Wizard World Cleveland Wrap Up

Con season has officially started for Nerd News, and we started it off with a bang! Our first Comic Con stop of the year is with Wizard World at their Cleveland Comic Con. Being held at the First Merit Convention Center, Wizard World Cleveland brought out thousands of attendees all ready to soak in the weekend activities. The show is highlighted with appearances by Chris Hemsworth, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Frank Grillo to name a few.

There were plenty of sights and panels to take in on our first day at the con (it actually started Friday, but we didn’t make it in until Saturday), and we tried our best to catch everything. Here’s what we got to experience during our time at Wizard World Cleveland:

We scoped out the overall layout of the con first (essential for establishing a plan of attack), and then began our descent into the madness. Saturdays are usually the busiest days of the con, and this day did not disappoint. There were A TON of cosplayers scattered around the main floor, some killing time before their respective photo ops or panels kicked off, while others were present mainly to show off their sweet costumes. Of course, with the official release of his standalone movie, there were literally hundreds of Deadpool cosplayers present. Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t nearly as much Star Wars cosplay as I’d imagined, especially considering how insanely popular that movie was/ still is in most circles. There wasn’t even really a ton of Marvel superheroes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I did notice that the Cleveland crowd definitely rocked more diverse costumes than I’d previously seen at cons, including more Gender flipped costumes (Male characters with a feminine twist, and vice versa). There were also a few more obscure costumes floating around like my personal favorite, Bebop and Rocksteady.

The back-end of the convention center had become insanely congested as the day went by, and I had to venture back to find out why. The culprit was none other than Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. The line for photos with the actor, who plays Thor had grown to massive proportions which required a little extra “line control” to be called in. Maria and I headed out to partake in the rest of the con while Matt hung around and snagged a picture with Hemsworth.

After getting his picture with the Avenger, we all wandered around the con for a few more hours, taking in the sights and sounds of the rest of the con. There are a ton of diverse vendors here, with people selling everything from really good movie prop replicas, collectible figures, and my personal favorite: Ultra rare (read: Expensive) Golden Age comics.

This is where we made our biggest haul, and it just so happened to be on day 2 of Wizard World. Maria and I fancy ourselves comic collectors. Not necessarily value collectors, but instead we’re more personal preference collectors. She’s really big into some of the later issue Amazing Spiderman issues, whereas I look for the older sets from Marvel’s Gold and Silver age. We both made out big today as she was able to score two variant covers from the “Renew Your Vows” Amazing Spiderman series, and I scored all six issues of the “Infinity War” set. To some these books may not be a big deal, but for us to have found them, especially at the price we found them for, was a pretty amazing deal.

There were quite a few panels at this year’s event. I was tremendously saddened that I missed out on the Russo Brothers panel, especially considering the Russo’s dished out a little info on the upcoming Marvel Infinity War films. The panels are always some of the best parts of the con, mainly because you get to sit and “hang out” with your favorite celeb, hear them talk about some behind the scenes dirt from their past projects, and sometimes you’ll even get a few morsels about upcoming projects as well. Case in point, during his panel, Chris Hemsworth confirmed that he’d received a copy of the Thor: Ragnarok script which means the upcoming Thor flick will soon enter production. It’s these types of things that always make the insane lines for the panels, worth it in the end.

All in all, in its second year in Cleveland, Wizard World is definitely growing in popularity, and is slowly becoming my favorite Con to go to.

I’m already looking forward to my next Wizard World Con, which will be in August in Chicago. Hope to see you all there!!!