This weekend, Marvel returns to Chicago with a nonstop schedule of star-studded signings, panels, stage events, and more! From Friday, February 28 – Sunday, March 1, fans will want to stop by the Marvel Booth (Booth #327) and experience a thrilling series of events happening all weekend long.

From the moment the doors open, fans will be able to get their hands on Marvel’s convention-exclusive t-shirts (while supplies last) featuring iconic characters like the web-slinging hero Spider-Man, the deadly assassin Black Widow, and more of their favorite Super Heroes. Fans will also have the chance to purchase an exclusive Black Widow Spirit Jersey only available at C2E2 this year!

For attendees at both C2E2 and ECCC this year, Marvel will also be offering an exclusive selection of individually numbered, bagged & boarded variant comics while supplies last, including:

· X-MEN/FANTASTIC FOUR #1 GLOW-IN-THE-DARK VARIANT BY FRANK CHO (limited to 3,000 total copies)

· WOLVERINE #1 FLUORESCENT VARIANT BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER (limited to 3,000 total copies)

· GWEN STACY #1 GLOW-IN-THE-DARK VARIANT BY SARA PICHELLI (limited to 3,000 total copies)

Looking for more comics? Fans can snag an exclusive giveaway sketch variant of Excalibur #7 by artist Mahmud Asrar during the Marvel Fanfare with C.B. Cebulski panel, and Marvel Unlimited Plus members and Marvel Mastercard cardholders will be able to get an exclusive ultra-rare variant cover of Captain Marvel #15– for FREE!* Drawn by artist Todd Nauck, the cover presents Earth’s Mightiest Hero Captain Marvel soaring through the cosmos - rendered in the inimitable style of Cosbaby by Hot Toys!

In addition to grabbing your exclusive variants, be sure to swing by Marvel’s booth to check out Marvel Unlimited – Marvel’s digital comics app providing access to over 27,000 digital comics. Anyone signing up for a subscription at the booth will receive a free Venom box, including an action figure, comics and more.** And Marvel Insiders, make sure you attend Marvel panels and visit the Marvel booth to capture special codes to earn tens of thousands of Marvel Insider points!

Marvel’s signing schedule will include some of the biggest creators in the industry – including Chris Claremont, Al Ewing, Nick Spencer, Tini Howard, Ben Percy, Jonathan Hickman, Skottie Young, Eve L. Ewing, Rainbow Rowell, and many more!

Attendees at Skottie Young’s signing on Friday will also be able to test their abilities for the mystical and mysterious Strange Academy! Marvel’s first school of magic is in session this March, and Skottie Young wants YOU to apply! But do you have what it takes to train with the best of Marvel’s sorcerers? Drop by the Marvel booth to apply for admission and find out if you are accepted or denied directly from Skottie himself – and receive a signed Strange Academy poster while you’re at it!

*In order to redeem the comic, fans must come to the Marvel Booth #327 and present their Marvel Mastercard (if they are a Marvel Mastercard cardholder) OR Marvel Unlimited+ membership card or order confirmation (if they are a Marvel Unlimited+ member). One comic per member or cardholder. Comics are available while supplies last.

**Supplies are limited. Must subscribe to Marvel Unlimited on site. Auto-renewal and other terms and conditions apply.

MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT PANEL SCHEDULE***:

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28:

Marvel Artist Extravaganza: A This Week in Marvel Special Event

12:00pm - 1:00pm

Room S401

Marvel’s most amazing comic book series shine due to exceptional artists and storytellers creating each issue. This Week in Marvel invites writer & artist Skottie Young (Strange Academy) and other Mighty Marvel Guests who work on X-Men, Venom, Spider-Man, and more to talk about how they work with their creative teams and the unique storytelling process of the medium.

Marvel Fanfare with CB Cebulski

1:15pm - 2:15pm

Room S401

This is your chance to meet the head of editorial at Marvel! In an exclusive and intimate panel experience, Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski along with Marvel mega-stars Jonathan Hickman (X-Men) and Al Ewing (Empyre) will talk about anything and everything involved with Marvel Comics. Learn about the origin stories of these superlative storytellers straight from the source, and ask all of your burning questions during the Q&A! PLUS – Attendees of this panel will receive an EXCLUSIVE Excalibur #7 sketch variant, available while supplies last!

MARVEL COMICS: X-Men

2:30pm - 3:30pm

Room S401

X-ceptional writer Jonathan Hickman (X-Men) is joined by Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski, Senior Editor Jordan D. White, and a Krakoan Habitat’s worth of X-Men creators to bring you all-new data straight from the House of X House of Ideas! The Dawn of X has broken, and mutantkind has begun to leave a new mark on the world! But what comes next for Marvel’s Merry Mutants? Find out in this can’t-miss panel featuring Gerry Duggan (Marauders, Cable), Tini Howard (Excalibur), Benjamin Percy (X-Force, Wolverine), Ed Brisson (New Mutants), Vita Ayala (Children of the Atom), and Leah Williams (X-Factor).

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29:

MARVEL COMICS: Empyre

3:45pm - 4:45pm

Room S401

Come join us, brothers and sisters, as we enumerate upon the crimes of the intergalactic war criminals knows as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and take up arms in a mighty Kree & Skrull Alliance against them! The rally will be led by Ryan Penagos, with Alliance members Al Ewing, C.B. Cebulski, and Tom Brevoort in attendance in Emperor Hulkling’s stead. The Kree and Skrulls are ready to present a united front against the Avengers – and any other Terrans that stand in their way. This panel will detail the battle plans to be chronicled in Marvel's earth-shattering comic event series of 2020…Your presence is mandatory.

MARVEL COMICS: Next Big Thing

5:00pm - 6:00pm

Room S401

Al Ewing! Skottie Young! Donny Cates! These titanic talents along with Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort unite to bring you the hottest Marvel projects of 2020! What cosmic calamity awaits the Guardians of the Galaxy in the outer reaches of space? Is Venom prepared to face his deadliest foe yet? And which class at Strange Academy has the hardest midterm? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this premier panel event!

SUNDAY, MARCH 1:

Women of Marvel

12:15pm - 1:15pm

Room S401

Today, telling stories for Marvel means stepping into a long lineage of characters and a vast web of backstories. What's it like to take on that challenge as a creator? This year at C2E2, Women of Marvel invites some of Marvel’s celebrated storytellers to the stage to talk about how they stay true to their creative style while continuing the stories of comic book characters so many people know and love.

***Due to guest scheduling conflicts, Marvel's Storyboards World Premiere with Joe Quesada (originally scheduled for Saturday, February 29) has been cancelled***

MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT BOOTH SCHEDULE (#327):

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28:

11:00am – 11:30am – Prop Store’s Marvel Television Live Auction Preview

12:00pm – 1:00pm – MARVEL COMICS: X-MEN SIGNING

2:30pm – 3:30pm – Marvel Becoming: Cosplay Photo Op

3:45pm – 4:45pm – Marvel Comics: Strange Academy Signing & Application Test

6:00pm – 7:00pm – Marvel Super Hero Happy Giveaway Hour

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29:

11:00am – 11:30am – Marvel Mystery Message

12:00pm – 1:00pm – MARVEL COMICS: EMPYRE SIGNING

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Marvel Becoming: Costume Contest****

3:15pm – 3:45pm – Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes Exhibit Preview

4:15pm – 4:45pm – Marvel Mystery Message

6:00pm – 7:00pm – Marvel Super Hero Happy Giveaway Hour

SUNDAY, MARCH 1:

12:00pm – 12:30pm – Marvel Mystery Message

1:00pm – 2:00pm – Marvel Civil War: Empyre Edition

2:30pm – 3:00pm – Marvel Becoming: Kids Costume Event

4:00pm – 5:00pm – Marvel Super Hero Happy Giveaway Hour

MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT SIGNING SCHEDULE (#327):

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28:

12:00pm – 1:00pm – MARVEL COMICS: X-MEN SIGNING (feat. Jonathan Hickman, Gerry Duggan, Tini Howard, Benjamin Percy, Ed Brisson, Vita Ayala, Leah Williams)

3:00pm – 3:45pm – Al Ewing, Michael Cho, and Rachelle Rosenberg

3:45pm – 4:45pm – MARVEL COMICS: STRANGE ACADEMY SIGNING & APPLICATION TEST (feat. Skottie Young)

5:00pm – 5:45pm – Rainbow Rowell, Robbie Thompson

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29:

11:00am – 11:45am – Leah Williams, Tini Howard, Vita Ayala

12:00pm – 1:00pm – MARVEL COMICS: EMPYRE SIGNING (feat. Al Ewing, Tom Brevoort, C.B. Cebulski)

1:00pm – 1:45pm – Kyle Higgins, Rod Reis

3:00pm – 3:45pm – Benjamin Percy, Ed Brisson, Jonathan Hickman

SUNDAY, MARCH 1:

11:00am – 11:45am – Chris Claremont

12:00pm– 12:45pm – Nick Spencer, Pat Gleason, Ryan Ottley

2:00pm – 2:45pm – Eve L. Ewing, David Nakayama

****See Marvel.com/c2e2-costume-contest-rules for full terms and conditions

Long before Lin Manuel Miranda took the Founding Fathers to Broadway with the Tony Award Winning Hamilton, the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin sang about the birth of the United States of America and the musical led to an amazing musical called 1776. With this being the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, now would be a good time to watch this classic film that’s available on streaming services like Hulu and Tubi. The film adapts the celebrated musical by Peter Stone with an all-star cast that includes William Daniels (Boy Meets World), Ken Howard (The White Shadow), Howard de Silva (The Great Gatsby) and Blythe Danner (Meet the Parents). The film focuses on the days leading up to the Continental Congress debating and eventually declaring independence and gives us look at the chaos that existed leading up to the birth of the nation. While dealing with a serious topic, the film is laced with humorous moments and unforgettable songs while showing just how difficult it really was to get the thirteen colonies to agree and how different parts of the country had different priorities. Not too unlike the way the country is now. 1776 is entertaining and sneakily educational and I watch if every July 4th… which I’m doing as I type this article. 

With Supergirl underperforming at the box office there is a rush to point fingers… as often happens when it comes to big studios like DC, Marvel and Star Wars. Will there be similar handwringing with the latest Minions film coming in about $17 million below it’s expected opening… probably not. But The Hollywood Reporter has exclusive details about what happened with the Milly Alcock project that seems to pit director Craig Gillespie against James Gunn and the studio. The criticism of the film varies with complaints about the editing, the musical choices, the depth of character for the villain to the changes from the source material. The new report focuses on a few of those and talks about the test screenings happening back in March of this year. Gillespie was given free reign on his film until test audiences had their say and the best the film was able to do was score in the 60s. This led to the studio getting involved and creating their own cut of the film. Gunn brought in Guardians of the Galaxy editor Fred Raskin to re-edit and Jeremy Slater of Godzilla X Kong to work with screenwriter Anna Nogueira on a few new scenes. Then Gillespie’s original cut, edited by Tatiana S. Riegel from Cruella, and the new cut were both shown to audiences to see which would faire better. Neither film stood out too much with the studio version scoring about two points more than Gillespie’s. While the director’s cut came in about 11 minutes longer and scored higher on the villain and the music, two things complained about in reviews, the overall score favored the studio cut and it was chosen to be the theatrical release. Though reports don’t say what the specific scores were, it does say the highest score reached among all the testing was only 70 out of 100. While this may sound like a behind-the-scenes struggle and signs of studio interference, things like this happen all the time in Hollywood with the goal of putting out the best film possible and had the film had a higher opening, this probably wouldn’t be news at all. An on-line movement is now building to have the “director’s cut” released even though a handful of people claim to have been in the audience for the Gillespie cut and claims that the film isn’t that different than what was released to theaters. Perhaps the deleted scenes will be included on the Blu-ray release. 

DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation used this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival to signal a broader push into animation, unveiling three new series built around some of DC’s most recognizable characters. The slate includes Absolute Batman, Joker: Laugh Riot, and Krypto, each aimed at a different corner of the superhero audience. The boldest announcement may be Joker: Laugh Riot, described as DC Studios’ first anime series. Produced with Sola Entertainment and directed by Yasuhiro Aoki, the show imagines a Gotham where Batman has been murdered and the Joker hunts for the killer who robbed him of his greatest obsession. That premise turns the usual Batman-Joker dynamic inside out, pushing the Clown Prince of Crime into uneasy detective territory. Absolute Batman adapts the recent comic by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta, reimagining Bruce Wayne as a working-class hero rather than a billionaire crimefighter. Snyder is expected to serve as executive producer and showrunner, while Dragotta will produce. The series’ “no manor, no money” approach positions Batman as a more grounded figure facing wealth, power, and corruption from the outside. Rounding out the lineup is Krypto, a children’s animated series centered on Superman’s loyal super-dog. Developed by C.H. Greenblatt, the project gives DC a lighter, family-friendly entry alongside the darker Batman and Joker titles. Together, the announcements show DC Studios treating animation not as a side lane but as a flexible creative engine. From anime to kid-focused comedy to a radical Batman reinvention, the Annecy slate suggests DC is betting that familiar icons can still feel new when placed in unexpected formats and tones. 

How well is Supergirl going to do in theaters? It’s really hard to say, especially if you are reading on-line takes. Since the tickets were made available for presale, the opening projections have moved all over the place with initial thoughts being between $40 - $50 million, then after a few really positive days it jumped to $60 - $75 and has bounced higher and lower to where now they’re saying $50 - $60. The film is set to open against a popular Toy Story 5 that will be on its second week and likely to stay at the top of the box office if it has an average second week drop. Bottom line the expert seem to be having a hard time locking in on this one. What about critics’ thoughts? The film was screened for reviewers and while originally embargoed until next week, the studio lifted the embargo for reactions a week early and now you can see what they thought. Not their full reviews, but their short initial reactions and if you look online most sites are claiming they’re “mixed”… unless you go into the comments and read them yourself. Even sites like Deadline are saying that yet of the reactions they list, the positives outnumber the negatives three or four to one. There is consistent praise for Milly Alcock, Jason Momoa, the action and the heart of the film. The villain is often called bland and the pacing gets called out, but to call it mixed is a stretch. The problem is that like everything in life, film coverage has become political. Sites use negative headlines to get attention and with DC Studios particularly you have a split fan base between what is happening now and those that prefer the previous films… which means that narrative gets created to further their own cause. The truth is, Supergirl will struggle a bit with a film like Toy Story 5 going against it, the character is not popular on her own and is a derivative of a bigger character and in a lot of ways, the previous incarnations, while entertaining, did nothing to make the character stand on her own. Regardless of how it does, there will be a narrative claiming success and another claiming failure. The only way to judge the truth is to see the movie yourself and decide… but that’s really how we judge all movies isn’t it?   

We’re just weeks away from the release of the first Supergirl movie in over 40 years and with ticket presales well underway, experts are making their projects on opening weekend. After the initial sales started happening, most sites were predicting anywhere from $45 to $55 million domestically, but after a few days of higher-than-expected numbers, some sites have adjusted up to as high as $60 to $77 million. This would put the Milly Alcock lead film right in line with the last few Marvel Studios films (except Deadpool and Wolverine). While there has been some debate, Deadline claims the film’s budget is $175 million and the breakeven point would be around $315 million. Other sites claim it’s as high as $425 million globally to call it a success. Only DC Studios and its co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran know what would make this film a success for them, but with trying to rebuild a franchise that had been pretty much run into the ground with underperforming films like The Flash, Aquaman 2 and Shazam 2, having a film that makes most of its money back and is a critical and audience success could be more valuable. Coming off the success of last year’s Superman film, DC is hoping that Craig Gillespie’s vision will continue to excite fans and keep building the new DCU to higher and higher heights. The success of this film and this universe may be driven more on word-of-mouth than box office numbers and the studio appear to be confident enough in the film that they have already had media screenings over two weeks before the film’s release. Yes, there is still an embargo so they can have those reviews come out closer to when the film is in theaters, but you can probably tell the way the project is being covered whether or not it was well received.   

A new rumor is shaking up what fans are expecting from The Batman Part 2. On the same day that writer/director Matt Reeves posted that filming had begun, insider Jeff Schnieder posted about how everything we knew about Sebastian Stan’s role in the project was wrong. Sites had been reporting that Stan would be playing Harvey Dent/Two-Face and while that had never been confirmed by Reeves or DC Studios, people took comments from Stan as confirmation such as how he would be playing, “multiple roles” as a hint at him playing the split-personality of the Batman villain. But the new report claims that Stan is not Dent but rather the serial killer Victor Zsasz and actor Bryan Tyree Henry would be playing Dent. Other insiders have some out since and claim to have collaborating information. Zsasz is an interesting character, a killer who notches a mark on his skin for every kill. He’s been portrayed in live action a couple of times including on Gotham and in the Birds of Prey movie but has never been the main focus of a story. This would match up to Reeves saying that the film would be exploring a story never done in film before. It doesn’t really match up to Stan’s comment about “multiple roles” or reports that he was already working with make-up to figure out the look. Reeves is not confined by what is in the comics so he could make major changes to characters, even to the point of making Zsasz a divergent personality of Harvey Dent that manifested prior to the acid attack causing Two-Face to emerge. It’s also possible that Schneider’s information is slightly off and instead of playing the serial killer, Stan could be playing Charles Victor Szasz who is also known as Victor Sage or The Question. How’s that for a twist? The bottom line here is that Schnieder is hearing this from an insider, and it has not been confirmed by any official source and I wouldn’t put it past film studios to start leaking false information to protect a movie that is just starting to film. I think this one stays in the, “take with a grain of salt” category and we wait to find out more. 

DC Studios and their co-head James Gunn have talked about a lot of potential series and films with some of them being mentioned and then sort of forgotten about. One of those seemed to be Paradise Lost, a Wonder Woman prequel series showing life on Themyscira before the birth of Diana. Though after its initial mention, the project hadn’t been talked about in a while and someone asked Gunn its fate. Gunn insisted the project was still in the works and now we are seeing some possible confirmation. Back in 2024, two names were attached as writers on the series Kira Snyder and Janet Lin and now, according to the WGA website, both are set to work on Paradise Lost for 2027-2028. Snyder is known for writing and producing on The Handmaid’s Tale and The 100 while Lin has credits on Bridgerton, Cursed, and Bones. There has been talks recently about trying to fast track a new Wonder Woman film and while there is no confirmation, rumors persist that the character may debut in Man of Tomorrow, so seeing Paradise Lost finally moving forward would make a lot of sense. 

Sony’s new Spider-Noir series has out done the MCU when it comes to fans. According to Forbes, the new Nicholas Cage lead series with him playing a 1930s variant of Spider-Man has garnered the highest audience score of all Marvel related television projects on Rotten Tomatoes. In the new series, Cage plays detective Ben Reilly who used to be the web-swinging hero called The Spider but hung up his mask after the death of his fiancée. Audience have really taken to the series that is available in both color and B&W, giving it a 93% (a point higher than when Forbes did their article) and even scored well with the critics at 92%. While the critic score is impressive, other Marvel projects have done better such as X-Men ’97 with a 99% score and Ms. Marvel with a 98% among critics. But on the audience side, 93% is tops beating out shows like Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil (Netflix) and WandaVision. While there has been no word on a second season, it would be hard for Amazon and Sony to ignore results like this. 

James Gunn, co-head of DC Studios and writer/director of the upcoming Man of Tomorrow film, was back on social media this week answering questions and one in particular stood out. A Threads user named “boyturizmo” asked, “Will we ever see General Zod, Doomsday, Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Ultraman (with his Crime Syndicate) or Darkseid?” Gunn replied, “Two of them in not too long…” This of course led to a ton of speculation on which two and where? Now the obvious one is Darkseid, and while Gunn has said his DCU isn’t building toward a big Thanos like battle with Darkseid, the character is going to be appearing in the upcoming animated series Mr. Miracle. The series is in production with comic writer Tom King onboard as the showrunner and he recently showed off a clip to interviewer Brandon Davis, who did not share what he saw. Mr. Miracle is an escape artist raised on Darkseid’s planet Apokolips who falls in love with a warrior woman named Big Barda and they escape to Earth. Though no casting has been announced for the series, Gunn has stated that the animated series are cannon to the DCU and actors cast in the animated shows, like Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., would carry over into live action like Grillo did in both Peacemaker and Superman.   As for the second character we will see soon, it is possible that Gunn could bring back more characters from the DCEU and have Dwayne Johnson return as Black Adam or Pierce Brosnan don the helmet of Dr Fate once more. And Ultraman could return from the black hole he was sucked into… but I think the most likely possibility will be in flashbacks to Krypton, possibly in Supergirl, where we could see General Zod cameo in a scene with Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Zor-El (David Krumholtz) discussing the fate of the planet and how to handle it. This would be a great scene for world-building… though part of me really wants Brosnan back as Fate. 

With The Batman Part 2 going into early production, fans are eager for news, information and confirmations and we may just have one thanks to one of the newcomers to the franchise, Sebastian Stan. It’s been rumored for months that the actor who has played everything from Bucky Barnes to Donald Trump to Tommy Lee was moving to Gotham in the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent aka coin-flipping villain Two-Face, and while his casting was confirmed by director Matt Reeves a few days back, we have not had an official announcement on the part he will be playing. While speaking to Deadline about his film Fjord, Stan spoke a bit about his summer plans which include a trip to London to work with Reeves where he says he will be playing “many roles in this one”. The article states that he’s talking about the role of Dent and how the character transforms from D.A. to villain when acid is thrown in his face by mobster Salvadore Maroni. Stan goes on to say, ”I’m excited, I’m nervous and trying to keep surprising myself.” He also he has been working with hair and make-up already trying to figure out how his disfigurement will look. Stan doesn’t come out and say in the quotes that he’s playing Two-Face, but Deadline strongly implies it and are one of the sites that had been reporting that he had been cast in the role early on. The Batman Epic Crime Saga, as Reeves calls it, does have one hitch to overcome. During The Penguin series on HBO Max, Maroni was played by Clancy Brown and does not make it through the series. So, either the attack on Dent takes place prior to the events we’ve already seen portrayed or Reeves is going to change up who throws the acid. Not a huge problem but it will be interesting to see how the moment will be handled if we end up seeing it at all. The Batman Part 2 is beginning to film and is on track for an October 2027 release.