Comic-Con 2008 Recap: What You Want to Know

It’s that time of the year again, if you live in San Diego. On Sunday night the annual San Diego Comic-Con wrapped up and so did the announcements about where pop culture is going in the coming year. Since we were not able to attend this year, here is a run down of significant announcements from the show.

•    For Batman fans, The Dark Knight was only the beginning. Clerks and Mallrats director Kevin Smith announced that he’s penning a three-issue Batman comic book called “Cacophony” in November. Then in January 2009, Sandman and New York Times Best Selling Author, Neil Gaiman will reunite with his Marvel 1602 partner Andy Kubert for a story called “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”

•    Smallville is about to get some new cast members this fall when DC’s Legion of Superheroes joins Clark Kent for an episode.

•    Marvel’s Black Panther will be getting his own animated series on BET.

•    My Chemical Romance front-man Gerard Way received an Eisner Award for comic book series “The Umbrella Academy” from Dark Horse Comics.

•    At the Heroes panel, creator Tim Kring joined Hayden Panettiere, Zachary Quinto, Ali Larter, Masi Oka and the rest of the cast for a preview of Season Three. A preview that includes the revelation of the murderer of Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) along with Sylar (Quinto) and Clare (Panettiere) reenacting a scene from Hannibal. It is definitely not going to be Season Two.

•    Lost will start shooting its fifth season in a few weeks just in time for a February premiere. The only clue to the season premiere is “you won’t know where or when you are.” Also for Lost fans, the Dharma Initiative is looking for new recruits–just go to DharmaWantsYou.com.

•      Marvel and Stephen King will team up to produce a motion comic for iTunes based on his short story “N.” The twenty-five episode series will start on Monday.

•    Finally, Kevin Spacey appeared to announce he will be teaming up with the publisher Devils Due to produce a new web comics initiative with his talent scout agency TriggerStreet.com

These are just some of the many announcements from the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con. One thing is certain, 2009 will be an exciting year.