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Denver Comic Con '15: Keeping Up With Comic Book Movies And Television

Published Mon, 25 May 2015 09:00:32 -0500

By Evan Fries writes from Denver Comic Con

The "Building Universes" panel was certainly a presentation that was put together by fans, for fans… as well as for those who are on the road to becoming fans. "We are not experts, simply fans who love comics, who love movies, and who love TV," said host Nathan Scott at the top of the panel.

Scott and his fellow presenters Moriah Hummer, Nathan Morimitsu, and Curtis Sullivan are all huge fans of comic books and, with the exception of Sullivan, have all been reading comics for the majority of their lives. Sullivan admitted that he was a late bloomer, having just started reading comics eight years ago, and said that it's never too late to start. Hummer is currently self-publishing a comic book called Flat Track Furies (they have a booth on the floor this year… but they sold out of all of their comics!). Needless to say, there are a lot of comics in their collective background.

First up, Nathan Morimitsu took the mic and explained the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which, to some of us, seems pretty simple, but he worked on laying out the "it's all connected" bit (sans X-Men) for those who are still trying to get a grasp on it. One of his important points that he wanted to hit on was his theory that Howard Stark and Red Skull are the two most important characters in the MCU… even more important than Thor.

"No one really cares about Thor," said Morimitsu.

"Hey, the goal is to keep them here!" Curtis Sullivan replied, gesturing towards the audience.

"I know a couple ladies that care about Thor…" Moriah chimed in, which drew a lot of laughter and applause from the female attendees.

Morimitsu delved back in to his theory, showing some infographics about how the MCU ties together. "Thor says that Earth is ready for a new type of warfare because they were fudging around with the tesseract, which brings us to Thanos. He would've never noticed us if not for that!"

On to the DC side of things, the first stop was the state of the DC Television Universe, namely Flash and Arrow. Moriah Hummer guided us through, talking about the shared universe established between those two shows, as well and making the distinction that the other DC shows on the air currently, such as Gotham and iZombie, are NOT a part of this universe. She touched on the fact that Legends of Tomorrow will be sharing the continuity of the Flash and Arrow shows, and she had a hard time containing her excitement for Supergirl. "Finally, a female lead!" From the response the audience gave her, she clearly isn't the only one excited to see Kara fly onto our screens in November.

Before handing off the mic, Hummer explained that the DC movies and TV shows are remaining separate from each other, though maybe they could be related through a larger multiverse. To refresh, Batman and Superman are still off limits for TV, which will be interesting to see how Supergirl manages to work around him. "Things are weird and we all know it."

Curtis Sullivan took to the podium to tackle the DC film slate, starting with the things we know so far: "Superman plus Zod equals mass destruction and people are sad. This will inspire Batman to get in the fray?" He then went on to introduce photos of the Justice League lineup (Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, and Momoa) before mentioning David Ayer's Suicide Squad movie, which he dubbed "the most over-leaked movie in history."

Sullivan then threw a picture of Jared Leto's joker onto the screen, which led to a booing break from the audience. The panelists were also shaking their heads, and Nathan Scott began to quote the "Joker's New Tattoo" cartoon that hit the web shortly after the photo was released, saying "cuz he's all messed up, y'know!"

Despite the fact that there was some anti-DC sentiment floating around the room and the panel, Curtis Sullivan managed to bring it back and talk about some things in an optimistic light. He began bringing up the panels and dialogue that has been almost directly adapted in various DC films, and had compiled a list of comics for people to read to see these inspirations. "Movie directors are really smart and wonderful people… sometimes. But they don't just find this stuff by themselves," Nathan Scott said after Curtis concluded his bit of the presentation.

The last bit of the panel was a short Q&A, where there were plenty of questions about the grim and gritty tone of DC films compared to the fun and exciting and bright Marvel films.

"I wish there was a solid answer to that," Sullivan responded to one of those questions. "They want to create a contrast to Marvel. Are they too dark? Yes. Do I love them less? No."

Moriah Hummer chimed in to touch on the topic as well. "The reason they fundamentally changed Superman was because they fundamentally changed Jonathan Kent." People laughed when Sullivan then did a bit of a reenactment of the tornado scene from Man of Steel.

As the panel closed out, attendees were given a random free comic from a longbox that the panelists brought with them. Nathan Morimitsu ended the panel by telling the audience that they will next be doing panels at the first annual Fort Collins Comic Con!

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