Panel time! We've watched the “Gotham” and “Flash” pilots and seen hints from “Constantine” and “Arrow,” including the reveal that Ra's al Ghul will be the Big Bad on Season 3.
Geoff Johns is moderating and… Let's go!
10:05 p.m. The size of this panel is utterly insane. It's basically the full casts of ALL FOUR SHOWS. In rows. On the Hall H stage.
10:07 p.m. Angelica Celaya is the biggest panel surprise. She's the newest “Constantine” star and she started work yesterday.
10:08 p.m. “It's kinda crazy to see the universe represented like this,” Johns says.
10:08 p.m. Where did “Gotham” come from and why start with the death of the Waynes, Johns asks. “Origin stories are my favorite part of the mythologies of the DC Universe,” Bruno Heller says. He found it natural to start with the beginning of the process and “What is more iconic and seminal than the death of the Waynes?” And then he thought to have Jim Gordon at the crime scene. “It's a common mythology that we all share,” Heller says. “It was a dream come true as far as a director is concerned,” Danny Cannon says. He says that in the first five minutes of their meeting everything was there. Gotham is the city he always wished he could visit as a kid, the decaying, decrepit city.
10:11 p.m. “Harvey knows how the city works and Jim believes he knows how the city ought to work and between those worlds is Gotham,” Ben McKenzie says, explaining the core dynamic on “Gotham.” He worked with Donal's sister on “Southland.” She played a hooker. “The Logues are in it to win it man, they do it right,” McKenzie says.
10:12 p.m. “It's a very unique experience, to be part of a franchise like this and have the opportunity to collaborate with somebody like Bruno, Danny to create a character like this, it's just amazing,” Jada Pinkett Smith says of Fish Mooney. Robin Lord Taylor is excited to come to set. “I feel like it's a vessel I'm filling,” he says. “There's a lot of makeup on me,” Taylor laughs. “Not to say that I'm not doing anything, but once they put all that stuff on, I feel like half my work is done,” he adds. And what of little David Mazouz? “That's kinda up to Bruno and Danny,” Mazouz says, noting that Batman becomes Batman when Bruce Wayne is 25 so, “Hopefully this show will run until I'm 25.” And what of Camren Bicondova? She says she looked to the comics and the Adam West “Batman.” She thought she was auditioning for a girl named Lucy, rather than Selina Kyle. “I'm excited about everything. She's really mysterious and you don't really know what she's thinking all the time or whether she's thinking anything at all,” Bicondova says. She adds that Selina is a cat-lover and she's a cat-lover and that she and Selina could be friends.
10:16 p.m. “Arrow” chat time! “Season 3 for all of our characters is really about identity. It's 'Can Oliver be Oliver Queen and be The Arrow?'” Amell says. “It's 'Arrow' with a little bit more green,” he teases. “It's past my bedtime. It's past your bedtime,” Greg Berlanti says, pointing to one small kid in the crowd. “It really has grown beyond our wildest dreams,” Berlanti says of the show they're making. He thanks the studio and network for their support.
10:19 p.m. Marc Guggenheim announces that Ted Grant and Wildcat are coming on the show. He promises that Grant is going to have some interaction with Laurel.
10:20 p.m. “It's the coolest costume in the world. They gave me a butt. I have a really nice butt in the costume,” Colton Haynes says of Arsenal. Katie Cassidy is coy about what Laurel and Wildcat will be up to. Caity Lotz read some “Birds of Prey” and “Black Canary” comics, but most she took her character from scripts and the backstory. “Getting to wear that costume is like… come on. It's really fun,” Lotz says.
10:22 p.m. And what of Malcolm Merlyn's plan this season? “If I'm speaking from Malcolm himself, I'm as much a hero as Oliver Queen is, actually. That's the way I see it,” John Barrowman says. “The whole relationship between Malcolm and his daughter Thea and what's gonna happen, it's going to be the most amazing, the most dysfunction father-daughter relationship on TV ever,” Barrowman promises. “I'll teach her a few things, yeah.” Barrowman says. “I'm really scared right now, guys,” Willa Holland says.
10:24 p.m. “Flash” time, but via a transition with Emily Bett Rickards. Will she choose Barry or Oliver? “What about Ray Palmer? And he's a MAN, too,” Rickards says. “We have Barry's intellect and Oliver's intellect,” she giggles. “I don't know. I am very lucky that I get to transition over to 'The Flash' in episodes to come,” she teases. “In terms of love interest, I don't know. Are they interested in Felicity at some point?” she ponders, giggling some more.
10:26 p.m. Andrew Kreisberg time. Why the humor in “The Flash”? They didn't want to make the same show twice. “So whereas 'Arrow' has a much darker quality to it, with 'Flash' we wanted to do something lighter, brighter a little more blue sky,” Kreisberg says.
10:27 p.m. Grant Gustin's Barry has a dark backstory, but a good heart and sense of humor. “He's full of hope. He's full of optimism,” Gustin says. His favorite part of being an actor is digging as deep as he can into the “emotional rawness.” He likes that Barry is a dork and he's genuine and he's easy to relate to. And what brought Jesse L. Martin to the show? “I'd obviously played a detective before,” Martin says. The crowd roars. He says that Andrew and Greg pitched to him with the enthusiasm of puppies having to pee outside. “As long as I played a detective, I never got to shoot anything,” he says, adding that he's already gotten to shoot a lot of things on “The Flash.” He's shooting a lot of “metahumans,” he teases.
10:30 p.m. John Wesley Shipp remembers coming down to Comic-Con for the original “Flash”! He says they were down for two hours back in the day and then they left after walking the Convention Center floor and signing a few autographs. He's excited to be here and pass the “Flash” torch to Gustin. “Sometimes, Geoff, in the comic book world, people are not always exactly what the seem to be,” Tom Cavanagh says of his character. He's one of Barry's mentors, but he has a vested interest in him. Candice Patton plays Iris West and she says her character is Barry's True North and best friend. She's interested in how Iris will handle Barry and her father keeping a secret from her. Patton is excited to be at Comic-Con.
10:33 p.m. “Constantine” time! David Goyer tells the story of writing a letter that appeared in one of the early “Swamp Thing” comics that Constantine appeared in. He likes that Constantine doesn't have spandex or superpowers. Why did they pick Matt Ryan? “I don't know if an actor's ever worked harder for this role than he did,” Daniel Cerone says. “We didn't look at American actors to do a British accent,” he adds, but they looked at lots of tapes. He saw Ryan on tape, looking completely different as he was working in a play with Jude Law. Ryan finished the play, went out and got drunk, flew to LA and cut his hair and finally got the part. “I read as many comics as possible,” Ryan says of the start of his research process. “I'm still reading them. There's a lot to get to,” he says. And what DC Comics characters will show up? The Spectre, Papa Midnight and more.
10:39 p.m. Questions from the crowd!
10:39 p.m. The first question is for Stephen Amell and the “Arrow” team. He wants to thank them for promptly posting episodes to Hulu. Amell says that his Arrow is on the journey to become the comics' Green Arrow. He wants to take the character to the spot where he can be the sometimes quippy, sarcastic character from the comics.
10:41 p.m. Which parts of the Rogues will show up on “The Flash”? There's another Weather Wizard out there and we'll see him one day. They're doing a show that's not just about The Flash, but that's about that whole universe. As we know, Wentworth Miller will appear in Episode 4 as Captain Cold. There will be another of the Rogues mentioned in Episode 4 as well.
10:43 p.m. We've established that both Ra's al Ghul and Oliver hate Merlyn, so what will come of that? “As much as this season is about identity… a lot of it is about allegiance and loyalty,” Kreisberg says.
10:44 p.m. Are there Easter Eggs suggesting Green Lantern might show up on one of these shows? “We've been really blessed with DC Comics. They're been really open about letting us dip into their roster of characters,” Kreisberg hints. He hopes that the Easter Eggs will pay off eventually. But will Green Lantern appear? Nobody is saying “Yes” or “No.”
10:46 p.m. Salmon Ladder question for Amell. How do you get DOWN from the top of the ladder? “The mystery of how the salmon ladder bar comes down will never be answered,” Amell says.
10:47 p.m. “Whoa, I'm huge,” says a small boy seeing himself on the screen. How does it feel for the actors to step into those iconic shoes? Amell loved working on the “Flash” pilot. “The idea of interacting with such an iconic member of the DC Comics universe, that was a highlight for me,” he says. Gustin calls this “surreal.” He wasn't a comic book fan growing up, but he loved the old Superman movies. “It's not a dream come true, it's something I never could have fathomed,” he says. “That's me up there and it's nuts!” Gustin says, pointing at a picture.
10:49 p.m. Are “Gotham” and “Constantine” in the same universe as the CW shows? “Gotham” is kinda in a past-present. “I would say never say never,” Bruno Heller says, but he admits that he isn't clear on the chronology of where they two shows fit.. “Maybe Constantine is only five in this universe and that wouldn't be very entertaining,” Heller says.
10:51 p.m. If Flash, Arrow and Constantine got in a fight, who would win? “I would win,” Amell says. “Choose your words carefully,” Amell tells Ryan, who says nothing. Berlanti teases that Episode 8 of one of their shows is titled “Flash versus Arrow.” It's unclear which show.
10:52 p.m. Why did Rickards choose to play the part? “She has a really special place in my heart and I'm really glad she resonated with you,” she tells the questioner, praising Felicity's strength and humor.
10:53 p.m. “My best friend Danielle has you on my list of three,” a questioner tells Stephen. The list is, in fact, just Amell and Channing Tatum. “I feel like this whole weekend is a success now,” Amell says. He also wants Stephen Amell to “please stand up and prove the abs are real.” “Take it off! Take it off!” Barrowman is yelling. “I'm still gonna say, 'No,'” Amell says. They have a panel vote and Willa Holland and Barrowman vote yes. Amell doesn't take his shirt OFF, but he pulls his shirt up. And yes, the abs are real. Duh.
10:56 p.m. “At the moment, I'm just trying to get his abs out of my mind,” Matt Ryan says after being asked about Constantine's relationship with Harold Perrineau's angel. “It's antagonist, but it'll go through many different stages,” Perrineau explains. At Matt Ryan's suggestion, they're now going to air the full “Constantine” pilot, even though it's nearly 11.
That's all, folks…