Appendix N Review: The Guns of Avalon

Released two years after Nine Princes in Amber, 1972's The Guns of Avalon (which is a stellar title, by the way) picks up where the first book left off. Corwin, recently escaped from brutal captivity in the dungeons of Amber, travels through shadow worlds to find his lost domain, Avalon. Or at least something close enough to it. Corwing needs two things to conquer Amber: an army, and guns that will work in Amber's magical environment.

He arrives in the land of Lorraine, a medieval kingdom close to Avalon and once ruled by a shadow of Corwin (just go with it, it can get complicated). He rescues a version of Lancelot from weird cat demons, and then finds a castle run by Ganelon, a man who used to be one of Corwin's chief lieutenants in Avalon until he betrayed his lord and was exiled. Recovering his strength in Lorraine, he meets and forms a relationship with a woman named Lorraine, earns Ganelon's trust, and helps lead their armies against hideous demons who are pouring out of an expanding zone of Chaos. This is Corwin's fault, because of the heavy curse he laid on his brother Eric in the first book.

Lorraine (the realm) is saved, but Lorraine (the woman) is lost, and Corwin avenges her in a brief but moving scene, then he and Ganelon travel to Avalon, only to find Corwin's long-lost and presumed dead brother Benedict acting as its protector against a Chaos incursion. The brothers are cordial, but Benedict wants no upheaval in Amber, so Corwin watches what he says around him. Corwin also meets Dara, a beautiful young woman who identifies herself as Benedict's granddaughter who takes an intimate interest in Corwin.

Corwin gets his army and his arsenal, and travels back to Amber, only to find it under siege from the forces of Chaos.

The book starts out extremely strong by dialing things back to Corwin getting involved in a smaller-scale conflict. It helps his conscience grow more and gives the reader glimpses into his more tyrannical past. Ganelon did him wrong, but his punishment was enormously petty. The doomed relationship with the camp follower/seer Lorraine is also touching, and Corwin swinging his silver sword Grayswandir against weird goat-headed demons never gets old.

Then it slows down a lot after the reunion with Benedict. Dara is interesting and mysterious, but its mostly talking, then Corwin walking through shadows until he gets to a couple places he needs to go. Shadow walking is cool, but it doesn't need to be described in detail every single time.

Then it picks right back up again when Corwin and Ganelon leave Avalon and are chased by a righteously furious Benedict. Benedict is the Master of Arms of Amber, and even with an amputated hand, he's still the best swordsman in the family and Corwin is absolutely terrified of having to fight him. From there, its a rocket ride to the finish, where Corwin's feud with Eric takes an abrupt turn and Dara turns out to be more than just a granddaughter.

The prose remains solid, but I felt the middle of the book dragged itself down. However, the beginning and ending are as strong as anything in Nine Princes, maybe even more so with the climax. If you've read the first book, I recommend the second.

Old Video Games: Torin's Passage

This one is going to take some context to explain while I wax nostalgic.

In the summer of 1996, my family went to Disney World. So did I. Long story short: great time. However, Epcot Center had a big push for technology and computers and gaming tech. I specifically remember being stoked by a Sega Saturn display because it was only a year old in North America and not a lost cause yet. One of the buildings had a bunch of PCs set up and this was a big deal for me because we didn't get a Windows PC until November (Packard Bell, if you must know and want a laugh). One of those PCs had a point-and-click adventure game set in a weird fantasy world with a crazy art style and a likable doof of a protagonist trying to rescue his family who'd been kidnapped by evil magic. Typical stuff, but it was charming, and gorgeous in a way that was above King's Quest. I spent about half an hour bumbling around clueless because Point-and-Click Adventure Game, but it left a huge impression. I never even learned the name of the game, so it remained an illusive mystery to me after we left Florida.

Well, I finally beat it. Twenty-two years later. I even know its name.

Its called Torin's Passage, from legendary adventure game developer Sierra On-Line and designed by the equally legendary Al Lowe, father of the Leisure Suit Larry series of bawdy classics.

From a gameplay standpoint, the puzzles are mostly straightforward, with a few trickier mazes and pattern things. (I used a guide because I wanted to get through it in a reasonable amount of time. I'll be honest when I'm being a filthy casul). The difficulty is very forgiving compared to King's Quest, and dying will present you with a funny message and drop you back to where you were before you did the thing that killed you.

Presentation is amazing. The backgrounds are hand drawn, while the character animations have quite a bit of Don Bluth's style to them. The voice acting is top notch for the era, with most of the cast comprised of journeyman character and voice actors who are still working today. Torin was voiced by Michael Shapiro who has done the voices for Barney and the G Man in all of the Half-Life games (which were originally published by Sierra).

The writing is solid, too. Lowe's comedy chops shine, and while its clearly family-friendly, some of his trademark bawdiness peeks through. Poop jokes are all-ages, after all. Its not quite on the Monkey Island level of comedy, but it does have some great bits, like the random black & white sitcom family, The Bitternuts.

Torin's Passage is incredibly charming, and if you like 90s-style Point-And-Click Adventure Games (specifically the Sierra-style), then its a good one of those. Sadly, it was released at the tail end of Sierra's golden age, and never got a sequel. Its available on GOG.

That's it for the gameplay review. Now for story bits. There might be spoilers.

Sometimes Torin looks all noble and heroic

The basic plot is... kind of basic. Torin's a young man looking for adventure when all of a sudden his family is kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. A cloaked man who is in no way obviously evil tells him it was the sorceress Lycentia, who lives in the World Below. Torin sets out to find her to make her free them. He takes his shapeshifting purple & green cat-thing Boogle with him (who isn't that annoying).

What really stands out are three things.

1: The worldbuilding. There isn't a whole lot of it, but what's there is great. It takes the Hollow Earth concept and turns it into a matroyshka doll. There are four worlds within the planet of Strata, each one weirder than the last. Crystals are a big part of this world, with giant blocks of them all over the planet, even on the surface. Travel between worlds is achieved through crystal portals and magic sand. And solving puzzles.

Male Gaze REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2: The second world, Escarpa, sets up a love interest, the Princess Leenah. The locals politely refer to her as having a wonderful personality, leading Torin to think she's ugly. He meets her on the third world, Pergola, and she's a beautiful redhead. See, she's ugly by their standards. Naturally the two start falling for each other, but their duties pull them in separate directions and she goes back to her level while Torin presses on. Its a sweet little romance and played 100% straightforward. I just wish it wasn't a subplot that gets resolved halfway through the story when it would've been more effective if she turned into his Dejah Thoris.

3: While the main storyline is lighthearted comedy fun, the backstory is anything but. It starts with a magical assassination of a king and queen. Their baby escapes through the quick thinking of the family nanny. Each subsequent chapter follows the fallout of that, with the nanny eventually being exiled to the Land Below. Gloomy stuff, and it connects to the main plot because A) Torin's the lost prince, which is no surprise and B) the Nanny turns out to be Lycentia, which is more of a surprise. It also makes the happy ending a touch more happy when multiple wrongs are righted.

And sometimes Torin looks like a complete doof

The story may lean heavily on cliché, but it does so wisely, which is to its credit.

Appendix N Review: The Face in the Frost

On a world dominated by a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom divided by a large river, a late spring day brings surprises to an eccentric home near the village of Brakespeare. Inside lives an old wizard named Prospero (expressly stated to NOT be the one you're thinking of). He gets a sense that something would very much like to kill him but isn't strong enough. His friend Roger Bacon (yes, THAT one, the monk who made a talking bronze head) arrives to pay a friendly call and the two get caught up in a magical mystery of who is trying to kill Prospero and why.

1969's The Face in the Frost is a curious book from John Bellairs, a fantasist who mainly wrote young adult gothic mysteries about young heroes overcoming some supernatural threat to the world. Those all came after this novel, however. Here, two old men have to solve a supernatural threat that might threaten the world, or at the least throw two kingdoms into chaos and war.

It is a short book, but very dense in descriptions. The two kingdoms are lushly described as they are visited, and Prospero's house is a marvel of whimsical engineering. The overall level of whimsy in the story is incredibly high, as is the comedy, such as when Prospero and Roger visit King Gorm the Wonderworker, a hobbyist wizard who spends his days happily tinkering away with a cosmic pinball machine that uses miniature galaxies as pieces. Prospero has a passive-aggressive magic mirror that likes to show him baseball games of the Cubs losing. Christianity is woven into the fabric of this world, as are other assorted mystical traditions, and there's even what's very obviously a Jewish wizard who helps out later on with the powers of the Kabbalah.

If this kind of free-flowing kitchen sink approach to worldbuilding annoys you, you're probably going to have a bad time. Especially since Bellairs is able to smoothly transition from whimsical charm to supernatural horror. This is not Lovecraftian horror, but much more like unvarnished fairy tale horror. Creepy, but in a different, much more chaotic way.

The two biggest standout scenes are the false village of Five Dials (named after its clocktower), and the haunted forest where an evil wizard and former colleague of Prospero's named Melichus was supposed to have been killed in.

   A voice breathed in Prospero's ear with a wet-leaf smell, and 

   what that voice said, Prospero has never told anyone. He turned, 

   and he grasped an arm, but his hand sank into mud—mud with a

   center like bone.

Descriptions like this abound, and therin lies the strength, and weakness of the book. Details are lovingly described, filling out what is in actuality a thin plotline. The bulk of the book is made up of episodic subplots full of magic that lead toward a final confrontation (that's a little bit anticlimactic). The descriptions are dense, and the paragraphs are too, and often quite long. Its not really pulp in that it frequently takes the time to stop and smell the roses, but it also describes the roses in excellent and entertaining detail.

Bellairs writes the pretty words good, is what I'm saying.

While it may not be to everyone's taste, I do recommend the book. (Don't let the “Ursula Le Guin loved it!” put you off. Stuff actually does happen in this story.) The wizards are suitably wizardly and solve their problems in a way that makes sense (by not making sense, this is magic, after all). Come for the charming setting and stay for the supernatural horror. Its a fun little palette cleanser between TALES OF TWO-FISTED ADVENTURE!

Pink Slime Review: The Man Who Came Late

Okay.

So. The state of Modern Sci-Fi/Fantasy is a wasteland of dreadfully dull Pink Slime. This is known, and a huge part of why sales have slumped dramatically over the last 20-30 years.

And today I read a reminder why.

Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds is an anthology book published in 2014 in tribute to the late, great Poul Anderson (who passed away in 2001, thirteen years before the anthology). Edited by prolific author Greg Bear and prolific anthology editor Gardner Dozois.

The second story of the anthology is ostensibly a tribute to Three Hearts and Three Lions by veteran Alternate History author (and friend of Anderson's) Harry Turtledove, titled The Man Who Came Late (a title tribute/pun to a completely unrelated Poul Anderson story called The Man Who Came Early).

In it, thirty years have passed since the events of the novel. Alianora has settled down in a modest village with her modest blacksmith husband, and had three modest children (a fourth died in infancy). One day, while she spends several pages getting a bucket from the town well and reminiscing about the lost past, a muscular older man rides into town and recognizes her.

It is Holger Carlsen, and after thirty years of searching across the multiverse, he has finally returned to her. They have an awkward reunion where he meets her family and then they have dinner and discuss things and Holger works through his realization that the woman he spent thirty years' wandering the multiverse to return to has moved on, and then he walks into a dimensional wandering tavern to speak with Morgan Le Fay (one of the primary villains of the novel) and...that's it.

That's literally it.

The introduction to the story describes it as “bittersweet” but there is no sweetness here. There is no magic either. No Middle World. No Elfland. Oh sure, the magical white tunic that allows a maiden to transform into a swan is passed down to Alianora's daughter Alianna, and there is the Old Phoenix tavern that appears and disappears, but there's no real magic.

Alianora's world is reduced to a mundane village. There are no monsters to slay. No elves. No werewolves. No dragons. No dwarves. No nothing.

Everything that made this alternate world unique has been stripped away piece by piece.

Alianora's accent disappearing is hand-waved as she changed it to accommodate her village. Never mind that EVERYONE in this world spoke that way. (I suspect its a way to excuse not putting in effort to write the accent, which if so, why even bother to write the story in the first place?)

Alianora hasn't traveled far from her village since the novel, nevermind that she was a child of the woods with no roots who wandered freely as a friend of the Middle Worlders and beasts.

People are surprised at Holger's Christianity, never mind that Christianity was ubiquitous in the novel where a sword powered by literal Jesus Magic saved the day. But no, we must be secular.

At least Alianora gets a content ending, if not a happy one. Holger gets it far, far worse.

He rides in as a Quixotic figure in blue jeans and flannel. Despite having wandered the multiverse for 30 years. He gave up smoking because SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOU, KIDS DON'T DO IT. Never mind that the pipe he had was a memento of the loyal dwarf Hugi, who GAVE HIS LIFE for Holger's quest. He is cold and prideful, where he was once a compassionate lunkhead, and quick to think about using his sword when Alianora's husband gives him the side-eye. He patronizingly calls Alianora “Babe” several times, despite never once using that word in the novel. Then when he meets her pretty daughter Alianna, he begins to fixate his attention on her in a creepy old man way. 

Then, after an evening of talking, he goes into the wandering Old Phoenix Tavern (from another of Anderson's stories, A Midsummer Tempest where Holger had an appearance) to meet with Morgan Le Fay, one of the primary villains of Three Hearts and a woman Holger had a complete and total break with at the climax of the novel, despite their previous relationship history. The nods to other Anderson works are clever, but that's all they are, and are the only flashes of magic in the story.

Holger and Alianora's whole encounter is about her trying to let him down gently, even though he spent the last 30 years adventuring across worlds trying to find her again. 30 years moving forward through peril because of her. And instead of love, Turtledove calls it “pride.” 

Holger isn't Holger anymore. That character has been assassinated and replaced with a miserable old fool.

And the point of the story is apparently to show how the world treats a hero a generation after his war and how the world moves on. The story lets you know this by literally putting “Yes, that was the point,” in Alianora's mouth when Holger comes to this conclusion.

In short, everything about the world and characters that made them unique and loveable, from the magic to the culture to the weirdness to Holger's blockheaded goodness, are stripped away and replaced by stewpots, housework, and boring people living boring lives. Faerieland and the forces of Chaos have been replaced by something far more sinister: “Realism.”

Its a dozen or so pages of boring people talking. Then the next morning, Alianora asks her daughter for the white tunic again. Alianna agrees.

And that's it.

THAT'S FUCKING IT. THIS STORY IS A PIECE OF SHIT.

Read Three Hearts and Three Lions. Read Anderson's other works. Hell, read Turtledove's other works. Avoid this bitter piece of deconstructionist garbage.

Appendix N Review: The Tower of the Elephant

In a rowdy section of the “City of Thieves” in sweltering Zamoria, a young Conan stalks the streets seeking adventure. In a tavern, he hears a Kothian slaver talking about a fabulously valuable jewel: the Heart of the Elephant, which sits in the mysterious Tower of the Elephant in the heart of the city. It is the treasure of the sorcerer Yara, and all who have tried to enter the tower have met with horrible death.

Desiring to be the first to succeed, Conan gets the information he desires from the fat slaver, tensions flare and in a brief tavern brawl, the slaver from Koth lies dead on the floor and the Cimmerian stalks toward the tower.

Sneaking into the tower, Conan finds another intruder, Taurus, the self-proclaimed “King of Thieves.” Deciding that two heads are better than one, the two join forces and infiltrate the sinister tower.

Cover art by José Ladrönn

Appearing in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales, The Tower of the Elephant was published two months after The Scarlet Citadel. Here, Robert E. Howard takes a different approach to the first two Conan stories by going back to his barbarian hero's past. Years before taking the throne of Aquilonia, young Conan is a wandering thief in a foreign land that has barely heard of Cimmeria. For his part, Conan doesn't know what an elephant looks like either, aside from knowing it has a tail on its face. The perils within the Tower are suitably perilous, and the solutions are clever and exciting, particularly how Conan and Taurus deal with several deadly lions that guard the garden at the base of the tower.

Its a good story, and short. It hits all of Howard's strengths (action, tension, descriptions of the exotic, dark humor, etc) and while a little more straightforward than The Scarlet Citadel (which I think is a slightly better story) is still absolutely recommended and worth reading.

So go read it, because the next part is going to cover BIG spoilers.

I'm not joking.

Cover by Earl Norem

Still here? Don't say I didn't warn you.

This is the story where Conan meets a space alien. Yeah, that's plenty Weird Tales right there. Trapped inside the tower is an ancient, blind, green-skinned humanoid with a giant elephant's head. Yag-Kosha, or Yogha, as he calls himself (he uses both names), is from the distant planet Yag, and he was part of a group of exiles who flew to Earth on great wings. On Earth, the Yagians slowly died out, their wings atrophied to nothing and unable to leave, with Yag-Kosha the last survivor.

Having watched humans arise over centuries, he was eventually befriended by Yara, whom he taught many powerful secrets. Yara betrayed him, and imprisoned him, and now he sees Conan as a chance at escape. And revenge.

Art by Sanjulián

Naturally Conan is confused as hell, but his solution is to accept the situation as-is. Yag-Kosha is a funny-looking weirdo, but he's a nice guy, and clearly in misery. Conan's sympathy (and dislike of slavery) makes his decision for him. He'll help the elephant-man, even if it means losing out on the jewel.

As in The Scarlet Citadel, this crude kind of virtue is what sets Conan apart from later pastiches. When the chips are down, Conan actually does the right thing, as opposed to the profitable thing, even if the results don't go quite as he intended (doubly so when magic is involved). Conan always gives off the impression of a coiled spring ready to jump, but his decision-making process is what sets him up as a fully heroic character. The weirdness and violence he finds himself surrounded by is just icing on that cake.

Art by John Howe

Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka

In the Fall of 1983, Del Rey published the last of the Lando Calrissian Adventures, Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka. Like the rest of L. Neil Smith's trilogy, it mixes gambling, comedy, Lando trying to find peaceful solutions to problems, Libertarian themes, and a hefty dose of weirdness.

This time, Lando and his astrogator/flight instructor Vuffi Raa meet and befriend a giant space manta that can naturally fly through hyperspace. His name is Lehesu and he's an Oswaft. Lehesu wanders innocently through the Centrality sector, but in doing so he draws the attention of the Centrality and Imperial Navies, who follow him to his home nebula of ThonBoka (literally “Starcave” in their language) and blockade it, slowly starving the Oswaft.

Deciding to help them, Lando runs food through the blockade by conning and gambling his way through the fleet, and plot threads draw to a conclusion. The strange renegades with a grudge against Vuffi Raa are fully explained, Rokur Gepta's origins and the fate of the Sorcerers of Tund are revealed, and we finally get to meet Vuffi Raa's parents. All this, and Lando teaches space mantas how to play Sabacc.

Its a weird, wild ride that takes place almost exclusively in space. There's a brief side trip to Tund, but that's a dead world thanks to Rokur Gepta. Lando is either onboard spaceships or is floating around in a space suit. The banter between Lando & Vuffi Raa remains a huge part of the series' charm and even their goodbye is handled with bittersweet wit.

Much like Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, there's a melancholy edge to this story. Lando's adventures in the Centrality are coming to an end, and he's going to go off with enough treasure to buy himself a city and an urge to settle down and become a legitimate businessman. The party's over and Lando needs to return to the Galaxy at large for the movies to take their course.

Its a satisfying conclusion to a fun ride. Not quite as quick-paced as The Han Solo Adventures, but Lando's a different kind of scoundrel. Han's general solution to problems is to shoot his way out, and Lando only kills two people in this entire trilogy. Instead, this trilogy hammers home the theme that Lando is a weirdness magnet, which would carry through into later stories.

I recommend it, but its not essential tier like Daley's Han Solo trilogy or Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. In the 90s this trilogy was also reprinted as an omnibus, which is a good way to get it.

Appendix N Review: Nine Princes in Amber

A man wakes up in a hospital bed with his legs in a cast and he is repeatedly sedated. He has vague memories of a car accident and nothing else. Discovering his body has healed from whatever injury it sustained, he escapes from the private clinic and seeks out the only lead he has to rediscovering his identity, his sister in New York City.

He is Corwin, son of Oberon, and prince and heir to the fantastic city and kingdom known as Amber. Amber is the city at the heart of all reality, the greatest prize for any conqueror. As Corwin begins to remember his past, he also begins looking to the future. He is a Prince of Amber, and he will fight to claim his birthright.

This is the premise for Roger Zelazny's 1970 novel Nine Princes in Amber. Zelazny used to be a huge name in SF/F during the New Wave era. Winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards (back when that meant something) and was a longtime friend of current SF/F elder statesman George R. R. Martin. Zelazny was hugely talented and popular in his lifetime, but after his death in 1995, he dropped immediately from the public consciousness. In his hometown of Euclid, Ohio, the suburb of Cleveland I live in, he's effectively unknown.

That's a damn shame, because Zelazny is outstanding.

Without getting too deep into spoilers because here especially the journey is as important as the destination, Corwin (and the audience) discovers that he's part of a mostly-immortal dysfunctional family with powers that can affect and shape reality the further away from Amber they get. Each has their area of expertise. Julian is a master huntsman. Bleys is a tactician. Ransom is a rascally gambler. And so on and so on. They're all pretty much arrogant bastards, including Corwin himself before his amnesia, but Eric is the worst, and seizes the throne for himself, despite Corwin's best efforts.

Taken as a whole, the book is very much a product of the early 1970s. Dialogue is snappy and full of slang peppered with Shakespearean references while everyone who matters smokes cigarettes. Its Groovy for lack of a better descriptor.

There's a car ride through different realities that takes Corwin and Ransom to the outskirts of Amber. An undersea reflection of Amber called Rebma (get it?????) where Corwin reclaims his memories by walking the Pattern (a Magical/Mathematical Maze) and has a romantic interlude with its green-haired queen. There's a grand military campaign to take Amber from Eric that nearly ends in disaster multiple times (and with staggering casualties) that also nearly succeeds. There is a coronation sequence that displays Corwin at his most defiantly heroic before several years' tortuous imprisonment.

Its only 175 pages long, but it spans years and easily outpaces anything from A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of political intrigue, backstabbing family members, outrageous magic, swordfights, and grand conflict. The squabbles of the Princes of Amber are downright Olympian in their scope, and the prose flows beautifully off the pages.

The rulers of Amber are assholes, but they are magnificent ones, and Corwin, who was once one of the biggest assholes of the family, is given a fresh start and the hints of the beginning of a redemption arc for his character.

The only major nitpick I can put down is that they nameless, effectively faceless grunts that get recruited into Corwin's war are glossed over so much that its hard to feel anything about them dying in droves. They don't matter outside of Corwin occasionally feeling sympathy for their purpose in his ambitions.

Other than that, its a wildly imaginative, colorful, and trippy journey though space and time. Zelazny must have had access to the good acid. Absolutely recommended.

Con Report: March 2018

[Use Your Imagination to Insert Picture Here Because I Didn't Really Plan This]

This weekend was my local Comic Con, and while it was a good time, the cracks in Geek Culture™ are really starting to show.

The following is going to be an unorganized recap of thoughts.

The merch stalls seem more derivative than before. Funko Pops stare blindly out at passing guests. I didn't see anybody actually buying them, though.

The genuinely unique stuff, though, was clever and inventive. There was one stand that was selling character figurines made out of colored wires in colors and poses. I'm personally not interested in buying an abstract Galactus made out of colored wires, but its unique and inventive.

The actual comic pros continue to get no real respect from the normies walking past them on the floor. I spent a while talking to two old Marvel veterans from the Shooter-DeFalco-Harras eras and they had some great stories about the late, great Mark Gruenwald. They also appreciate talking to genuine fans who know the eras that they worked in. I feel a lot better spending a little more on prints from them than buying some cheap, derivative pieces like Batman fighting Goku or something, but with weird proportions and were probably drawn in a Korean art farm or something.

John Barrowman had a really entertaining panel that got a little preachy on [current year] politics in a couple places. That's his prerogative of course, but last year Kevin Sorbo had a great panel too, and he didn't start talking to us about Jesus at random points.

Cosplay is getting more and more ambitious. There was an Imperial Fists Space Marine this year who was huge and fully ambulatory. There was another Space Marine two years ago who could barely walk.

There were more Star Trek costumes than Star Wars this year. Original series, Next Generation, DS-9 and even a lone Enterprise uniform. There was absolutely zero Star Trek: Discovery ANYTHING.

A ton of Flash T-shirts. I stopped watching the show in season 2, but its doing well. Barry is still the 2^nd worst Flash (after Bart), but whatever. I'm not bitter.

#TeamWally

No MCU actors this year. I'm assuming its because we're so close to Infinity War that the studio doesn't want anybody accidentally leaking anything.

There was one panel meant to show-off trailers for upcoming movies. They showed four trailers and spent way too much time fishing for audience discussion. Wreck-It-Ralph 2 got the biggest reaction from the audience. Solo and Venom both got super lukewarm reactions and the Infinity War trailer was the same as the one from a few months ago. Awkward, boring panel that felt like filler. I felt a little bad for the presenters.

Doctor Who was a major focus this year because John Barrowman, David Tennant and Billie Piper were there. Flash & Cyborg from the Justice League movie were there, and they had good-ish sized crowds, but the DC cinematic universe remains love-it-or-hate-it.

There was very little hype for upcoming movies. Infinity War was kind of it.

Absolutely zero Ready Player One anything.

More comic book long boxes than previous years.

There were some forced diversity panels. Didn't bother with any of them.

Batman costumes were a given. There were a solid number of Wonder Woman outfits, and a small number of the Flash and one solid Captain Boomerang. A couple Jasom Momoa Aquaman and one really, really good Mera. Nobody cares about Suicide Squad though. A couple Harley Quinns of all kinds, but absolutely ZERO Jared Leto Jokers.

The MCU had a strong presence. Guardians of the Galaxy had a good showing. Spider-Man Homecoming had good number. Black Panther had a couple good costumes. There was exactly one Carol Danvers Captain Marvel cosplayer. She had some purple hair. It was exactly what you're picturing.

There was also a really good DC/Fawcett Captain Marvel. The SHAZAM one.

Star Wars is a severely damaged brand at this point. There still were Star Wars costumes walking around, but its mostly the Original Trilogy. Vader, Luke, Han, Leia, generic Jedi, a Chewie on stilts. You know, the classics. Nothing from the Prequels (I expect that to change soon as people continue to reconsider them) and wayyyyyy less from the Sequel Trilogy than last year. A handful of Reys and a smaller number of Kylo Ren (Kylo ditching the mask in The Last Jedi is going to kill people's interest in cosplaying as him). There was one really good Hera Syndulla from Rebels, and exactly ONE Finn I saw all weekend. The only stormtroopers around were from the local 501^st Legion, which included a single Phasma but no First Order Stormtroopers. It was all Classic Imps all the way beyond that.

Let's recap to let it sink in. Disney Star Wars Cosplay at the convention included a couple Original Trilogy holdouts, a couple Girl Power Reys, and a small number of Kylo Rens with easily bought masks and lightsabers. One Finn. One group of people from Rebels.

That's it.

No Rogue One anything. No First Order troops. No Resistance troops. No classic Rebel troopers. No X-Wing pilots. No Holdo. No Poe. No General Leia. No Rose Tico. No Boba Fetts that weren't with the 501^st. A lot fewer kids dressed up in Star Wars costumes, unless they were in group costumes with their parents.

This is just one con, but even a year ago you would be swimming through Star Wars costumes on the floor.

Not only that, but one merch vendor had the Kenner Power of the Force figures from the 90s. I collected them back then. They were good toys. You could get a mint on card figure for between $5-$7, which is close to what they cost twenty years ago.

Star Wars is a rapidly sinking brand.