Novi – A wave of people washes over the Suburban Collection Showplace. I can’t even begin to estimate the number mulling around the massive parking lot and wrapped in a line around the convention center, which is about the size of an Amazon fulfillment warehouse. Families, young adults, boomers, and, of course, cosplayers.
More cosplayers than I’ve ever seen, dressed as characters from virtually every IP in existence. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, and an assortment of video game characters I can’t even identify.
I’m of course speaking of the Motor City Comic Con, now an annual tradition dating back to the first one held 1989. It’s a Super Bowl-tier event for science fiction fans, comic book collectors, and autograph seekers.
Who’s here in large numbers? A slice of American life: men aged 45 to 55.
This makes sense because Generation X and the pop culture of the late 1970s and 1980s has made Comic Con the force that it is.
As a result, while walking along the seemingly never-ending facade of the Suburban Showcase, the bulk of the entrants are men my age wearing T-shirts depicting the nostalgic memory of the science fiction or superhero they loved as teenagers 30 or 40 years ago.
Normies might call this a nerd behavior, and that might have once been true, but everyone is here: working class and upper-middle class, affluent and paycheck-to-paycheck. Many bring their kids to pass the love of the world they grew up in to their children.
I spot an acquaintance, right before I enter the media door. A high school swim dad who excitedly tells me this is his son’s first Comic Con. This guy might have been a nerd once, but now he’s a competent professional. Today he gets to be a nerd again. As I began to turn towards the door, he proclaims, “Isn’t this great?”
I enter the convention center and spy Jay Towers, an anchor for the Detroit Fox affiliate, with his camera crew putting together their game plan for the ensuing madness. He wants to interview Priscilla Presley. We reminisce about a prior Motor City Comic Con, when he got to interview the living cast of Superman II. Then his producer grabs him; Priscilla is down for an interview, and he’s off running.
I’m as big an Elvis fan as the next guy, but I’m not interested in Priscilla Presley. I’m an obsessive Battlestar Galactica fan, and here this year is Alessandro Juliani, who played Lieutenant Felix Gaeta, the controversial officer, and once trusted aid to Admiral Adama, who eventually led a bloody mutiny resulting in his execution via firing squad… I told you I was a fan.
I find Juliani with his PR spokesperson and, as decorum dictates, ask her for an interview before Juliani sees me and notices I’m wearing a Vancouver Canucks hat. Sidestepping his flack, he motions me over, proclaims his love for the Canucks, and says he suspects this is their year to go all the way.
Juliani speaks eloquently of his years on Battlestar, his enduring love for its star, Edward James Olmos, and says he frequently keeps in touch with his co-stars. He attributes the show’s longstanding popularity to the realness of the political intrigue and real-world issues it weaved into its four-year plot arc. He’s of course speaking of the 9/11 metaphor in the Exodus side plot, the abortion episode wherein Olmos’s character carefully makes the case for a pro-life law in the wake of humanity’s near obliteration, with heavy Christian overtones layered through the series. “In the current climate, that show never gets made today,” he says. “It was unique in the post-9/11 world.”
Juliani was surprised to learn that several famous conservative media pundits have dedicated print pieces and podcasts to the show. “Really? You’re kidding me? People working in politics talk about it?” He was stunned and flattered.
I became part of a herd of tens of thousands of people along the countless rows of exhibits, memorabilia dealers, and comic book traders. Comic Con is really an adventure in people watching.
I bumped into a middle-aged guy from Lansing who attends with a specific mission. He collects McFarlane toys and has a list of rare figures he’s hunting down, traveling all over the nation. He also deals in memorabilia and looks for rare items that he flips on various websites. He’s a police officer, but this is his passion. “Yeah, I go off the rails a bit with this stuff, but who cares. It’s my thing.”
Setting aside the celebrities in attendance, including John Cusack, Robert Englund, John Cleese, Andy Serkis, and John McHale, the most interesting person I spoke with attending the convention was a 44-year-old autoworker from Redford named Dan. He claims to have never missed a Comic Con in over two decades and has been chasing the casts of various Star Trek series for autographs, attempting to amass them all from the living cast members at various conventions around the Midwest. “This is where I feel like I’m at home,” he said.
I tested his Star Trek knowledge and fan credentials. He passed, quickly scrolling his camera roll to show me pics of himself with various cast members from the original series to Strange New Worlds. I told him I’d met William Shatner, and he scoffed, “Who hasn’t met William Shatner?” He then showed me a picture of himself with Sir Patrick Stewart—a rarity. Picard rarely travels the convention circuit.
After several hours of sensory overload, I finally exited the media door into the rear loading bay. Five stormtroopers—dressed in full regalia—sat on the curb smoking while a bodyguard stood nearby. A real life security guy keeping watch over the fake security guys. The real world clashing with the make-believe one, a more fun world.
I catch the eye of the real security guy, and he smiles, understanding the irony. He’s probably having fun too.
J.Z. Delorean is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
