Comic-Con 2014

This year's panelists feature media movers and shakers from film, television, comics, and music: Orlando Jones (Sleepy Hollow, MAD TV), Ne-Yo (actor, artist, writer, singer, etc.), J. August Richards (Angel, Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Kevin Grevioux (I, Frankenstein; Underworld), Cree Summer (Batman Beyond, Rugrats, A Different World), and Erika Alexander (Living Single, Concrete Park). The Black Panel is produced by Tatiana El Khouri and hosted by its founder, Michael Davis.

Milestone Media is all grown up, and here's your chance to get the lowdown on what's really the deal with all those rumors. Milestone partners and founders Denys Cowan, (Django Unchained, Green Arrow), Derek Dingle (Black Enterprise magazine), and Michael Davis (The Hidden Beach) are ready to spill. The Milestone @ 21 panel is produced by Reggie Hudlin (Django Unchained, Django/Zorro) and hosted by Phil LaMarr (Static Shock, Mad TV). If you're not there, you just won't get it...and your friends will never let you forget it.

2014 marks the 75th anniversary of Batman, but also several other anniversaries for the character. It's the 100th birthday of writer Bill Finger who wrote many of the character's adventures through the 1960s, and is responsible for many additions to the legend and some of the Dark Knight's most infamous villains. It's the 50th anniversary of the "New Look" Batman, which started in 1964 under editor Julius Schwartz and including artist Carmine Infantino's interpretation of the Caped Crusader, which saved Detective Comics from possible cancellation. And it's the 25th anniversary of Tim Burton's Batman movie, which brought the character back to a whole new audience, in a new-and much darker-form. Comic-Con special guest Denny O'Neill (writer/editor, Batman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow) will moderate fellow Comic-Con special guests Chuck Dixon (writer, Batman, Airboy), Kelley Jones (artist, Batman, Deadman), Graham Nolan (artist, Detective Comics, The Phantom, Joe Frankenstein), and Brian Stelfreeze (artist, Shadow of the Bat, Daymen) in a discussion on how they kept the world's greatest detective going strong through the '80s and '90s.

Based on the bestselling novel Pines by Blake Crouch and brought to life by suspenseful storyteller M. Night Shyamalan, Wayward Pines is the intense new mind-bending 10-episode FOX event thriller evocative of the classic hit Twin Peaks. The episode is directed by M. Night Shyamalan and written by Chad Hodge. Scheduled to participate are cast members Matt Dillon (Crash), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Toby Jones (Harry Potter franchise), Carla Gugino (Watchmen), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Reed Diamond (24), Shannyn Sossamon (40 Days and 40 Nights), Tim Griffin (Prime Suspect), and Charlie Tahan (Charlie St. Cloud) and executive producers M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), Donald De Line (The Italian Job), Chad Hodge (The Playboy Club) and Ashwin Rajan (After Earth). Moderated by Rob Moynihan (TV Guide).

Taking lessons from their success on Dead Space, Steve Papoutsis (executive producer) and Ian Milham (creative director), discuss how they are moving the Battlefield series in a bold new direction with Battlefield Hardline. Learn how the team at Visceral Games is collaborating withBill Johnson (Justified), Kelly Hu (Arrow), Eugene Byrd (Bones), and Benito Martinez (House of Cards) to fuse the interactive medium of video games with the creative presentation of TV crime dramas to deliver a wholly new and unique experience to gamers. New footage of the engaging single player campaign will be on display showcasing the game's story about the war on crime in the gritty and glamorous streets of LA and Miami.

Comic-Con fans will get the first glimpse at Atari: Game Over, the Xbox Originals documentary that chronicles the fall of the Atari Corporation through the lens of one of the biggest mysteries of all time, dubbed "The Great Video Game Burial of 1983." As the story goes, the Atari Corporation, faced with overwhelmingly negative response to the E.T. video game, disposed of hundreds of thousands of unsold game cartridges by burying them in the small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, original Atari video game designer Howard Scott Warshaw (E.T., Yar's Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark), two-time Academy Award-winning executive producer Simon Chinn (Searching for Sugar Man and Man on Wire), Emmy Award-winning executive producer Jonathan Chinn (FX's 30 Days and PBS's American High), director Zak Penn (X-Men 3, Avengers, and Incident at Loch Ness), Fuel CEO Mike Burns, and more as they take fans behind the scenes and share an inside look into the making of this weird and wonderful film. Moderated by Larry Hyrb (Xbox's Major Nelson).

New York Times bestselling author Max Brooks (The Zombie Survival Guide) is renowned for his zombie survival lectures but this year he returns to provide intel and anecdotes on how to survive a Vampires vs. Zombies apocalypse! Moderated by William Christensen (Avatar Press publisher), this panel and Q&A introduces readers to Max Brooks's new all-original comic book series, Extinction Parade: War!

Think you know everything from Crisis on Infinite Earths to Blackest Night to Flashpoint? Come by and test your knowledge of the DC Universe from its inception all the way to The New 52 against DC's finest minds to win some exclusive prizes!

Jeff Goldsmith (publisher of Backstory on the iPad) interviews screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) about what it took to write and produce the worldwide box office smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past. Kinberg will take you behind the scenes as to how he and the film's creative team evolved the longstanding film franchise to an all new high. From the standout Quicksilver sequence to managing the same comic characters at different points in time and beyond-he'll discuss how the film was made and take your questions.

To premiere the new sci-fi series Nobility, the cast-including Doug Jones (Falling Skies, Pan's Labyrinth), Walter Koenig (Star Trek: TOS, Babylon 5), Cas Anvar (Assassin'sCreed, Lost), Adrienne Wilkinson (Xena: Warrior Princess, Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Darren Jacobs (Starship: Rising), and James Kyson (Heroes)-will appear in character to entertain you. The second half of the panel will be a Q&A with the cast, director Neil Johnson (Starship: Rising) and series creator E. J. De la Pena (Jingle All the Way, Run Ronnie Run, Boy Meets World). Attendees will be captivated by the antics of the misfit crew of the Starship Nobility as they debut a teaser for this action-packed new series while they interact directly with the audience and deal with a surprise from some scheming series villains!

Zombie Research Society and experts Max Brooks (World War Z), Matt Mogk (AMC's Talking Dead), Steven Schlozman (Harvard Medical School), Scott Kenemore (Zombie, Indiana), Brendan Riley (Columbia College, Chicago), Cameron Carlson (U.S. Navy), Brad Voytek (UCSD), and Craig Engler (Syfy's Z Nation) discuss the evolution of the modern zombie in science, survival, and pop culture, with a special focus on little known facts and common misconceptions.