Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the news from San Diego Comic-Con and picks the things he's sorriest he missed.

I recently wrote about how Riri Williams would soon be wearing the Iron Man armor (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Underrepresented Groups and Tired Tropes").  The development was mostly seen as a positive thing, but I noted how there were more than a few voices asking when Marvel would start hiring some black female writers ("Iron Man Will Be A Black Woman, Will Marvel Ever Hire One?").  Usually, comic book publishers deal with calls for more creator diversity by issuing well-intentioned platitudes that miss the point entirely about how "their doors are always open for submissions."

But this time, they actually did something (see "Marvel Hires Black Female Writer for New 'Black Panther' Title").  Publisher, author, and associate professor of English at Purdue University Roxane Gay will be co-writing the upcoming comic Black Panther: World of Wakanda with Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer on Black Panther.  Gay has been quoted as saying (in the New York Times), "The opportunity to write black women and queer black women into the Marvel Universe, there’s no saying no to that."

Well, another Comic-Con came and went and while it seemed like everyone who was anyone in the entertainment industry was there, I stayed here at home.  Not that I minded overmuch, given my less than peak physical condition and the expense, walking, crowds, waiting, heat, etc.  All things considered, staying home increasingly seems to be the better idea.  But this year I must concede there were a couple of things that I feel like I missed out on.  Like, the Comic-Con exclusives.  I’m not immune to the lure of industry swag and have always appreciated the exclusive merchandise (pins, keychains, statues, action figures, etc.) when I saw it posted online.  But I never actively coveted any of it until I saw a photo of something embedded in a piece on The Beat website titled "SDCC: Is this Flex Mentallo towel the greatest exclusive at San Diego?"  The Flex Mentallo beach towel was a giveaway from the press breakfast for DC’s Young Animal line and Heidi Macdonald reports "According to Gerard Way, only a handful were made and it may be one of the rarest giveaways at Comic-Con."  I'd really like to have me one of those because along with being a huge fan of Flex I'm a big guy and towels that size are hard to come by.

And even if I had gone I probably would have missed one of the Con's oddest moments.  Because until I read about it after the fact in the New York Times story "Oliver Stone's 'Snowden' Gives Comic-Con Its Moment of Gravity" by Brooks Barnes, I had no idea Oliver Stone had conducted a panel promoting Snowden, his film about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.  Then would have been surreal enough, but in the middle of it the Oscar-winning director not only uttered the words "Pokemon Go" but "blasted that app as 'surveillance capitalism' and said it was another step toward a 'robot society' and 'totalitarianism.'"  And I would definitely have tried to grab some of those Comic-Con exclusive Snowden adhesive bandages.

There were a lot of trailers for upcoming movies, and a couple days later I was able to watch them in the comfort of my own home.  Which isn't the case for Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, the upcoming film adaptation of the Valerian and Laureline Franco-Belgian comics.  It's either going to be the massive unexpected hit of 2017 or the biggest science fiction movie bomb since 2014's Jupiter Ascending.

Staying home I was able to see a couple of new images from it (see "New Images From 'Valerian'"), but if I had been there I could have actually seen seven whole minutes from the movie.  Which, apparently, included a glimpse of singer Rihanna.  I'm not particularly a fan of her music but it's undeniable she projects a unique presence, and it's her innate eerie alien-ness that makes her perfect casting for a Luc Besson science fiction film.

{IMAGE_7}I could have watched the panel at home on YouTube, but I still wish I could have been there to hear the news firsthand at the Mystery Science Theater 3000 panel that Netflix would be streaming the new season of the show.  No time was given, but hopefully, it’s before the end of the year.  I could really use that MST3K Holiday Special they’ve been promising us.

And, finally, I would have loved to attend the Steven Universe panel, the first half hour of which had the entire voice cast performing some of the show's most memorable moments.  Afterward, it became a more conventional panel but it took an unconventional turn, as reported in The Los Angeles Times, "'Steven Universe's' Rebecca Sugar shares why LGBTQ representation is personal."  She's quoted as saying:

"In large part, it's based on my experience as a bisexual woman.  It really makes a difference to hear stories about how someone like you can be loved.  And if you don't hear those stories, it will change who you are."

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.