It’s Sunday, last day of Awesome Con 2016, the frenzy of the Peter Capaldi/ Jenna Coleman appearance is still high. The crowd is exhausted from the long weekend, he room barely fills with enough people to cover a 1/4th of it’s capacity. Then our moderator,  PCU’s own Ben Taylor begins to wake up the crowd by asking them “What do you want to hear from Mark?” and “Can you believe it’s been 20 years since Kingdom Come?”

As the crowd travels down memory lane reminiscing when they first picked up Kingdom Come #1, in comes Mark Waid. The thing you must understand about Mr. Waid, is that he isn’t a larger then life presence. You hear his name and immediately associate him in the upper echelon of comic creators. This is The Mark Waid – the man who gave us (insert comic masterpiece here), you would expect a commanding presence to rival the Gods. Then you see this unassuming man coming down to the stage, apologizing for how late he was. It was a bit disconcerting to say the least.

Mark joins Ben on the stage and now the show began! Ben eased Mark into the current conversation reminding him of the 20th anniversary of Kingdom Come. Mark replied simply and humbly “yeah and there’s been a lot of great work since then” That reaction fully gave us  a look into who Mark Waid really is. We see the prolific comic author, winner of multiple awards etc… What we fail to realize he is just a fan that gets to write what he likes and is fortunate enough others like his writings as well.

Then we took off from there. Every question was welcomed with a genuine smile and nothing was off limits. Mark was asked everything from: “What do you think of Doctor Manhattan creating the New 52?” to “Did you know the plans for Steve Rodgers?” and of course the question of the evening: “So what did you really think of Batman v. Superman?”

Every answer was both humorous and genuine, an every fan completely enraptured with the panel. Then it was over -time seemed to vanish without a trace for a second, and there was a feeling of despair in the air because no one wanted the panel to end.

We could have listened to this man speak for a week and not get tired. Then that feeling was replaced with pride because, with as small a number of attendees as there was, we in that room experienced something completely special. This was a panel that deserve to be on the main stage on a Saturday, but we lucky few had amazing experience that will be an incredible memory and the best way to end any con.  I know I will cherish it for a lifetime.