With the second Wizard World Nashville Comic Con coming to the Music City Center Sept. 26-28, we thought it would be good to bring you a look at how our man in Chicago experienced the recent Wizard World Chicago Comic Con this August. Keep in mind that there is a Star Trek: The Next Generation special event scheduled for Wizard World Nashville Comic Con (WWNCC), and that LaVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, and Martina Sirtis from TNG, along with William Shatner are all scheduled to attend WWNCC.

Beware! Fanboys seeking magic dwell here!

by Jeremy Harrison
Wizard World, on the outskirts of Chicago: these are the tales of the Batman fans, Trekkers and Whovians. Our mission: to seek out sexy cos-players and new friends, to boldly explore the boundaries of fandom.

Twenty years ago a great show went off the air. It was a futuristic show about a bunch of explorers in space dealing with very deep philosophical issues: What is life? Could an android wanting to experience emotions be considered living? What makes a good leader? What are memories, and do they solely define us? I’m speaking of course of Star Trek: TNG! TNG stands for ‘The Next Generation,’ and was the successor to Star Trek, the original series. Most of the cast of TNG came to Wizard World. William Shatner from the original series made it to Wizard World this year; Leonard Nimoy could only attend through Skype.

Moreover, it was Batman’s 75th year anniversary. While there weren’t many Batman related events, but we did get to see a preview of the new Fox series Gotham and late Saturday Kevin Conroy appeared for a screening of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

Did I mention that this is also Ghostbusters’ 30th year anniversary? As a fan of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre, I can only say: “What a Trifecta!” I was really excited to meet LaVar Burton (Geordi LaForge) and Brent Spiner (Data). They were my heroes growing up. I like Michael Dorn (Worf) just fine, who’s getting his own show as ‘Captain Worf’ I should mention, but growing up I was really attracted to the ‘smart’ characters. The ones everybody had to turn to for the answers to very complex questions. What’s more, I was not alone. Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) was once operated on in real life by a guy who became a medical doctor because her TV persona inspired him to become one. Likewise, Burton and Spiner get fans all the time telling them that if it wasn’t for Star Trek they wouldn’t have gone into the fields of science and technology.

My highlight of Wizard World was getting to hear LaVar Burton singing to fans the theme song to ‘Reading Rainbow’ and then telling fans that he’s going to recreate the show for a new generation of fans and get them to explore the wonders of imagination through reading.