wanted Sebastian to sign a poster and, well, I’m not turning down a chance to see Sebastian! He’s always been super sweet!

Karl Urban also made an appearance and strangely, he was surrounded by a whole lot of cosplayers as Judge Dredd and not Star Trek or Lord of the Rings.

Which isn’t to say there wasn’t any cosplay for Lord of the Rings…

In fact, there were a lot of great and creative cosplay!

There was also plenty to see with lots of great artists in artist alley (including Jeffrey Moy who’s the artist behind the Outlander Jamie sketches I shared on twitter!)

As always, there’s lots of fun shopping!

And even a mobile barber shop!

Something for everyone, right? And so wraps another edition of Wizard World Chicago Comic Con! Until next year!

Stay tuned!

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