Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fourth 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: everything else about our convention weekend that I didn’t already share: chiefly, the comics! The shopping! The miscellaneous!

Over in Artists Alley, I was most looking forward to meeting writer Mark Russell after a previous failed attempt at Dragon Con 2023. As a lifelong lover of satire in general and sharp mockery of corporate greed in particular (with dollops of philosophic wisdom and flagrant use of captions in the old-school style), I’ve found that following his work is a fun scavenger hunt as his projects keep finding homes at different publishers across the comics landscape. His 2015 reboot of Simon and Kirby’s Prez was the first time he bowled me over, and much of the momentum has continued through tales as varied as The Flintstones, Wonder Twins, The Lone Ranger, Superman: The Space Age, Batman: The Dark Age, Fantastic Four: Life Story, Billionaire Island, My Bad, Not All Robots, and his recent, truncated run on Marvel’s X-Factor (which admittedly feels like his most compromised work to date, but started strong).

And those are just the ones I’ve read and could recall offhand. I’m still missing some. The hunt continues.

Among other subjects, we chatted about which of his trades is now out of print due to a licensing gaffe; which project was ghosted by its artist but reached completion anyway; and what might just be my new favorite of his, the Ablaze series Traveling to Mars, which was recently collected via Kickstarter campaign and which I really need to write about when I eventually get back to My Reading Stacks.

We took two full passes through Artists Alley as usual, but I was a bit pickier this year, partly because my unread pile has once again gotten out of control ever since the post-pandemic return to comic-con normalcy. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to say hi and fork over funds to the following folks:

Not pictured: ol’ friend of MCC Russell Lissau, whom we usually say hi to every year at this show. His newest work is an omnibus edition of the complete Batman: War Games crossover from the mid-2000s, whose crossovers included his first published Bat-tale.

In between photo ops we also walked two complete circuits of the exhibit hall, much to the distress of our lower extremities and the shoulders that had to bear our con baggage.

Kudos to the other exhibit hall vendors who brightened our weekend with impulse-buy dopamine hits:

• Copper Coast Confections, selling chocolates and fudge from two different booths on each end of the hall.
• Gem City Books, my favorite graphic novel discounters, where I found a Grant Morrison project I’d never heard of.
• The one guy with all the Asian snacks.
• Fan Expo’s own merch booth, where Anne got two variant-covered comics with big-name actors drawn onto them and I got a variant Spike Funko Pop dressed in his onetime CGBG-punk outfit.

Special thanks to all the fans we chatted with in various lines, including but not limited to Scott and Josiah from the Facebook group, the Mae Whitman fan whose wedding was Saturday, Yoah Cousin From Bahstan, the Trainspotting fan who brought it on VHS to show McGregor, the young lady who had tremendously high hopes to meet Keith David before he canceled, the guy who asked us to hold his place in the Saturday entrance line right before the line moved forward 40+ feet and we never saw him again (really sorry!), at least two different couples, and more, more more, more.

Last but not least, we deeply appreciate the water fountain in the main lobby over by the women’s restroom, which dozens of witnesses have testified may well have been the only free water dispenser remaining in the entirety of the convention center thanks to (we’re all guessing) the same strain of petty company greed as the average Mark Russell antagonist.

Much smaller thanks to whoever at the con was in charge of selecting the grab-bag items that came free with our “Ultimate Fan” passes. Mostly we paid that upcharge so we could get in early Friday and get the best possible timed tickets for the McGregor and Bloom signings (which worked beautifully!), but our freebies were:

• Variant figurines from Handmade by Robots (a Funko Pop competitor) of Stranger Things‘ Eleven in the Upside-Down (so, painted mostly blue)
• Polybagged copies of Absolute Batman #1, which I already have, but with a variant cover by Jorge Jimenez and Tomeu Morey
• Polybagged copies of Absolute Superman #1, which I already have and didn’t care for, but with a cool variant cover by Frank Quitely
• Mini-posters advertising DC Universe Infinite
• Tote bags bearing the same Absolute variant cover art

…and that was it for our smallest Ultimate Fan Package yet. Yippee. In that same spirit of random leftovers, please enjoy some outtakes!

Though it rained Saturday afternoon, thankfully we missed out on nearly all of it while we were trapped in indoor lines. Otherwise, great weather whenever we were outside.

We normally don’t attend Sundays at any con, but we knew fitting a Pom Klementieff photo op into our hectic Saturday would be next to impossible, so we allowed for the one Sunday appointment. Saturday crowds were exactly as impassable as we predicted, with bottlenecks in every other aisle – the worst possibly being the narrow passageway between Zach Tyler Eisen’s autograph section and a nearby dealer booth. Walking got even more uncomfortable when the storms passed through in the afternoon. Most of the lights in the main hall conked out, with only select emergency lights keeping the place from devolving into apocalyptic chaos (more than usual, I mean), but their generators’ reach didn’t seem to extend to the air conditioning. Sunday, by contrast, was a wonderland of empty aisles, copious elbow room, and so much A/C that some fans reportedly felt chilly. At a comic-con! This never happens.

The food options inside the center have improved over the years in terms of quality, but their prices reflected the reality beyond the con, now more than ever. At the end of each Fan Expo Chicago day we usually grab a meal at the park on the opposite side of the parking garage, where all the restaurants will validate. It’s changed ownership a few times, but since last year it’s had the rather Simpsonian name of Parkway Bank Park. My favorite option over there is Crust Brewing, whose staff are always cordial with us even though we never buy any alcohol, which is kind of their thing.

But the best part of every con is spending time with my wife, at least during the parts where my snap decisions aren’t raising her blood pressure. Fortunately that only happened the one time and we’re doing much better now.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you next con…which will be sooner than you think. (Unless you spotted the foreshadowing in Part 2.)

Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Cosplay!
Part 2: Celebrities!