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.

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.

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.

To see what we hope to cover, head to the Calendar section. If we're lucky, Robert will post pics of sexy slave Leias.

We want to give a major shout out to former contributor Josiah Thomas for helping make this possible!

Announced in late February 2010, the iPad is the Apple slate device everyone knew was going to happen. It's a 10" touch screen device - arguably a "large iPod Touch". It runs the iPhone OS and will run iPhone OS apps, as well as apps tailored for the iPad hardware. On April 2, Marvel announced an app that will undoubtedly change their company forever. They released the Marvel Comics iPad app.

First question: "How will I save money on (luxury expense) comics by buying a (luxury expense) reading device?" Good question, imaginary voice. The truth is, it's going to be a long term investment, no doubt about that. The iPad starts at $500 and works its way up to $830, with six models total. Many people are saying that's way too expensive for a device that doesn't even run a full version of Mac OSX (let alone Adobe Flash). But there are still a variety of applications (not program applications, use case applications) that cannot be denied and if it dropped even $100 in price, a whole lot more people would be convinced to buy it. Still, let's get back to brass tacks. $500 is the equivalent of about 140 issues at an average of $3.50. That's the device with no content yet. Now, the Marvel app offers a few freebies to get you into the game, with hints of ongoing offers of free issues to spur sales. That's not bad, especially when it's modern books like New Avengers or Thor from the beginning.

Here's the real news: Issues are $2 a pop. Temporary price? Maybe, but that's still significantly cheaper than print. I don't even remember when prints were $2; I got into "collecting" when I was 16 and books were $2.25. That's still not a huge difference from $3.5, which means that it'll take about 350 issues to break even (yes, I did the math, 0+3.5x vs 500+2x). If you buy 5 issues a week (say you're following 20 montly titles), it'll take 70 weeks to break even and start saving money on the iPad. Again, long term investment. It's not the answer to reducing issue prices during the recession, but it's a start.

So the next question is, "How do I justify spending money on an iPad just to read slightly cheaper comics?" Another good question, imaginary friend. Like I said, the iPad has various use case applications. The mail client, the map use, reading traditional books (Kindle app), there are lots of ways to change the way you use traditional paper/electronic products. Of course, if you read my Kindle 2 review, you'll see one of my arguments for it is not only the money savings, but also the space savings. Books are heavy; Comic books are heavier! Three 12-issue hardcover books weigh 8lbs. I'm currently sitting on 14 books by my bed that need a new bookshelf, one that supports 40lbs just for them alone. Heavy. With digital comics on the iPad, a never changing 1.5lb device, physical space becomes a non-issue. Of course, depending on what storage capacity model you get, you may need to store the bulk of your library on Marvel's servers. Thankfully, Marvel allows you to delete local copies and re-download them from the app to the iPad. That could make licensing rules more relaxed than current rules for devices like Kindle, which has a secret limit on re-downloads that are dictated by the publisher, but not disclosed. We'll see how that works when people start pushing it.]

But still, this app has a lot of promise for getting people (back) into comics. Get onto a device that people may be buying for other reasons, but provide a cheaper price than print, with various freebies. If and when I get an iPad, the Marvel app will be on there. In fact, I actually have it on my iPhone with a couple freebies already on it. It's not the best reading experience, but the page turning experience and even pane transition is amazing. It's not "animated", but the intentional pan and zooming does something that print has not ever been able to do - keep the surprise of the next pane/page. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet address the problem of centerfold art that covers both pages. If the portrait mode supports both pages, it might work out, but it'll take some interesting designer work to make portrait mode working for large panes. Of course, a lot of people are wondering where the DC app is, but we'll have to wait for DC's parent company Warner Bros to deal with licensing (I guess I'm not sure about Disney's involvement in the Marvel print distribution as of right now).

If you've got an iPhone, download the free app and any freebies. You may not get an iPad (at least immediately), but you can still see how well this app works and get some free content out of it. With Marvel's catalog still pretty limited, it may be a while until you're even capable of buying enough comics to make it cost effective. Marvel still has a lot of work to do to make this app a viable supplement, let alone complement, to the traditional reading experience. I want the iPad to allow comics to survive and evolve into a new era.

A major change to Marvel is coming, relating to ol' green jeans, The Incredible Hulk. Last year, the title that brought us Planet Hulk and World War Hulk was shockingly renamed to "The Incredible Hercules", starring the mythical half-god instead of Hulk. Hulk took a leave of absense when Jeph Loeb (who has yet to get the hint that he should go back to DC) started the new determiner-less "Hulk" title, starring a red Hulk, now known as Rulk. Now that Rulk has been rampaging for a year and a half, it's time for a Christmas-themed showdown. Hulk and Rulk will be smacking down in an arc called World War Hulks. Yes, they're re-using the title. Not only do they copy the Hulk, they copy the title.

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That said, there are plenty of comics available for kids. Major publishers liek Marvel and DC have realized that their revenue generating books are no longer for the kiddies and that if they want to get a new audience that will hopefully get into the more mature material, they gotta aim young. That's why they've actually create new sizes of books with more appropriate material that is perfect to get kids into reading and what we in the 'biz call "sequential art".

Marvel has what they call "Digest" sizes, which are smaller books, perfect for kids. Essentially, they're tiny versions of trade paperbacks, but they're unique material written for children.  DC has similar books pertaining to major characters and teen teams. As you can see with this example, the art isn't terrible, but it definitely doesn't have the sophistication of modern, mainstream comics. There aren't the more mature themes of sex, drugs and rock and roll, but they focus more on just fighting crime. The language is simplified, adapted for younger readers, meaning that these make great books to get kids to read since Goosebumps isn't what it used to be (in my day).

If you're a parent, I highly recommend taking a look at these at your local comic book store. Books are usually about $5-$10 a pop. I would definitely recommend Runaways from Marvel and The Batman from DC.