Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Risen from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, Fan Expo has put forth tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions for longtime fans’ expectations…

…by which I mean celebrity guests, Artists Alley, shopping, and generally eye-popping sights. Tens of thousands of fans showed up and were astounded to realize — in an unprecedented break from comic-con norms — almost none of the actor guests had canceled. Dozens of autograph booths were up and running, many of which had hours-long lines, some of which were on opposite sides of the designated walkway, each side sprawling enough to create a choking bottleneck between them. Saturday it became nearly impossible simply to walk through the Autograph Area in either direction. Couple that with a convention-center A/C system that struggled to catch up, and the confluence of issues made for an often uncomfortable exhibit-hall environment.

Anne and I are now over 50 but still out there in the geek fun-trenches, trying to indulge our youthful selves despite the potential physical damage. Under the circumstances, it’s kind of a miracle we lasted as long as we did and weren’t unconscious by noon. Nevertheless, we persisted for a while, until we didn’t.

Other than the once-in-a-lifetime, extremely resource-consumptive Mark Hamill experience, all our other celeb encounters were scheduled for Saturday. We would’ve much preferred doing some of them on Friday when the place would hypothetically be less overpopulated, but Hamill’s autograph times were unreasonably kept secret until day-of and obviated any and all other non-Hamill Friday plans. Hence our hectic Saturday itinerary.

After a fast-food breakfast we returned Saturday to the Stephens Center circa 8:20 am to find a long line waiting outside from the front doors to the very edge of River Road, where cars in the far right lane buzzed unnervingly past our unprotected, marginless sidewalk positions. We gabbed with other fans about various sundry things, including how we’d spent our Friday. Around 8:45-ish they ushered us all inside and ran us through the same security/check-in gambit. We adjourned to the same non-VIP pre-opening line, farther back this time.

We whiled away the next hour-plus chatting with a schoolteacher who’d come into Chicago from a few hours away. (Yes, another one! Somehow we keep attracting them, as if they supernaturally detect Anne’s youngest brother is also a teacher and she’s therefore an honorary One Of Them.) She and a friend were big fans of Hayden Christensen — pre-Star Wars, at that! — who’d never been to conventions before. Her friend had to go wrangle some family members, leaving her to navigate the Christensen autograph ticket-exchange booth herself. We offered to escort her there, as we’d done exactly the same with Hamill’s on Friday and knew where it was. We strongly believe in fans being kind to other fans like that.

At 9:30 the VIP line was allowed onto the show floor. At 9:35 they unleashed all of us unto the breach. The three of us took off through the opened doors, though she soon left us choking on her power-walking dust. Anne ran a distant third while I tried to keep up. Eventually she left us so far behind that she couldn’t hear me yelling when she zoomed past the booth and nearly reached the photo-op area before braking and giving me a chance to catch up and point her back the other way. Eventually, we completed our side quest and she was on her way to an eventual brush with Anakin Skywalker. I hope her experience and wait-times weren’t as awful as some of the war stories we’d hear later.

Now on our own again, Anne joined an autograph line for another famous face from the Star Wars galaxy: Temuera Morrison! The eminent master of clones has played Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Commander Cody, and other Clonetroopers throughout the Prequels, the live-action Disney+ shows, and one Star Wars: Visions short. Of course he’s also Aquaman’s dad in the two DC movies, but I won’t pretend I remember him from Speed 2: Cruise Control.

His line took her a little over an hour, even allowing for VIP intrusions, quite exceeding our expectations. Meanwhile, I ran around Artists Alley a second time but didn’t stop much more than I had the day before. (We’ll come back to that.) By the time I returned, Morrison’s line was so packed that I felt too sheepish to elbow my way to her side and possibly irk everyone behind her. Finding my own waiting place in the meantime proved challenging amid the bustling autograph battlefields, so I just kept walking laps around various aisles and checking in with her from time to time. That surely burned calories but was otherwise a complete waste of precious energy I could’ve put to better use later.

After she was freed, we walked down toward the lengthy voice-actor end of the area. On the way we had to step aside for a pair of EMTs who were rushing a wheelchair to voice actor Neil Newbon’s line, where a medical emergency was in progress. We understand this was but one of several such emergencies that reportedly occurred throughout the extremely warmed-up show floor on Saturday, possibly similar to the close call we’d witnessed in Hamill’s Friday autograph line.

At that point we didn’t quite find what we were hoping for, so we declared an early lunchtime during what we feared might be our last real window of opportunity for the next few hours. This year’s food court had several choices beyond the basic, unrecommended Stephens Center concession stands. One enthusiastic young man had highly recommended the poke bowl stand to us, which I expect I’ll try someday. Instead, though, we unintentionally repeated our Saturday 2022 agenda, by which I mean our lunch was cakes.

This was arguably another tactical error, but in our defense, their tented table in the way-way-back had no line and their sweets were cheaper than anyone’s ostensibly nutritious fare.

After cake we split up for a bit. I had an 11:40 photo op with the subject of our lead photo, British actress Ella Purnell. In addition to Prime Video’s Fallout, she’s also the voice of Gwyn in the animated Star Trek: Prodigy series, which Anne and I greatly enjoyed. I’ve also seen her in Never Let Me Go, Army of the Dead, and Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. My turn came around 11:55; I was well aware Purnell had a strict no-touching rule, which the last volunteer reinforced before I stepped up to the plate and which was perfectly fine for my usual M.O. As usual I asked for jazz hands; she laughed, perhaps feeling silly, but tried anyway and continued laughing as she succeeded. Nicely done, that.

Meanwhile on the other end of the exhibit hall, Anne sped through another autograph line: Fred Tatasciore! Though he’s voiced a lot of random Star Wars characters across its transmedia empire (including a literal “Additional Voices” credit in The Force Awakens), in this case her cause was for Star Trek — the cartoon veteran plays her favorite Lower Decks character, the belligerent Bajoran softie Lieutenant Shaxs. (I’m currently five episodes into his starring role in Marvel’s Hit-Monkey, where he’s expertly making a lot of different primate sounds, but this was Anne’s moment, not mine.)

We reunited around noon, in plenty of time for our 12:40 photo op upstairs with Mark Hamill, as already recounted. Fortunately that tension-filled episode lasted a mere hour, ending at 1:15 and leaving me some time to reach my 1:30 photo op downstairs in the main photo-op area. As it happens, I needn’t have hurt myself hurrying because the star was over a half-hour late herself.

Speaking of whom: it’s Sofia Boutella! She’s been in such films as Star Trek Beyond, Atomic Blonde, Argylle, Kingsman, Rebel Moon, Fahrenheit 451, the most psychedelic episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and more! Her next action film, The Killer’s Game, will reunite her with Dave Bautista and should be opening next month.

I had no time to catch my breath afterward, as we had one final photo op scheduled at 2:10. By this time the main photo-op area was logjammed with hundreds of fans panicking about their own appointments as usual. While they were all kept waiting, ours had already been assigned a row far away from them, with ample breathing room because she wasn’t a “hot”, highly demanded A-lister or anime superstar. Fine by us.

Thus we concluded our one-day photo-op miniseries with Laurie Metcalf! She’s an Emmy Award winner, an Academy Award nominee, Andy’s mom in the Toy Story movies, Lady Bird’s mom in Lady Bird, a secret mom in Scream 2, and moms of other characters in certain shows I don’t watch, but Americans over 40 best know her as TV’s Jackie from Roseanne.

By 2:25 we were free…not just from the photo op area, but technically from the rest of the show. We’d officially finished our to-do list. I had other options written down, and would’ve liked to get five or six hundred more cosplay pics. I even tried another round of window-shopping. After a few half-hearted minutes of baby-stepping through the narrowest gaps within the endless masses clogging every available aisle, I was physically drained, mentally taxed, sick of baby-stepping through those narrowest gaps, fed up with constant braking, maybe lacking in key nutrients besides sugar and flour, and tired of sharing oxygen, body heat, personal space, and anything else with tens of thousands of other humans. I wanted out. Anne was dying in her own ways and okay with fleeing the premises.

And thus ended our Saturday at Fan Expo Chicago. If you came here only for the celeb photo ops, here’s where your scrolling and skimming will likely end. Thanks for reading and paying me cursory attention!

…

…

…

…are they gone? Cool. Now for our complete Fan Expo Chicago 2024 rundown, we backtrack to recount the rest of our Friday. When last we’d left Our Heroes, at 2:20 I’d just exchanged our Mark Hamill autograph QR code for a physical ticket and an 8×10 photo of Luke Skywalker in X-Wing Pilot uniform. Anne later admitted she would’ve preferred something with a lightsaber, but she wasn’t around to kibitz in that critical decision point, so I’d done the best I could with the options at hand. Also, most of the Jedi pics were fuzzy screen shots.

With over three hours’ free time before our Hamill slot, we headed directly to Artists Alley. We only made a few stops, but the first was the best: Nicola Scott! Among her numerous credits throughout the years, my favorite used to be her Secret Six run with Gail Simone. Then a couple months ago I read Wonder Woman: The Historia, in which she worked with other artists to tell the secret origin of Hippolyta, the Amazons, Themyscira, and other characters and events leading up to Princess Diana’s most unusual birth. Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, it’s an astonishing collaboration, the most beautiful graphic novel I’ve read in years.

Scott was a tough act to follow. A few rows down, we visited with Russell Lissau, whom we’ve met at several previous shows. At Anne’s insistence we also braked to meet Tony Moy, who caught her eye with a physical reprint of a portion of his historical webcomic 4Forty2nd: The Lost Battalion. Longtime MCC readers know Anne is a huge WWII aficionado (specializing in the European theater) who’s prone to extemporaneous monologues about it whenever and wherever possible, and won’t stop reading more and more and more books on the subject. She recognized that battalion number on sight, having just read about them recently.

After Artists Alley came our official tour of duty through the rest of the exhibit hall. We didn’t find much reason for excited pauses among the other dealers — limited selections of buttons and pins, to Anne’s disappointment. Lots of anime stuff abounded, which is fine because cons don’t have to be all about us, but it means we save more money. Booths for insurance companies and phone carriers surely helped Fan Expo’s bottom line but were conceptually a waste of space. (Full disclosure: insurance is my day job. I’m pretty happy that my employer does not do cons.)

Beyond those kind talents mentioned above, we made the other following stops across our two-day foray:

• Geek-mashup artist Brett Bennett, who caught my eye with a riff on Van Gogh’s self-portraits.
• Gem City Books, once again feeding my addiction to their discounted omnibuses.
• Fudge from Copper Coast Confections, who had two booths on opposite ends of the hall.
• Asian snacks from booths in aisles 600 and 1100 whose names I forgot to catch.
• One of the official Fan Expo booths for con-merch and exclusives, where we grabbed a Tiny Leia Funko Pop and a copy of Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #26, which I’m already buying and really enjoying monthly (Mark Waid is having himself such a ball) but which had a cute Mark Hamill variant cover by Mico Suayan.

Nestled behind Artists Alley was the official fan-group area, which was noticeably emptier than the rest of the exhibit hall but offering plenty of sights, charity fund drives, and networking opportunities. I thoroughly suck at the latter, but their decorations and costumes were keen.

The 501st Midwest also handed out cards for a clever “Droid Hunt” activity that would end with a raffle, but predicated on the flawed concept that one of their armored members must first spot you somewhere on the exhibit hall and detach a ticket from the flyer you were given. I gave it a go for a couple hours, but was ultimately never seen (story of my life) and found this wasn’t ideal inside an enormous building that’s been turned into the world’s largest “Where’s Waldo?” double-page spread. Maybe try at another con?

Beyond all that…for our Friday show-floor supper before our Hamill-filled evening, the Stephens Center now has a bar in the main lobby with sandwiches and limited seating. The sandwiches did their job. Shortly after that, we also visited the Ultimate Fan Lounge, one of the tangible perks that came with our upgraded “Ultimate Fan” weekend con passes — not quite VIP, but not quite baseline general-admission tickets. Meeting Room #1 served as that lounge, with several tables and much quietude at a bit of a hike from the show floor. Minimal perks included a water cooler, Lifesavers mints, and a clerk selling surplus Ultimate Fan Package items.

And…really, as far as the Stephens Center goes, that’s our entire Fan Expo Chicago 2024 experience, with a rather large loot pile to show for it when we went home. Much of it includes the freebies in our Ultimate Fan Package — Marty McFly dolls, a mini-poster advertising DC Universe Infinite, a full reprint of Detective Comics #27 with variant cover by a controversial AI artist, and a shopping bag with that same AI art on it, which was also the art on our badges. Those weren’t my favorite part of the show.

For anyone interested in our complete weekend experience, including tales of a hotel of compromised quality and our very first visit to one of the most popular restaurants within walking distance of the Stephens Center, have we got an epilogue coming soon for you. To be concluded!

Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Part 1: Mark Hamill Live!
Part 2: A Single Measly Cosplay Gallery!
Epilogue: Foods Beyond the Stephens Center