D23 Expo First Impressions: Marvel panel disappoints fans
Today at D23 Expo was a major disappointment for Marvel fans. The first panel this morning, some hardcore fans had lined up for hours to ensure they were among those admitted to the D23 Arena. Hours of anticipation and waiting were basically for nothing as the panel revealed very little new information.
The purpose of the panel, called a Cup O’ Joe by the presenter Chief Creative Office Joe Quesada, seemed to be to catch all the Disney fans up on just what the heck Marvel is and why it belongs in the Disney family. After an hour of learning about the history of the company, which I won’t go into here as it’s basically a straight Wikipedia page reading, they finally showed some footage. But the fans did not start lining up at 5am to get a history lesson from their beloved Marvel.
It’s incredibly sad when the highlight of the panel was the screening of all the post-credit scenes that hinted to a greater, overarching universe. Playing all those scenes starting with the first IRON MAN leading all the way to the THE AVENGERS trailer after this summer’s CAPTAIN AMERICA was a great recap. It truly was interesting to see them all pieced together like that, but by no means is it worthy of being called a “highlight.”
They couldn’t even show the new AVENGERS footage from yesterday. While I’m sure many of the people in the half-filled arena attended yesterday’s panel, there were many that didn’t and those that had seen it would have been happy to see it again. Many had hoped that the stars who briefly paraded out on stage during the Disney Movies Panel would make a lengthier appearance here. Unfortunately, not a single one was in sight. The entire panel was Joe, talking about Marvel and how great working with Disney is. The panel ended on a Q&A that didn’t reveal much, but hinted at the fact that many were disappointed. Questions included wondering why there was no big booth display on the floor like there was at San Diego Comic-Con and if Disney’s animation is going to affect any of their cartoons.
After the Q&A, many stunned fans just stayed in their seats hoping that wasn’t the end of the entire panel. And while they played a slideshow of pictures of people in Marvel costumes from Comic-Con, it just further proved that this did not live up to what could have been. At Comic-Con, this panel would not have been half full and relegated to Sunday. He would not have had to spoon-feed Marvel history to the uninitiated, but rather could have just jumped in to talking about THE AVENGERS and other upcoming projects. He may have been able to utilize the attending cast to actually give insider information about the filming experience currently in New York. But we’ll never know what could have been, instead we were stuck with Marvel 101 for Beginners with absolutely no new footage and hardly any new information.