Comic Con 2015: Joss Whedon talks!

I hope Joss Whedon is okay. The AVENGERS director and fanboy favorite hosted a one-man show in Hall H on Saturday that seemed more like a therapy session than a typical panel. In past years, Whedon has come to Comic Con energetic and excited to greet fans and show off his latest project. This year he seemed quiet and despondent and burnt out, mentioning multiple times that he wasn’t sure which direction his career was going to go in. He didn’t come out and say it, but it’s pretty clear it all stemmed from whatever happened to him during the making/release of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. (“Five years ago a tornado ripped up my house and dropped it in the land of Marvel.”)

It definitely made for an odd panel (though it did have a happy ending). Here are some highlights:

• Whedon is currently exploring new ideas and formats but did say he would be getting back to comics next year with a new six-issue series Twist. He showed some cover art but didn’t offer anything else about the work except to call the heroine a “Victorian female Batman.”

 

• For fans hoping he will return to past projects, Whedon said his life’s motto is “Earn what you already have” and he won’t be falling back on anything he’s already done. So don’t expect “Muffy the Zombie Fighter.”
• He did briefly allude to the feminist controversy that erupted on social media following the release of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, saying “You’re welcome for how I handled Natasha” and calling Comic Con “the cure for Twitter.”
• No news on a new season of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. Everyone wants to do it but everyone is too busy.
• Fan questions during the Q&A ranged from his favorite character (Buffy) to the connection between the honeycomb pattern seen in CABIN IN THE WOODS and Agents of SHIELD (there isn’t any), but one fan jokingly asked Whedon to explain human existence and got a surprisingly serious answer: 

  “The world is a random and meaningless, terrifying place and we all — spoiler alert — die. Most critters are designed not to know that, but we are designed weekly to transcend that. I can quote myself: A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts. What we have right now and right here has as much meaning as anything we’re afraid of. The way we’re designed to do this: The main function of the human brain is storytelling. Memory is storytelling. If we all remembered everything, we’d be Rain Man and wouldn’t be socially happy. We learn to forget. We learn to distort. And from the very beginning we’re learning to tell a story about ourselves.

  He then compared himself to Rosie O’Donnell‘s ape character in TARZAN.

The panel ended with Whedon being awarded the Comic Con Icon Award. At least that made him smile.