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Earlier today, DC Comics kicked off their C2E2 weekend in Chicago with “All Access”. The star studded panel included Bobbie Chase, Brian Azzarello, Charles Soule, Dan Jurgens, Greg Lockard, Greg Pak, Jim Chadwick, Kyle Higgins, Nicola Scott, and Scott Snyder.

While there weren’t any surprise announcements, fans got creator insight about upcoming books from Batman Eternal to Secret Origins. Here’s a few tidbits from the panel and its Q&A.

Scott Snyder kicked things off by talking about Batman. First with Batman: Eternal he explained the goal of the series is for Gotham to be “experimental. We want it to be a living, breathing place that you can experience.” Higgins also pointed out that the team is 35 issues ahead of schedule. Hopefully this will mean a smooth weekly reading experience for fans. Snyder also touched on Batman: Year Zero. He had just wrapped the final arc on the plane over to Chicago and only told fans; “It’s the most personal part of the story.”

While he didn’t give away any Bat spoilers, Snyder did give a few points from his Vertigo book, The Wake. He said, “Issue 8 is where all the crazy reveals begin.” It also came out that the books fan favorite dolphin would be safe, in fact the main character rides the dolphin down an avalanche in issue nine.

Dan Jurgens then talked about Aquaman and The Others. Jurgens teased a couple of changes coming to the group very soon. While he didn’t go into specific details, he did say the changes would tie into the upcoming Futures End series in a unique way. This statement transitioned him into talking about Futures End with his fellow panelist Azzarello. Futures End on Free Comic Book Day would start 35 years from now, until Batman Beyond travels back to five years from now. Jurgens promised the story would build to “an epic conclusion at the end of our run.”

Brian Azzarello teased the fans even further with his current work on Wonder Woman. He spoke about how much he’ll miss the character but once his five to six more issues were done that would be his last storyline. Towards the end of his pitch he ominously teased some deaths in his final arc.

The panel moved on to Soule talking about Superman/Wonder Woman and his other book Swamp Thing. He recapped some of Swampy’s current events including the appearance of Vandal Savage, whom he’s written to have a long history with various incarnations of the green. Issue 32 will see Alec Holland become “Seaweed Thing” in an underwater adventure with Aquaman.

Greg Pak then cleared up some details about the upcoming Superman “Doomed” crossover through the Superman line. Next month a one-shot written by Pak, Soule, and Scott Lobdell would kick off the event. Then, Action Comics 31 will follow the very last page of that one shot. But he noted that it’s not necessary to read every tie-in although it would give readers a richer experience.

Nicola Scott represented the Earth 2 creative team. She talked about working with Tom Taylor on one of his favorite characters. One of the funniest moments of the panel came when she said Tom wanted to write a nice Superman but instead is working on him in Earth 2 and Injustice where he’s just an “areshole.”

Higgins rounded out the group by talking about Secret Origins. He noted this was the second time he’s told a Nightwing origin in the New 52. Kyle did say a major point of the upcoming story in Secret Origins would have to do with the Robin name and promised “a nice little moment.” He also talked about Batman Beyond 2.0 which is currently crossing over with Justice League Beyond. In an upcoming issue that the reveal of what happened to Bruce Wayne during his missing year would break the internet.

With such a massive gathering of talent taking up most of the time there was only time for one question from the audience. A fan asked what DC book the creators would recommend that they don’t work on. With that DC’s first Chicago panel of the year concluded.

 

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