#conventions

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/the-thing-sculpture.jpgFans of John Carpenter’s The Thing were thrilled to meet its director and stars Kurt Russell and Keith David. Tribute sculpture by One Eyed Fat Man Studios.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fifth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike…

…and it all comes down to this: one last photo gallery touring what else we saw beyond the cosplay, besides the celebs, past Artists Alley, and even outside the convention center’s walls. The con was large; it contained multitudes.

One thing our weekend contained much less of than expected: severe thunderstorms. Our local feeds showed us countless photos and stories from the destructive floods that too many consecutive rainy days had brought to Indiana — surpassing all expectations, overwhelming meager precautions, overtaking numerous areas and forcing more than a few evacuations. Our hearts go out to those affected, the families who’ve lost loved ones in the resulting calamities, and the communities struggling to recover.

As for us? The previous Wednesday, a power line snapped right down the street and left us without electricity for an hour and (for some reason) without internet for at least three hours. A couple large branches were knocked off the maple tree in our front yard. My lawn is stronger and greener than ever, possibly surging with gamma-irradiated strength. I’d mow it if the week hadn’t been so hectic and if the rains had paused long enough to let me before we left. Storms followed the first couple hours of our drive to Chicago, then more or less left us alone.

Call this a tragedy acknowledgment before we finish babbling about all the fun we had getting out of town.

On the way to Rosemont we made a pit stop in Merrillville and topped off the gas tank so we could skip Illinois gas prices all weekend. Every station in town was an absolute madhouse with long lines at every single pump. Some of that morning rush might be due to the floods causing power outages or resource issues in surrounding towns. Some of that might also be because, unlike Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Indiana Governor Mike Braun keeps suspending our gas tax to mitigate fallout from the Iran fracas. Regardless of whether he’s being generous or just toadying for his party (or why not both?), lately our gas prices have been averaging about 60-80 cents cheaper per gallon than Illinois’.

We pulled into the convention center’s parking garage at 11 a.m. CDT and thought it’d be wise to grab lunch before heading into the con. Parkway Bank Park has a handful of solid eateries, all of which validate. I’m partial to Crust Brewing, but Adobe Gilas and Bub City also do good work. We were sad to see the ice cream purveyors at the Sugar Factory temporarily closed due to “maintenance” issues.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rosemont-mondrian-pollock.jpgThe main drive through the center of the garage is lined with fine-art homages.

We’d preordered our badges, received them by mail and activated them online before we left home. That foresight let us skip all the will-call lines and head straight to check-in. We paid extra for Ultimate Fan Package passes, which granted us early admission into the exhibit hall all three days and a bunch of swag we mostly didn’t care about. Between the two of us we received:

Giant tote bags: on one side, the Fan Expo Chicago 2026 logo; on the other, the original cover to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 reformatted into an ad for DC Universe Infinite.

DC Universe Infinite posters with new art by Frank Miller showing Batman folded into a big blueberry cinnamon roll and touching his shoulder blades with his heels.

Reprints of Dark Knight Returns #1 with new variant covers — a new one by Miller and Alex Sinclair, the other a “1:6 B/W Virgin Sketch Edition” version of same sans Sinclair’s flourishes.

PiXL cute li’l Lord of the Rings figurines — Anne got Frodo, I got Sauron.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ultimate-swag.jpgNot pictured: the giant awkward tote bags.

This might’ve been cooler if I still craved anything with Miller’s name on it. While we waited in line to enter the convention center, we struck up a conversation with a father and daughter; when we ran into them again at the end of the day, we gave them one of our bags and one of our posters. Hopefully they enjoyed.

(Also in that pic: the Sorting Hat pin we mentioned in an earlier chapter; and a button we got in exchange for a charitable donation to the Windy City Ghostbusters.)

While we waited in the next line to enter the exhibit hall, we chatted with a couple from New Mexico named Jake and Jessica. Line chats are among our favorite comic-con activities, but we’re both terrible at introducing ourselves or asking other people their names. Special thanks to Jake and Jessica for compensating for our social awkwardness!

Early entry at 2:00 Friday was a nice perk, but we spent those bonus hours hitting Karl Urban’s line first before anything else. Before the official opening to one and all at 4:00, the only guest we saw at their autograph table was former star Pauly Shore, who was in position at 3:20 and showing all the latecomers how it’s done.

And now: our gallery of comic-con wonders! Enjoy some of the merchandise, art installations and other sights in the exhibit hall or in the attached hallways and conference areas that we witnessed over our three-day weekend.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/absolute-batman-variant-monitor.jpgAmong the booths nearest the entrances were a huge one touting products with DC Absolute variant cover art.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/pokemon-kisses.jpgThe Kmart cosplayer gave us Hershey’s Kisses with Pokemon on them!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/batfleck-statue.jpgBatfleck lives!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/red-death.jpgA Batman/Flash mash-up called The Red Death from DC’s Dark Metal alt-Earth.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/doc-browns-truck.jpgGreat Scott! It’s Doc Brown’s truck from Back to the Future!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/podrace-diorama.jpgThe 501st Legion’s section showed off a podrace diorama…

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/anne-at-dejarik-table.jpg…and a Dejarik table, though it isn’t the first Dejarik table that Anne’s scoped out.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/cobra-asp.jpgThe G.I. Joe fan club brought a life-size Cobra ASP.

I’d reserved two nights at a Sheraton in Elk Grove, several miles down the road and much cheaper than Rosemont’s options, but a month before the con we were notified it was about to “permanently close” and would “no longer be associated with Marriott”. Without soliciting any input from us first, they relocated us to another Marriott in Arlington Heights, even farther away but for the same quoted price. It was perfectly fine, though hopefully the clerk didn’t mind that we we were thoroughly incoherent when we shuffled in around 9:30 — after the Friday photo-op fiasco and a long wrong turn into the O’Hare terminals. Her sharp-eyed manager promptly handed us a pair of lifesaving bottled waters.

Saturday morning, we shared the pre-show line with an intermittent Trek fan who grew up on The Next Generation, never watched Deep Space Nine, and let his Paramount+ subscription lapse before he could get very far into the recent shows. We may have overwhelmed him with TMI about what he’s missed to date.

The only things we bought that we never photographed were from the Kessel Trading Company‘s “Spaceballs: The Booth” — a pair of Spaceballs: The Badge Ribbons. As four-time Dragon Con attendees we’re usually staunchly against buying badge ribbons and vastly prefer trading for them, but sadly we’ll be missing this year’s show (their big 40th anniversary!) and wanted to recapture at least a tiny shred of that D*C magic.

That’s also why on Saturday I proudly sported a new shirt bearing the pattern of Dragon Con’s iconic Marriott Carpet. Anne bought it for me from the good folks at Drunken Dragon Hotel, world’s greatest purveyors of merchandise based on Dragon Con in-jokes. I wore it in my Erin Moriarty photo op and was curious if anyone would recognize it. This weekend I learned some well-traveled vendors work a lot of cons nationwide — eight (!!) of them around the exhibit hall knew of the Marriott Carpet and acknowledged the tribute.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/cosplay-exhibit.jpgA modest cosplay exhibit in the middle of nowhere.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/fan-expo-chicago-painting.jpgA Fan Expo mural painted live over three days by Price Goodman.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/fan-graffiti.jpgFans were encouraged to contribute to its flip-side.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/middle-earth-map.jpgWe could choose where they’d want to live if they were deported to Middle Earth. We have questions for those who embraced dictatorial tyranny.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/pick-your-side-tapestry.jpgOr fans could apply stickers to pick sides in various geek debates. No supporting arguments required! No rebuttals! No flame wars! No bans!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/chalk-girl-tmnt.jpgThe Chalk Girl‘s latest project: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! This was her progress as of 10:30 Sunday.

Saturday was a slightly shorter day, but no less stressful. After the con we grabbed dinner at Adobe Gilas, but had to wait fifteen minutes for a table — normally not a big deal, but we ended up standing in a corner with no A/C. By the time they made room for us, our perspiration levels were triple what they’d been in the crowded convention center.

Our hardships were not entirely in vain. Later at the hotel, visitors greeted us at the back entrance.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/bunny-1.jpgBUNNY!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/bunny-2.jpgCorrection: TWO BUNNIES!

Our meals were fine, not much worth posting online. We mostly avoided the Stephens Center food court, but did make exception for Nothing Bundt Cakes and for the MVPs at the poke bowl stand. Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and treated ourselves to breakfast at Parlor Doughnuts. We have them back home, but their extra-large pastries sounded like the fuel we needed to push through our final hours at the show.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/parlor-doughnuts-4-pack.jpgTop to bottom: Breakfast Club Reimagined French Toast, Turtle, Bourbon Caramel, and Campfire.

Not pictured: for a mandatory protein fix, I also got their bacon-egg-cheese sandwich served on an unglazed doughnut.

Our Sunday to-do list was blessedly short: the Kurt Russell photo op, one last Artists Alley visit, and lots of snacks to-go from the Asian market in the food court.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/gangnam-market-van.jpgGangnam Market even brought their own display vehicle.

We were on the road by 11:40 CDT and got home mostly without incident, unless you count trying to fetch lunch from a Wendy’s that was nearly finished being built and hadn’t actually had their grand opening yet.

On Wednesday we finally got the digital copy of our bungled Saturday morning Lethal Weapon photo op. I’ve added that to Part 3 for comparison’s sake. Like I said, whenever a con mismanages their printers, there can be a vast difference between the digital and hard-copy versions.

The End! Lord willing, we’ll see you next con.

Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: A Little Cosplay!

Part 2: Slightly More Cosplay!

Part 3: Celebrities and Catastrophes

Part 4: Comics!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/comics-loot.jpgMy comics-related haul this year.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fifth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike…

…and for this longtime comics collector, that means keeping an eye out for favorite creators and/or new reading material. Pictured above are the graphic novels I picked up in this year’s Artists Alley, plus a sketch of a character from my childhood. As for the creators who sold me those items…

One of my top two must-meets was Eric Zawadzki. I first saw his art in two issues of Image’s time-travel heist epic Time Before Time, which — no slight intended toward its regular artists — left me wanting to see a lot more. He’s now co-creator of his own timey-wimey project, Assorted Crisis Events, an anthology riff on Crisis on Infinite Earths‘ final-act catastrophe in which infinite versions of our home planet and their endless time streams collide within a single Earth, collapsing and knotting and accelerating and reversing and creating a wide tableau for whatever chronally warped tales he and writer Deniz Camp can cook up. It vacillates from funny to thoughtful to heartbreaking and back again with each new standalone story. It’s one of my favorite books on the stands today.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/eric-zawadzki.jpgOther books of his that I need to go track down (per his site!) include The Dregs, Eternal, Heart Attack, and DC’s House of El YA trilogy written by novelist Claudia Gray.

Camp is now highly in demand at Marvel and DC, but hopefully he can keep fitting Events into his schedule. I’m already buying it in singles, but also bought the first trade from Zawadzki at his table for my bookshelf. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we stepped away I looked down and realized that while ducking around other passersby, I’d swiped my thumb right through his autograph.

Refusing to let me accept the consequences of my own klutziness, Anne grabbed it and, while I waited in an autograph line five rows away, went back to his table, explained the calamity and planned to pay him to re-sign it. The eminently creative Zawadzki came up with an alternative I’ve never seen done before: he used the same turquoise pen to turn his smudged name into a turquoise rectangle, let it dry for a few awkward minutes, then re-signed over the rectangle in yellow. You can see the results in our lead photo. 11/10 experience, would buy more comics from…such as the second Assorted Crisis Events trade, which hits comic shops this very week.

While Anne ran that errand of grace, I had the pleasure of meeting the other of my aforementioned top-two must-meets: Pornsak Pichetshote! He leaped into the comics fray as an editor for DC’s Vertigo line before branching out into his own writing career. So far I’ve read and loved Man’s Best, The Good Asian, and Infidel. His star’s now rising in the mainstream-comics sphere with Absolute Green Arrow, which — along with top artist Rafael Albuquerque — reimagines the Emerald Archer as a serial killer stalking evil billionaires…or at least, that’s what they want us to think.

He’s concurrently keeping a Substack about his AGA experience in progress, a journey of incredulity as he navigates the creative process and the side effects of having a Big Two series racking up six-figure monthly sales. I’m 98% sure that very title is why his table had one of Artists Alley’s longest lines on Friday. While Anne was away on her side quest, I spent so much time chatting with him unsupervised that I forgot to ask if I could take a photo, which she usually does while I’m in fanboy mode.

Farther down the same row: novelist Alex Segura! At various times a journalist, editor, marketer, and comics executive, Segura has written for just about every major comics publisher — Archie, Star Wars, Dick Tracy, Edge of Spider-Verse, and more, more, more.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/alex-segura.jpgI wish I’d brought along my copy of Archie Meets the Ramones, a one-shot that was exactly as fun as it sounds.

When we returned to Artists Alley one last time Sunday at 9:30 (huzzah for early entry courtesy of our Ultimate Fan Package badges), I braked for one last creator: cartoonist and animator Scott Shaw! I previously met him at Indy Pop Con 2016, but wanted a closer look at what he’d brought to this con — original art pages from Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, which I absolutely loved as a kid, as well as sketches of some of its cast members.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/scott-shaw.jpgShaw is a fellow Svengoolie fan!

We chatted for minutes about various topics, including but not limited to other artists’ inability to do right by the good Captain, as well as DC’s recent, abominably humorless, revisionist takes, including at least one that gave Cap a stupid name change that Shaw believes was specifically intended to cut out his contractual co-creator rights.

We also discussed happier subjects, such as the talents of fellow animator Mike Kazaleh (I’m old and weird enough to remember The Adventures of Captain Jack) and the extensive work he’s done with Sonic the Hedgehog, which easily catches the eyes of any kids that stray past his table, more than anything else from his storied career. (He’ll be 75 next month.) Anne was totally lost, but she loves seeing me wide-eyed and in my conversational element. Our lead photo shows off the Little Cheese sketch I bought from him — a Zoo Crew member with the Atom’s shrinking power who was introduced late in the original series’ run. 10-year-old me is tickled pink.

As for the other items in that photo: same as at past shows, I grabbed a discount hardcover from the good folks at Gem City Books — this time, a graphic-novel adaptation of The Wire creator David Simon’s landmark book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets).

I rarely buy anything from Fan Expo’s own merchandise booth, but their variant-cover exclusives caught my eye with one title that I hadn’t already bought the first time around: the 2024 DC All In Special, the one-shot prologue to that particular branding initiative. The story was exactly as disappointing as I anticipated (hence why I’d skipped it), but it continued Fan Expo’s annual tradition of variants starring Mark Hamill. This year’s model featured a nifty cover by Mitch Gerads, whom I met at C2E2 2025.

For value-added comics-related fun, I filled an empty gap in the photo with my Ultimate Fan Package-level entry badge, with Supergirl art by Stanley “Artgerm” Lau. (He wasn’t a guest at the show, mind you.)

Also comics-related: Saturday at 3:00, we attended one Sketch Duel! These have become my favorite kind of panel in recent years, whenever a con arranges some and I recognize at least one of the artists. The participants are asked to draw something in a particular theme; they try to concentrate on sketching while a moderator asks them career-related questions or solicits same from the audience. It’s all in fun with no real winner except audience members: when the panel ends, the results are given away as prizes. Our duelists of the hour were each high-profile among DC fans. On a related note, this was the most crowded Sketch Duel we’ve ever attended, and the only one ever to have a long line waiting outside the room for the previous event to end.

In this corner: Amanda Conner! Best known for her lengthy Harley Quinn run that developed the sidekick-turned-antihero into more than just a certain villain’s codependent super-moll — accomplished in collaboration with her husband Jimmy Palmiotti, who was also at the con but not at this panel, unless he was lurking in the audience. In hindsight I wish I’d thought to look around.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/amanda-conner.jpgConner setting up her tools.

In the other corner: Dan Mora! One of the fastest artists currently working for the Big Two, Mora co-created the Arthurian reincarnation saga Once and Future with writer Kieron Gillen before revving up such DC titles as Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, Superman‘s solo flagship, currently Justice League Unlimited, and however many others whenever he has a free moment. At one point he recalls doing three monthly books and variant covers for other titles all at the same time. It’d be fun to put him in a room with Mark Bagley and Sergio Aragones, and see how many gigawatts their pencils could jointly generate.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/cyborg-dan-mora.jpgWe apologize if our lousy vantage point makes it look like Dan Mora is in fact a cyborg, but it would explain a lot.

They “dueled” for two rounds, fifteen minutes each, producing four sketches total between them. Our moderator bugged them with questions throughout, which usually brought their penciling to a halt until they got into enough of a rhythm to handle talking and drawing at the same time. Among other topics, we learned Mora hates drawing people just sitting, and Conner hates drawing rocks.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mora-conner-wip-1.jpgRound 1 works-in-progress, on the overhead projectors and at an awkward angle from our seats: Mora doing Nightwing, Conner doing Poison Ivy.

Mora prefers drawing interior art to covers; Conner concedes covers are “more lucrative”, but prefers when covers tell a story, even though the original art for generic pin-up covers routinely sells better to art collectors.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/nightwing-ivy-sketches.jpgThe finished pieces.

Neither of them love drawing hands, but Conner calls them “fun-difficult” and Mora thinks they’re “easier than feet.”

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mora-conner-wip-2.jpgRound 2 works-in-progress: Mora doing Wonder Woman, Conner doing Batgirl.

Among the characters they have yet to be paid to draw, Conner would love to do Big Barda, while someday Mora would love to do Spider-Man or Swamp Thing.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wonder-woman-batgirl-sketches.jpgThe finished pieces.

All attendees were given raffle tickets upon entering. We’ve won art at past Sketch Duels, but not this time. The lucky audience members included the Absolute Flash cosplayer we met later in the hall. Congrats to you, sir!

To be concluded! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: A Little Cosplay!

Part 2: Slightly More Cosplay!

Part 3: Celebrities and Catastrophes

Part 5: [coming soon]

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/kurt-russell.jpgHi, it’s Kurt Russell! You’ve seen him in such films!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fifth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike…

…and for us it meant another round of photo ops with actors from movies and TV shows we’ve enjoyed. Longtime MCC readers know jazz hands are our thing, if we feel it’s worth a shot to ask, and if the stars are amenable. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s fine! They’re adults, we’re adults, and we accept it — their image, their choice. But it’s a lot cooler when they do. Overall we enjoyed ourselves, but this year FEC was crippled by the worst photo-op complications we’ve ever experienced for a show of its size within the past fifteen years.

Fortunately we’d put off our appointment with our lead guest — beloved actor Kurt Russell, who needs no introduction — until Sunday morning. We hate doing Sundays at cons, but we initially had such a long to-do list that we couldn’t possibly have fit everything into the first two days. By then the comic-con photography company that the showrunners hired — Leap Event Technologies, formerly Epic Photo Ops — had gotten their issues under control and resumed business as usual. By all accounts Russell was a gent throughout the weekend. This moment was the last item on our weekend to-do list; once we finished, we were out the door and on the road back to Indianapolis by 11:40 a.m. CDT.

By contrast, Friday was our longest day. We left home around 8:15 a.m. EDT through the last of the week’s record-breaking heavy storms and arrived in Rosemont right at noon our time, 11 a.m. local time. We got lunch out of the way first so we could put off needing the convention center’s overpriced options for as many hours as possible. We walked into the Center right around noon Central, went through the usual security rigmarole, and joined the line for Ultimate Fan badge-holders that’t formed over by the panel rooms. Ultimate badges came with far fewer perks than VIP badges did, but their primary advantage was early admission to the show floor all three days. Friday the con opened at 4; we were allowed inside shortly after 2:00, once all the VIPs were in before us. Not all vendors were ready and virtually no actors were in the house yet, but it gave autograph seekers the chance to go reserve their spots in line for the guests of their choice.

We went straight to Karl Urban’s table and patiently waited, among the first dozen in line. We’d already met him at Wizard World Chicago 2014, where Anne added him to her vast Star Trek autograph collection (this was a year after he reprised Dr. McCoy in Star Trek Into Darkness). We’d taken a quick pic at the table, but professional photo ops weren’t our thing yet, and it wasn’t till years later that the Lord of the Rings cast collectively began popping up at shows and convinced me to start having them sign my extended-edition DVDs. As the long-haired Eomer, head of the Riders of Rohan, then-unknown Urban debuted in The Two Towers and therefore qualified for inclusion into my little quest.

After the show officially opened at 4, Urban appeared at his table around 4:15. The volunteer managing our lines did a capable job of alternating between our general-admission line and the VIP line — she’d let VIPs go through at a time, then a few of us GAs, then back and forth. For my chitchat moment I swerved onto the topic of The Boys and his two final boss battles in the finale — one with Billy Butcher as the underdog victor, the other with Butcher as the Final Boss himself — and Urban was just as friendly as he’d been twelve years earlier, even though he still had Butcher’s intimidating hair and beard. We were done by 4:40 and had no other major autographs planned.

We spent the next couple hours on other forms of fun while waiting for his solo photo ops to begin around 7. We arrived later at the booths and found a teeming, disgruntled crowd surrounding the entrance — not an uncommon sight, really. Sooner or later at any large-scale show, photo ops nearly always go off the rails after the first couple hours or so. This time the delay wasn’t quite so uncommon or short-term: we learned some sort of catastrophic system failure earlier had caused them to cease all photography for about an hour, so now all ops were running behind across the board.

The Leap staff were doing their best to catch up, under the watchful eye of their stentorian-voiced traffic controller whom we’ve witnessed in his element at many a con. The muscular, tattooed gent sounds like he was born with a megaphone in his throat and has nigh-unlimited patience as long as you do exactly what he commands, get in line only when he tells you it’s time, and stop adding to massive messes that might invoke the ire of the nearest fire marshal. He’s all about crowd control and stampede prevention, which is what a con this size needs. He’s easily recognizable whenever a particular actor is about to wrap up and leave their booth, whereupon he takes to the mic and bellows to the crowd loudly enough to be heard in Milwaukee, “IF YOU HAVE A PHOTO OP FOR BRENT SPINER, THIS…IS YOUR LAST AND FINAL CALL!”

Even with Thunder-Throat at the helm, they were still working through ops from the 5:00 hour, rushing them wherever possible. Thankfully some actors and groups had small turnouts, and I didn’t get the sense that any actors had contributed to the delays. To the best of our knowledge, this was entirely on Leap’s tech-support side. It was more than just a basic wi-fi outage, considering most folks in this overstuffed de facto waiting room passed the time by screaming into the internet through their fully functional phones.

They began forming Urban’s lines around 7:40. His booth opened quickly after that, implying he’d been more than ready for us. And indeed he was.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/karl-urban.jpgBilly Butcher jazz hands are the scariest jazz hands ever.

We had one more op scheduled that night at 7:40, which was pushed even farther back. That man was a bit slower in arriving, but made it nevertheless: Mr. T! The iconic ’80s tough guy is best known online as a sweet Christian gentleman on his social feeds, a stark contrast from his breakthrough role as the powerhouse boxer Clubber Lang in Rocky III. I saw that at the drive-in when I was ten, and Clubber’s unfettered fury on that giant screen was terrifying. He’d keep his fame rolling as TV’s B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, as the star of his own Saturday morning cartoon where he inexplicably played a gymnastics coach who led his plucky kids into adventures, in the mostly forgotten comedy DC Cab, and so on. I still treasure that time he cameoed on Saturday Night Live in one of Eddie Murphy’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” sketches.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mr.-t.jpgHe’d begun the day at Wrigley Field, where he threw the day’s first pitch.

We wrapped with Mr. T at 8:40 and by that time were beyond exhausted. We hadn’t had supper and hadn’t even checked into our hotel in Arlington Heights. We nibbled on the emergency snacks we’d brought along — granola bars and bagel chips — as we made our way past the road construction currently ruining the I-90 exit near the convention center, tried to follow a Google Maps workaround in the dark, turned too soon, and, as an unexpected and unwanted treat, discovered I-190 West leads directly into a loop around the terminals at O’Hare, where traffic can get really hectic on Friday nights. We hated learning that the hard way.

Saturday we had two photo ops scheduled and hoped all Friday’s problems were fixed. As of the 11:10 appointment time for our first one, all was not well. Whereas Leap’s solution to Friday’s troubles had simply been to call time-out for an hour, Saturday had far too many high-profile guests for them to allow potential hours’ worth of delays. This was a comic-con, not O’Hare — the show must go on. Their new solution: “Let’s just do photo ops without our systems!” The volunteer handling our line didn’t bother scanning the QR codes on anyone’s tickets, per normal procedure — he just eyeballed them and nodded us onward into the booth.

We got in, took the pic, got out by 11:25…and were informed at the pickup table that we’d need to come back in an hour or so for our hard copy. That’s how photo ops used to work, say, ten or fifteen years ago before the advent of tethered cameras that relay files instantly to speedy laser printers. We sighed, bugged off, came back 75 minutes later, and picked ours up. It was printed without the code that’s normally etched into the edge of every comic-con photo so fans can either buy the digital copy online later or receive what they prepaid for via email.

If the physical copy is all you wanted, then you were all set. Sometimes we prepay extra for the luxury of digital copies because: (a) it’s fun sharing them with friends immediately while you’re still at a con; (b) they look better than how roughly our 20-year-old scanner would treat it; and (c) they’re often higher-quality than the physical product, which can be subject to ugly printing flaws if the volunteers haven’t maintained their equipment. (Want a concrete example? Please enjoy this flashback to the Fandom Fest 2017 fiasco featuring Brenda Strong.) We prepaid for digital; as of this writing we’ve yet to receive it or have any way to access it.

Hundreds of other fans, maybe more, were in the same boat all morning long, for this op and others. And we’re all still here. Leap later emailed everyone to advise they’re still figuring out how to distribute those to the affected fans, and that whether or not they work it out, we’ll all receive refunds for the digital expense and fees. In the meantime, the physical copy alone will have to suffice.

Even without Leap’s persistent tech letdowns, the pic had its own issues that were not our scanner’s fault:

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/lethal-weapon-duo.jpgBehold what havoc our 20-year-old scanner has wreaked upon Danny Glover and his unwilling sidekick.

Yes, that’s the great Danny Glover, who was in such films as The Color Purple, Places in the Heart, Predator 2, 2012 (he was the President!), and dozens upon dozens of others besides the ones where he plays the cop who’s “gettin’ too old for this” even though he was a mere babe at 41 when the first one came out. Glover is now 80 and has publicly revealed he’s been dealing with Alzheimer’s for the last several years. He was well enough to come out for the show this weekend and meet the fans.

And when we asked if we could do jazz hands, he kindasorta did them! I saw his hands at full-jazz for a brief moment, which the photographer missed by about half a second. But I saw them! They were real!

The same cannot be said for his sidekick, Academy Award Winner Mel Gibson, who’s ten years younger than he is. When Anne asked if we could do jazz hands, he said, “Yep!” and, well, here we are. Dude looked like this in every single photo of him that we’ve seen so far from this weekend, as if he were only here because it counted toward court-ordered community service. To be fair, he bared his teeth a wee bit more here than he did for many others, so we got that going for us. But it’s a reminder that not all the actors who accept the paychecks for these events actually want to be there. Some hide their disdain for us through the power of Acting. Others, not so much.

When we were planing for this weekend, we debated quite a bit over whether or not to go for this one, for multiple reasons. Ultimately we decided if Danny Glover was game, then we were game. So hey: here’s Danny Glover, a past winner of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award! Who’s not gettin’ too old for this yet!

(If we ever actually get our virtual hands on the lost digital copy, I’ll update here. Let’s all hold our collective breath.)

Our next encounter, by contrast, was a solid grade-A. Among the other guests around the halls, this one was for Anne: Brian Tochi! You might remember him from such films as the Police Academy series (I saw six of the eight), the Revenge of the Nerds series (I saw the first two), or the ’90s live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies where he was the voice of Leonardo (saw the first two). Closer to Anne’s heart, he’s also one of the few actors who ever appeared in episodes of both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation. As a child he was one of the space ragamuffins in “And the Children Shall Lead”, generally considered one of the all-time worst through no fault of Tochi’s. As an adult, he netted the rotating “random ensign on the bridge” slot in “Night Terrors”, generally considered one of TNG’s all-time worst through no fault of Tochi’s. I refuse to believe he’s a jinx.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/brian-tochi.jpgBrian Tochi: a role model to Academy Award Winners everywhere.

Tochi was hyped to be there and extremely energetic. Together he and Anne recited the horrible chant from that old Trek episode, which I just saw for my first time last year and am still trying to forget. He was an absolute pleasure to meet; 10/10 would recommend to anyone. On the Sunday drive home, Anne and I talked about how maybe we really need to go back to focusing more on the character actors we know at these shindigs rather than on the headliners everyone knows.

Tochi’s TMNT costars were there as well for a full-blown cast reunion. Next booth over, his castmate Kenn Scott (originally Kenn Troum) interrupted the entire area to celebrate a Turtle cosplayer at his booth, leading us all to salute her with a hearty “COWABUNGA!” And thus her day was made.

By 5:00 Leap had exterminated their system bugs at last and con life went on as normal, just in time for an op with one more guest: Erin Moriarty from The Boys! I shouldn’t even admit I watch the show, but the arc of her character Starlight was fascinating (if frequently depressing) to follow. Her expression seemed to be channeling the spirit of her character’s later seasons, or maybe she’d gotten bored with attendees like me making oddball requests, or maybe this is her default. No idea, but I made the most of it.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/erin-moriarty.jpgJaded Starlight and Old Man Hughie!

We also made time this weekend to attend two actor Q&As. Sometimes those can be dreadfully cringe, but Fan Expo wisely excised the whole “questions from the audience” segment from each one, which improved matters a good 90% above normal quality levels.

Friday between Urban’s autograph and his photo, we watched a joint session for two classic Rocky opponents: the aforementioned Mr. T from Rocky III, and Dolph Lundgren, a.k.a. the Soviet human bulldozer Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, which to this day remains the only film I’ve ever seen in a theater that roused sports fans in the audience so intensely that a group of guys actually stood up and cheered and pumped their fists when Drago went down for the final count. Both owed their careers to Sylvester Stallone discovering them at their respective points in their lives, each of them with experience as club bouncers before they made the leap to Hollywood.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/dolph-lundgren-mr.-t.jpgThe two gents said they hadn’t seen each other in decades.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ivan-drago-v-clubber-lang-mad.jpgIvan Drago v. Clubber Lang: the imaginary bout!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ivan-drago-v-clubber-lang-happy.jpgThe winners: both of them, because they’re both getting paid.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/lundgren-happy.jpgLundgren had actually been cast in Rambo: First Blood Part II first, till Stallone decided he should be Drago instead.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mr.-t-laughing.jpgMr. T couldn’t stop laughing when Laundgren mentioned he’d bought her a Mr. T doll that said all his catchphrases like “I PITY THE FOOL!”

One other thing they have in common: neither of them have any of their original movie props or costumes. Mr. T held onto his for years before donating them to the Boys Club of Chicago (his hometown!) and other charities for fundraising purposes. Lundgren entrusted all his to a shady manager who put them in storage, failed to pay the monthly bill, and lost them all. Among Lundgren’s most interesting trivia: Jason Momoa’s Aquaman films were his first big-budget green-screen productions, which were really weird to wrap his head around at times.

Saturday between Danny Glover’s photo and Erin Moriarty’s, we sat in on a panel celebrating Smallville‘s 25th anniversary, which I didn’t realize was that long ago. We’d already met all three cast members at previous shows — Tom Welling at two different cons (most recently at GalaxyCon Columbus 2022), Michael Rosenbaum at four of them (including that same GCC), and Erica Durance at C2E2 2023. We watched most of the series (Anne managed six seasons; I lasted 7½, then returned for the back half of the tenth), but had never seen any of them in a panel before. This, I felt, was the time to rectify that oversight.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/smallville-trio.jpgOur Heroes and their Scottish moderator Claire.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/tom-welling.jpgTom Welling plugged his new film Chasing Summer and its writer/star Iliza Shlesinger, which premiered at Sundance last January.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/erica-durance.jpgErica Durance led a discussion about the cast’s astrological signs.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/michael-rosenbaum.jpgMichael Rosenbaum broke into song three times, poorly imitated Claire’s accent, and kept saying “explosive diarrhea” just to watch the deaf interpreters’ rather emphatic translations.

All three had fun kidding each other and seemed genuinely happy to be hanging out together again. Rosenbaum plugged his podcast and told the best anecdote: one time a sullen fan waited in his autograph line for however long, then upon reaching him, used that moment only to shout at him, “GENE HACKMAN WAS THE BEST LUTHOR!” Rosenbaum shouted back, “I KNOW! HE IS!” The fan, apparently not getting what he was hoping for, silently slunk away.

…

…and that’s pretty much it for our actor experiences at the show. We’d had other names on our to-do list, but in the weeks leading up to the big show, John Noble, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, and Dafne Keen all canceled. If they had all shown up, I’ve no idea how we could’ve possibly managed our time, in light of the other meet-ups that did happen and Leap’s photo-op breakdowns. In a sense, that worked out for us — I’m not sure we could’ve survived all the way through the end of Sunday. As of Monday afternoon we’re both still aching and sluggish. We really hope we aren’t getting too old for this.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: A Little Cosplay!

Part 2: Slightly More Cosplay!

Part 4: [coming soon]

Part 5: [coming soon]

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ghostbuster-ackbar.jpgA Mon Calamari Ghostbuster confirms, “IT’S A TRAP!”

[Content warning! The following entry is rated ‘S’ for spoilers for season two of X-Men ’97, which just concluded August 12th. Reader discretion is advised.]

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fifth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike.

As is the MCC procedure, let’s start with mandatory cosplay photos! The humble duo here at MCC enjoys the panoply of costumes, and appreciates the makers and wearers who enliven every comic-con with their talents and their exaltation of various fandoms. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend, especially from cons like this where we spent far more time waiting in lengthy lines that ate up precious time we could’ve spent taking more pics. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun…

…so here’re all the cosplayers we photographed on Saturday when we weren’t trapped in lines, crushed in crowds, or fussing with two straight days of catastrophic photo-op failure. (More on that next time.) Enjoy again!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/trader-jawa.jpgTrader Jawa! Stationed at the 501st Legion’s Midwest Garrison area, exchanging trinkets for charitable donations. Anne won a Sorting Hat pin.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/mandalorian.jpgMandatory Mandalorian.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/visas-marr.jpgVisas Marr from the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II game.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/green-clonetrooper.jpgGreen Clonetrooper.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/trek-snw-trio.jpgSpock, Number One and Carol Marcus from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/sallah.jpgIndiana Jones’ pal Sallah.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/barf-ii.jpgBarf from Spaceballs.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/dark-gambit.jpgDark Gambit, as resurrected by Apocalypse in the X-Men ’97 animated series just a few weeks ago. As cosplay of new characters goes, this was a really quick turnaround time.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/dark-number-five.jpgDark Number Five from a potentially gritty Short Circuit reboot.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/howard-the-duck.jpgHoward the Duck, ready for ACTION.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/oscar-the-grouch.jpgOscar the Grouch! Anyone stuck in lines for hours could relate.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/the-dude.jpgThe Dude wishes there were a rug big enough to tie all these concrete halls together.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/santa-from-gremlins.jpgPoor Santa from Gremlins.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/colonial-marines-and-xenomorph.jpgColonial Marines and their pet xenomorph.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/absolute-flash.jpgDC’s Absolute Flash!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/backdraft-firemen.jpgFiremen from the 1991 film Backdraft, here to meet its stars Kurt Russell and William Baldwin.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/eye-of-sauron.jpgThe Eye of Sauron, obviously here to stop the con’s 25th-anniversary celebration of The Fellowship of the Ring from happening!

To be continued!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/peacemaker-and-anne.jpgOur pal Peacemaker (yes, we’ve met! More than once! In other costumes!) gives Anne tips on how to fight for peace with prop guns.

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fifth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike.

As is the MCC procedure, let’s start with mandatory cosplay photos! The humble duo here at MCC enjoys the panoply of costumes, and appreciates the makers and wearers who enliven every comic-con with their talents and their exaltation of various fandoms. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend, especially from cons like this where we spent far more time waiting in lengthy lines that ate up precious time we could’ve spent taking more pics. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun.

We actually took enough pics to spread across two entries. This shorter gallery features every cosplayer we photographed during our two least accommodating days. We spent most of Friday either trapped in lines or waiting to be trapped in them. (Long story. We’ll definitely come back to that in Part 3.) And on Sunday we left Rosemont and headed home around 11:40. (The short story there: we’d finished our entire to-do list and were beyond exhausted.) The other gallery will be slightly longer! Enjoy in the meantime! Corrections, elucidations, and plugs welcome!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/joel-and-the-bots.jpgJoel and the Bots from MST3K.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/kmart-employee.jpgA Kmart employee wheeling around this hour’s Blue Light Special.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wile-e.-coyote.jpgThe star of Coyote vs. Acme, only in theaters August 28th! If we don’t all go see it, David Zaslav wins!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/wile-e-sign-back.jpgThe back of Wile E.’s sign.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/ghostbuster.jpgGhostbuster!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/red-proton-pack.jpgHer custom proton pack.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/snorlax-and-cyclops.jpgSnorlax and Cyclops! Narrow-eyed bros!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/maui-belle-woody.jpgMaui! Belle! Sheriff Woody!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/sesame-street-martian.jpgA Sesame Street Martian. Yip yip!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/starlighter.jpgStarlighter from the earlier seasons of The Boys.

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/galactus.jpgGalactus!

https://midlifecrisiscrossover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/cruella-de-vil.jpgCruella De Vil!

To be continued!