It's that time of the year, when 125,000 nerds and their girlfriends/moms flock to San Diego for the San Diego Comic Con International. This is my second time here and I learned a lot from my first experience. Luckily, I was able to get here on Tuesday, along with getting the full 4-day pass with Preview Night. I've been able to see a lot more of the downtown area, but the real reason I'm here is for Comic Con.

As of Tuesday 2pm, about 60 people were in line for Hall H, with no doubt that they're here for Twilight. They were actually here so early, they couldn't get into line, because there was no line, so they were just relocated to the lawn, where they popped up tents and hopefully some way of taking care of bodily business. Seriously ladies, there's no need for you to get there that early. You don't know what Comic Con is, you're just here in hopes that you can breathe the same hair as people who hate being in these movies and hate you for loving them. You're making Comic Con sound worse than the stabbing incident from last year. I'd rather Comic Con be known as the place where people get stabbed than camp out 48+ hours in advance for a teen fad movie.

Aside from that, we arrived at the convention center about 8:30am on Thursday to get Lisa's ticket for the 9:30 opening. Those with badges already from last night could go right in, but those just getting their badges got directed to a line that immediately went outside, with no way of getting back in the building until 9:30. A lot of confused faces and impatient people. Finally, they let us in and we were off. Best idea was to walk around the big booths and get a good look before it got too crowded. As we weaved in and out of the aisles, I saw Peter Mayhew being pushed in a wheelchair; no one recognized him. It's sad that someone whose movie character is 100% recognizable cannot be identified without it. I would have stopped him to say hi, but the man's in a wheelchair and probably off to his small booth, so I just let him go.

Best costumes so far: Apothecary from Assassin's Creed 2, a centaur, a few lady X-Men (they always have better costumes than men, your ripped t-shirt and facial hair do not make you Wolverine), Cobra Commander. Costume that we can be done with: Anything Super Mario related. Please, your overalls, mustache and hat are not impressive.

As sad as it may be, I'm kinda over the show floor. I've been to other cons before and I mainly just zoom by the things I want to see and leave. The panels are the real fun. Unfortunately, not a lot of panels that interest me today, so I hit up the hotel to rest my feet, upload pics and be closer to the House of Blues for tonight's Diggnation.

As always, check the photo gallery for all the pics.

Clearly, it's been forever since we posted in the Comics category, so it's only fitting that this go here. I just arrived in beautiful San Diego and have plenty of time to see the sights before preview night begins tomorrow and the real show kicks off on Thursday. I've been going over the schedule and it looks like Thursday will be the show floor finishing with Diggnation, Friday will be Ballroom 20 followed by Totally Rad Show, and Saturday will be Hall H, which won't have the big Marvel extravaganza from last year. Hopefully I'll be able to take better footage than last year; I learned a lot from my experience and hope to cover it much better!

I know I'm about 5 years too late, but after regaining a portion of what I lost during the great comic deluge of 2009, I want to talk about the New Avengers before they disappear altogether (about that).

For anyone out of the loop, the New Avengers is the team that succeeds the traditional Avengers post-Disassembled (thank you, Bendis). It's half previous Avengers, half "would never be Avengers". The concept started off as fantastic. It offered a fresh look on Marvel's answer to the "Justice League", one that wasn't all American heroes. The public image of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" is tarnished with the likes of Wolverine, Luke Cage and Spider-Man. Many of the new recruits are street heroes that would never be caught on a "team". How do they end up as "Earth's Mightiest Heroes"? Totally by accident. Or fate. Depends who you ask.

The New Avengers series begins six months after the Scarlet Witch went bat crazy and killed several team mates, including her husband, The Vision (yes, the android, [it's legal now]). The Avengers mansion is in ruins and everyone is on their own. Disassembled, like Heroes Reborn before it, offered Marvel a way to "start from scratch" with new rules. One night, during a civilian visit to The Raft, Marvel's answer to Arkham Asylum, a breakout results in the entire enemy dossier to escape. That's when Spider-Man notices and swings on over, only to be intercepted by Captain America. The heroes on the island, there by chance, collaborate to contain the breakout and save the day. After the issue is settled, Cap and Iron Man compare the teamwork to the first Avengers team and how they assembled "by fate". Tony dismisses the theory, but isn't against a new team. By the second story arc, the New Avengers have a new base and a new team, even members they don't even know (Ronin). Over the five years of the series, the roster changed, people died (and came back) and things were never the same (thanks again, Bendis).

For a brief time, the Avengers stopped existing just to fight off terrorist armies and outrageous villains from generations ago. It became about fighting crime, because that's what the new members of the Avengers did before joining. Spider-Man and Luke Cage are thug fighting street cleaners, not trained SHIELD operatives. Wolverine's not a diplomat, he's a trained killing machine, and he's the best there is at what he does. How on earth do the Avengers manage to keep their image clean? By keeping a public image with the help of their SHIELD members.

Of course, the nature of New Avengers changed during Civil War. The Avengers disassembled once again, this time splitting the team in two, the New Avengers (led by Captain America) and Mighty Avengers (led by Iron Man). This is where things get crazy. The Superhuman Registration Act, the hanging sword that has plagued the X-Men franchise for years, was swift and painful. It divided the hero community, much like it did the entire country. It was an actual polarizing topic. Post 9/11, in a world where we balance security and privacy, heroes, who risk their own lives to save total strangers, are fugitives. If you don't register with the government, disclosing your identity (not necessarily to the public), you will be arrested and sent to what can only be described as Gitmo in another dimension. This is why comic book stores still exist. People want to come in and discuss how they feel about registration. No more "Who would win?" discussions that plagued my time working at Mayhem. Of course, the climax came with the death of Captain America, an event that made national news as a serious thing. Captain America, the key to the US victory in WWII (in the comics, of course), died for the liberty to conceal one's identity for the protection of their loved ones. It's just too bad that he came back.

The unfortunate habit that Bendis got into with New Avengers was that there was always a major crossover event preventing them from being a team. Characters like Sentry, Ronin (either one), Doctor Strange and Iron Fist served as plot devices and not as actual members of the team. They come as go after they've served their functions, leaving the core team less than heartbroken. I even have some trouble figuring in Spider-Man's transformative "Brand New Day" experience, but it's just one of those things you have to ignore.

There's plenty to love about New Avengers, from the writing (all by Bendis) and the art, which changes from arc to arc. I have trouble choosing my favorite between David Finch and Leinil Francis Yu, their art fits the tone of the material as well as I've ever seen. It's just too bad that things started to derail into "Dark Reign" and "Siege", which was the last event of the Bendis era. Now, with the "Heroic Age", things are back to normal, but there are still multiple Avengers teams, but they seem to be organized. If you like the Avengers (or want to), but you're not a fan of the overly grand scale of the Ultron/Doom/Galactus stories, New Avengers is definitely the antithesis of that. It's superheroes fighting street crime, superhuman crime and criminal superheroes. It's a finite series that that won't tie you into a a commitment, so you owe it to yourself to experience one of the best things to happen to Marvel in the last 10 years.

It's been a turbulent 6 years for the Marvel U, and now it's time to cool down. What started with Brian Michael Bendis dissassembling the Avengers eventually turned into House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign and Seige. As fantastic as some of these stories have been, readers are feeling exhausted and alienated. Anyone who hasn't read Marvel books in the past 5-10 years (see my middle-aged coworker) isn't going to recognize any teams and just dismiss the whole thing as not being the kind of comics they used to read. As someone who has been keeping up with it, even I'm fed up. Time to step back and enjoy some stories.

That's where Heroic Age comes in. Starting May 2010, Marvel has changed some gears to balance out "classic" stories without sacrificing some of the progress they've made. Unfortunately, there will still be multiple Avengers teams: Avengers (traditional heroes), New Avengers (Luke Cage's vigilante team), Secret Avengers (Steve Rogers's black ops team) and Avengers Academy (successor to Avengers Initiative). There will be team crossover and the other Marvel stories will acknowledge it, but hopefully this will mean that things get back to normal, without conspiracies and wars. What I would really like to see is the X-Men line stop having so many events, but that's never going to happen. Basically, if you haven't read X-Men books since before 2005, you're out of luck.

Will Heroic Age save Marvel from a nonsensical self destruction and finally allow new readers back? Here's hoping so, but those inflated issue prices aren't very welcoming. If you can spare $3 a pop, feel free, but you may need to wait until it comes out in trades. If you've got an iPad, however, I strongly recommend you get your books there.

Note: Feeling left out and can't pay to catch up? Go to the Marvel Database and spend your sleepless nights finding out who was really a Skrull.

Source: ugo.com

Of course, it wouldn't be Comic Con without talk about actual comics! Well, I don't have the best current story information (mostly because I've been out of the loop since Secret Invasion), but I did get to see Stan "The Man" Lee.

I had to get in line pretty early and sit through a terrible panel for Marvel Super Hero Squad (there's no way kids care about voice actor panels), but I got in. Not the best seat, but while they were in between panels, I noticed the name plate for the moderator - Todd McFarlane. Holy eff. I was going to be in the same room as two of my favorite comic creators ever.

Todd came out to introduce Gil Champion, Stan's co-creator of POW! Entertainment (Purveyors of Wonder), which brought us the likes of Stripperella (who actually appeared in the flesh - lots of flesh!) and Who Wants to Be a Superhero?. It was basically just a plug for their new projects, but no one could really care less, we were just there to see Stan! So without much ado, Smilin' Stan came out to chat with Todd about his creative process and how he came up with characters like Spider-Man and Thor. Unlike the impression he may give on screen, Stan has a few marbles loose. That's fine, but Todd was really trying to run a serious discussion to benefit the audience. He talked about Dr. Fredric Wertham, who paved the way for the Comics Code Authority. We all know Todd and Stan have a great relationship, but I'll be damned if Todd's patience wasn't being tested. Stan loves telling stories, but there's a reason he writes them down and doesn't orate them. "Oooh! Remind me to tell you about the romance stories I used to write!"

Overall, I'm honored to have been in the same room as Stan Lee. I couldn't get an autograph or picture taken with him, but with any luck, I'll meet up with him next year.