Wizard World Indianapolis 2015 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Costumes!

The Baroness welcomes you to Wizard World Indianapolis 2015! Unless you’re with that accursed GI Joe. Then you can go attend the dental networking seminar across the hall for all she cares. (Fun MCC trivia: we’ve actually met before! You can visit her Facebook page for more pics and future cosplay plans.)

This weekend is the inaugural Wizard World Indianapolis, currently taking up residence in three exhibit halls, one ballroom, and a handful of meeting roomings at our ample Indiana Convention Center downtown. My wife and I have attended several Wizard World Chicago weekends, but this is the first time their company has seen fit to grace our hometown with their geek marketing presence. Not that we’re necessarily complaining, mind you. After the parade of conventions that each tried their luck here in 2014 with mixed results, it was refreshing to watch established pros come in and show the pretenders how the job’s done.

As of this writing WWIndy still has one late evening and all of Sunday to go. My wife and I attended today and stuck it out until we ran out of energy and hit a programming snag I hadn’t expected and didn’t have the patience to endure. Derailed plans notwithstanding, today was a vast improvement — in terms of attendance and organization — over the issues we encountered with last year’s events.

Longtime MCC readers know we normally take dozens of costume photos, including the costume contest winners and good sports, and share them over the course of multiple MCC entries. With WWIndy, attending said contest came with a catch: if you weren’t a VIP ticketholder, the only way to reserve a seat was to attend the event preceding the contest in the same room — in this case, a concert by a World of Warcraft tribute band.

Some of you read that last clause and are now excitedly searching for free sample songs online. That’s understandable, and maybe they’re amazing at what they do, but I’ve never gotten into WoW. They could be the Weird Al of MMORPG filking for all I know, but I wasn’t really in the mood to spend nearly an hour listening to a set list whose contents and in-jokes would all be over my head. Unless, mind you, every aspect of WoW is a straight-up ripoff of Dungeons & Dragons, which I played in my youth and still retain a lot of (obsolete) working knowledge in my head. See, if they were a D&D tribute band calling themselves Band of Vecna, I might’ve given ’em a listen, except then my wife would still be left out. Sure, she’d abide by my decision and wait patiently and fall asleep on my shoulder, but she shouldn’t have to do that, even though she’s a big fan of napping.

Anyway. We missed the Costume Contest. Hopefully those who stuck around saw cool things. Here’s the complete rundown of all the costumes we ran across anyway at various times. Enjoy!

Barf from Spaceballs waits by the phone every night, hoping for that life-changing call to arms from JJ Abrams.

Barf, meet Borg. Borg, Barf.

Captain Kirk…STANDS…in an aisle…next to THE! tallest! Spock! we’ve…evermet.

Gandalf has thirteen really hungry friends he wants to invite over to your house, plus a dangerous mission for you to undertake even though you just met. That’s cool, right?

We counted at least four Tenth Doctors on site, but only this one had an inflatable Red Dalek defeated and tamed. He wins.

We only saw one Fourth Doctor, and he had Jelly Babies. He wins.

For you young folks in the audience, Elvis Presley was a famous musician who sold lots of records to your grandparents. He doesn’t get as much radio airplay as he used to now that most Top-40 oldies stations don’t like going back that far in history anymore.

Bat-Villains! Never attend a con without them.

Damian Wayne, the most recent Robin, feeling much better after recently coming back from the dead.

Rare Batman Beyond representation courtesy of Dee Dee from the Jokerz.

Black Cat and the Riddler defy the wishes of their isolationist corporate overlords. Just because Marvel and DC heroes can’t have crossovers shouldn’t mean the villains can’t either.

Emma Frost from the X-Men was reportedly seen hanging out at the con with the Allfather Odin. Queen Frigga could not be reached for comment.

Some people say the world will end in fire. This Pyro from Team Fortress 2 doesn’t get people who say it’ll end in ice.

Ciel Phantomhive carrying Alois Trancy, from the anime Black Butler.

Pokemon‘s Officer Jenny keeps the show floor safe for fans and for any kids who want to hold vicious magic animal fights.

Up‘s Carl Fredricksen, his death-defying flying house, and poor Russell, his noble accidental abductee.

Mandatory Star Wars, part 1: Boba and Jango Fett dress in style for their new gig as father/son bodyguards for the land-bound Princess Ariel.

Mandatory Star Wars, part 2: JEDI ACTION! Obi-Wan Kenobi Force-pummels three Assassin’s Creed assassins, who ventured from their respective centuries for one last job in a galaxy far, far away.

To be continued! Next time: people we met and stuff we did.