HEROESCON: MONDO MARVEL PANEL

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Marvel Comics' Mondo Marvel panel at HeroesCon on Saturday avoided any visual presentations or announcements and was simply an hour-long question-and-answer session.

Panelists included Jonathan Hickman, Jeff Parker, Jim McCann, Lauren Sankovitch, Paul Tobin, Christos Gage and Bill Rosemann.

Following are highlights:

* Asked about Disney's influence on Marvel, Rosemann noted that Disney oversees several businesses, including ESPN. "Disney is great at having things for girls. What they were looking for was generating contentent for tween and teen boys," Rosemann said.

Gage said you probably won't see "Disney's Punisher," but the company will own Marvel, which will publisher Punisher.

* The Wakandans will show up S.H.I.E.L.D., Hickman said, but wouldn't reveal any issue numbers. Sankovitch noted that Wakandans will be appearing elsewhere, as well.

* Rosemann said "more cosmic goodness is happening right now and will continue to happen."

* Gage noted that the "Scared Straight" crossover will run in Avengers Academy #3-4 and Thunderbolts #147-148.

* Hickman said he had been working on the idea for S.H.I.E.L.D. for about a year, originally as a creator-owned book.

* Rosemann showed one of the master spreadsheets that the editors at Marvel use to coordinate characters and events. "We're constantly trying to stay in contact with each other," he said. "I always say to use continuity as a building block, don't use continuity as a roadblock."

* Why isn't there a She-Hulk book? "Have patience," Parker said.

* Gage said there is a twist at the end of the first issue of Avengers Academy that will help explain why the characters on the team are new. He noted that the faculty members are pre-exisiting characters, and that provides balance.

Gage noted one of his favorite Marvel bookcs over the past 20 years is Runaways, and he marveled at Brian Vaughn's ability to make characters known to readers within a page.

* Hickman said readers probably haven't seen the last of the members of The Order.

* Asked about women in the Marvel, Sankovitch said she's gotten a lot of positive feedback about the publisher's recent initiative. "Even if we don't always have a Women of Marvel banner, we're always going to be looking for good stories with female characters," she said.

* Rosemann said that Heroic Age is open to interpretation and not everything has to be bright. "It's more about heroes are heroes and villains are villains," he said.

* Sankovitch said readers will see both Doctor Strange and Doctor Voodoo "very soon." "Check out New Avengers #1. It will blow your mind --- the first page essentially," she said.

* Rosemann said there will be Marvelman announcements soon.