Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in our neighboring states (and sometimes even farther). We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

This weekend we once again drove two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend the fifteenth annual Cincinnati Comic Expo, which is normally held in the heart of their downtown that’s not so different from ours. However, while the Duke Energy Convention Center has been undergoing a two-year renovation project, CCE relocated to the Sharonville Convention Center, a smaller venue on the city’s north side that we previously visited for HorrorHound Cincinnati in 2018 and 2019. This was our fifth time at CCE, two years since our last one. This year’s event celebrated a unifying theme: Superman! Nearly the entire guest list had credits from various works featuring the Man of Steel — a proud commonality to celebrate here in the year that saw the release of The Greatest Superman Film of the 21st Century So Far.

Minor complication: we’ve been getting out of the house so often this century that we’d already met most of the guest list before:

• Jack O’Halloran (the first two Christopher Reeve Superman classics): The Superman Celebration 2001 in Metropolis, Illinois.
• Saran Douglas (ditto): Superman Celebrations 2001 and 2017
• Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville): Superman Celebration 2006 (barely), Wizard World Chicago 2013 and 2018, and GalaxyCon Columbus 2022
• Gerard Christopher (the syndicated Superboy): Superman Celebration 2012
• John Glover (Smallville): Superman Celebration 2012, GalaxyCon Columbus 2022 and Indiana Comic Con 2023
• Laura Vandervoort (Smallville): Wizard World Chicago 2012
• Brandon Routh (Superman Returns): Wizard World Chicago 2013, C2E2 2018, and Dragon Con 2025
• Tom Welling (Smallville): Wizard World Chicago 2018 and GalaxyCon Columbus 2022
• Tyler Hoechlin (The CW’s Supergirl, Superman and Lois): C2E2 2019
• Erica Durance (Smallville): C2E2 2023
• Kristin Kreuk (Smallville): GalaxyCon Columbus 2022

The guest list also originally included Dean Cain from Lois and Clark, whom we’d already met at Wizard World Chicago 2012 and Superman Celebration 2017. CCE announced his cancellation September 21st, though we understand some folks showed up Friday unaware of that and none too thrilled. It may not have helped that Cain’s face still appeared in some of their ads and site art, including the link to purchase photo ops.

In addition to the Super-actors, in the guest list’s small subset of Super Men Who Haven’t Played Superman Yet we’d also already met John Rhys-Davies from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Indiana Jones series, at Indiana Comic Con 2016 and 2024.

Nevertheless, CCE did invite some cool actors we hadn’t met before. First up from the non-Super subset yet super anyway: fellow Raiders of the Lost Ark costar Karen Allen, the star of our lead photo! I’ve also seen her in such films as Animal House, Scrooged, Starman, the forgotten 1993 digitized-serial-killer flick Ghost in the Machine, and the Best Picture nominee In the Bedroom. But of course most recently for us was Marion’s happy ending in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. She arrived at her booth around 10:30 and was exactly as sweet and gracious as we’d imagined. After snapping Anne’s pic with her, her booth-neighbor Mr. Rhys-Davies arrived for his own signing, greeting her and kissing her hand as he went.

Next up: Tim Daly! Gen-X-ers might best remember him from the NBC sitcom Wings, but geeks like me fondly recall him as the star of the 1990s Superman animated series. In recent times he’s appeared in such series as Private Practice, Madam Secretary, and Netflix’s Leanne. In our chitchat we swapped rave reviews of Indy’s own St. Elmo’s Grill and its famous shrimp cocktail, which is always everyone’s favorite thing about them. (In searching his memory, at first he called it “St. Elmo’s Fire”, but we figured it out.)

Next door to Daly was George Newbern! His long and varied career has included playing the groom in the Father of the Bride remake and its sequel, Julia Sugarbaker’s son on Designing Women, and Final Fantasy VII‘s big-bad Sephiroth in later games (Kingdom Hearts 2, Dissidia, et al.). I also would’ve seen him in Adventures in Babysitting and Switching Channels, but it’s been a while. Most relevant here, he took over from Daly as the voice of the animated Superman in the subsequent Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series.

Farther down the same row of booths: Mark Pillow! Best known as the villainous Nuclear Man from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Pillow later starred in a 1993 German TV series called The Alaska Kid, appeared in an episode of Wiseguy, and…uhhh, that’s very nearly it. You can buy autographed pics directly from his official site, which says he’s currently a “fine wine representative” and doing pretty okay for himself.

Full disclosure: Anne has seen Superman IV and was overjoyed to meet him. We’ve had it on DVD for years as part of a nifty old boxed set, but I’ve never convinced myself to sit through it. It remains one of the most well-known mainstream superhero films I’ve never seen to this day. (Same goes for Halle Berry’s Catwoman.)

Last and nearly most: Helen Slater! I saw her in The Legend of Billie Jean and City Slickers, but she’s best known in certain circles for starring as 1984’s Supergirl, which was a big deal at the time for anyone hoping to see some big-screen super-heroines for a change. Slater returned to DC Comics’ various realities more than once — appearing in Smallville as Superman’s mom Lara, then on The CW’s Supergirl as Kara’s adopted Earth-mom.

We’d initially planned to attend CCE Friday and Saturday, but settled for just Saturday because we needed to cut corners budget-wise after recent expenditures. We also got the impression the show had scaled down a bit compared to years past. As early comic-con arrivers, we had some ups and downs that Saturday morning. We left the house promptly at 6 a.m. in hopes of getting to Sharonville at 8, exactly two hours before the show floor would open to us non-VIPs at 10.

Everything went as planned until around 7:20, five or ten miles from the Ohio border, when Anne realized she’d forgotten her billfold at home, which had all her autograph-table cash, her credit card, her ID, all the things in it. It’s cool that at least she’d remembered to grab her car keys, even though I was driving. Considering she’s usually the one bugging me before we leave the house for major events — “Do you have your wallet? Do you have the tickets? Maps? Con bag? Antiperspirant? Keys? Wallet?” — I’m proud to brag I acted the gentleman and did not smirk at the irony at the time.

Either we’d have to turn around and wreck our schedule fetching it, or I’d have to pay for everything. The actors at comic-con autograph tables rarely accept cards or modern digital payments, so that meant a need for extra cash. After we exited I-75 near the convention center, we Google-mapped our way to a gas-station ATM and I proceeded to save the day for her, exactly like Superman would do for Lois if she ever got herself into a life-threatening situation that he could save her from using the power of money.

(Later we learned some guests were accepting credit cards at their tables, which remains extremely rare, but they tacked on extra fees.)

Crisis averted, we pulled up to the Sharonville Convention Center at 8:15 and parked for free about a hundred feet from the front door because the place is just that cool if you get there early enough and/or thousands of folks don’t beat you there. After a quick dip inside at 8:30 for Will Call wristband pickup (alas, only weekend passholders got badges, so my leftover badge ribbons were useless here), they kicked us back outside to wait for official opening with only three people ahead of us in the general-admission line. At 43° the morning was brisker than we would’ve liked, but we survived, passing the time in chitchat with line-mates. Twice we grieved to witness two fans each taking a spill on the narrow sidewalk strip between the curb and the entrance-line stanchions — one an older lady; then sometime later, a mage whose staff crystal shattered on impact.

I know well the suckiness of spending an entire day at a comic-con with a brand new harsh wound. A volunteer later moved the stanchions a few inches farther away from the sidewalk and we saw no further spills. Regardless, that thoroughly sucks and I hope those two are feeling better today.

The jovial ambiance took a hard nosedive at 9:20 when a blood-drive bus parked across from the entrance and set up shop to take donations — its growling Victorian-era engine left running and drowning out all sound around me so I could no longer hear most conversations, its exhaust pipes cranking out noxious clouds powerful enough for us to gag on the stench. A Godzilla collector next to us suggested a charity-drive slogan: “Give blood! Save lives! Choke on our fumes!”

The volunteers let us in at 10 on the dot, and we were off and running to the autograph area on the opposite end of the building. We accomplished our primary objectives — by which I mean, met all five actors — ending with Ms. Slater at 11:15. We treated ourselves to early lunch in the downstairs food court, which hosted restaurateurs from various local businesses, including local faves Skyline Chili and so forth. The winners of my money were the good food-truckers at Chicken Mac, whose unconventional crossing of mac-and-cheese with bourbon chicken hit the spot and whose cornbread was delightfully non-dry, unlike 95% of all eateries that tend to sell cornbread staled overnight.

That’s enough paragraphs for now. Time for what you Google-happy passersby have been impatiently waiting for: cosplay pics! The humble duo here at MCC enjoys the panoply of costumes at any given comic-con, and appreciates the makers and wearers who enliven every shindig with their talents and their exaltation of various fandoms. We regret we can only represent a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections, elucidations, and plugs welcome!

(Kenoki also gifted us each with Space Stone shards. The spirit of random Dragon Con swag lives on!)

As always, I wish we’d been able to take more cosplay pics, but the more autograph lines we stand in, the fewer pics we can take. Also, while the celebrity autograph ballroom seemed kinda sparse (well, except the long lines for Hoechlin and the Smallville cast), the exhibit hall was nonstop jam-packed full of fans, making it impossible to find convenient places for us and cosplayers to pause for pics without getting trampled. The venue was smaller than their usual digs, but I don’t know that attendance was reduced quite so much. We managed to capture some of the visual delights in between our gasps for breath.

…and that’s pretty much it. I’d already met many of the Artists Alley guests at previous cons. The schedule was really light on panels, presumably because the Center doesn’t have that many rooms — no sketch duels this year, just the various Super-actors taking turns on the single downstairs stage. I’m assuming the assigned space had a stage, at least.

Per tradition I stopped by Gem City Books, my favorite purveyors of discounted trades and collections, and picked up a hardcover collection of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s Night Force. And we grabbed handfuls of goodies from the Asian snack booth to take home. We were on our way out the door by 12:45. We’ve had much shorter con experiences in the past, and were pretty happy with what we’d enjoyed here. Great day, all told. And as promised, Anne paid me back when we got home. Bonus!

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you next con — coming in December!