BY DAVID SERVER | Hey guys! Typhon24 here, just back from this years San Diego Comicon. Let me tell you, this thing was an out and out blast. Heres a quick run-down of some of the cooler stuff that was said at the various movie related panels.

HELLBOY: One of my personal favorites, the Hellboy panel was a pretty damn memorable one. Director Guillermo del Toro, star Ron Perlman, & Hellboy creator/artist Mike Mignola were on hand to promote their flick which is set to start shooting in March with a 2004 release date. While no real new information was revealed at this panel (I was hoping for some casting news, but no such luck yet), Guillermo is consistently hilarious. I think that when you know of something good, said Guillermo, you want to build a world around it. You want to, if possible, poke your dick into it. Guillermo spoke at length about how Rons voice was perfect for the role (Awww Crap, deadpanned Perlman, quoting the titular demons catchphrase) and of his love of the source material. Perlman, with his quiet dignity, spoke of how he felt everything Hellboy does is epic and of how excited and honored he was to be playing Hellboy. He has this mischievous, devilish kind of circuitry, said Perlman of HB. Mignola was clearly enjoying being along for the ride: How weird is it to be here with these guys. It's taken five years to get here and I gotta say that now that we're here, we're here with all the people we wanted to be here with. The director who wanted to do it. We got the star we agreed on the very first time we spoke. A script which we're thrilled with. There was a real playfulness between the three that made for a really entertaining panel. The panel was followed by a signing with the three of the newly released limited edition Hellboy teaser poster, featuring Mignolas representation of Ron Perlman as Hellboy. Upon Guillermos invitation, I actually even got a chance to have dinner with them, along with Hellboy production artist Tim Bradstreet, Quint from AICN, a multitude of CHUDittes, & producer David Allen. Guillermo is an amazing guy  completely genuine and completely friendly. Hellboy fans should really prepare to be blown away come 2004.

CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE: They played the first footage from this upcoming Jet Li/DMX on Friday during the trailer park panel. I wasnt as jazzed about this as I was about some of the other things I saw, so my memory of the footage is a bit fuzzier. The things that did stick out in my memory were some *great* fight scenes with Let Li, one in which he was surrounded by a circle of fire. Also, there was a really sweet looking chase scene where Li on a motorcycle was chasing DMX on a four-wheeler all through the city. Very cool looking footage, definitely one to watch out for down the road.

X-MEN 2 (part A): While this wasnt nearly the level of cool as the footage shown on Saturday during the Bryan Singer panel, they played the now infamous X2 Convention Promotional video that was played at WizardWorld Chicago a few months ago. The highlights of the video have mostly been covered already, but here are a few things that stood out to me that I havent seen reported anywhere else. There was *definitely* a shot of angel with metal wings, but according to what X2 production artist Trevor Goring told me, he has since been cut from the film. Sorry Angel fans. The Danger Room designs were shown, and it looked pretty sweet; a long football field looking structure with support beams arching over the top. Sadly, this also seems to be a casualty of the cutting room. Two or three shots of sculptures of the new X-Men costumes were shown. They look pretty similar, if not a little tighter. Also, a shot of Nightcrawler wearing a white robe was shown, as well as a shot of the X-Door into Cerebro having been blown open revealing the inner chamber. Very cool. But, as I said before, not nearly as cool as the footage that was shown on Saturday. But well get to that laterI also bumped into X2 Executive Producer Tom DeSanto. He mentioned that Alan Cumming had just begun shooting as Nightcrawler and that he looked great. Sweet.

STAR WARS EPISODE II  ATTACK OF THE CLONES: Yea, I know, this flick is already out. But there was one pretty groovy clip during the Episode II panel that kicked off the coolness on Saturday in the massive Ballroom 20. After some behind the scenes featurettes about the making of Clones, and some great clips from various comedy shows making fun of the prequel, they played one of a series of cut scenes that will reportedly show up on the upcoming Episode II DVD. The clip in question featured Obi-Wan Kenobi taking Jango Fetts Kyber Dart to a droid recognition center to try and determine where it came from. Upon the droids inability to recognize the dart or its origin, Obi Wan exclaims, I know who can identify this! Not very exciting in the grand scheme, but neat to see new scenes nonetheless.

THE CORE: They started this panel off with the new trailer for the action/adventure flick about the Earths axis stopping from turning. There were a lot of big epic shots of the world in ruins, like one of the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco behind it, being struck by lightning and completely on fire. It also included brief glimpses of Hillary Swank and the rest of the cast, preparing to burrow down into the planet to set things right. It struck me as very Armageddon-but-down, but it was pretty sweet nonetheless. This was immediately followed by a somewhat brief Q&A session with scribe Jon Rogers and actress Hillary Swank. Rogers talked about how hard it is to get your script made in Hollywood, but that he was in the rare position of seeing his work translated even better than what he wrote. Swank mentioned multiple times that she wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, so a big epic film like this was right up her alley. All in all, a fairly informative panel, and fun to see new footage, but not the highlight of the con by a longshot.

STAR TREK  NEMESIS: Next up was surprise guest Marina Sirtis, aka Deanna Troi of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Considering that Im the farthest thing from a Trekkie you will ever find, I was almost tempted to leave during this portion of the presentation. But I was glad as hell that I didnt go anywhere, because Sirtis proved to be one of the most entertaining aspects of the show. Clearly in her element at a Comicon, Sirtis was equal parts hilarious, entertaining, & informative. She showed some slides from Nemesis, featuring Data holding up a head of another Data android, and The Boys of the crew of the Enterprise (as Sirtis called them) wielding really big (and supposedly new) guns. They also showed a cool shot of Ron Hellboy Perlman in his make-up as one of the Remans. Highlights include Sertis commenting on how her co-stars on Next Gen have dubbed her Space Whore, and when at one point a Comicon employee showed her a sign which read Only 15 Minutes Left, and Sirtis responded Dont go showing me that 15 minute sign  do you know who I am?

LORD OF THE RINGS: The Lord of the Rings panel was pretty fun. They kicked it off with various trailers for The Two Towers, and followed that with a video about the upcoming video games based off the flick as well as a video on Christopher Lee (too bad Mr. Lee couldnt attend himself). The WETA SFX crew for Rings, led by Richard Taylor, then showed up with Sala Baker (Sauron) & Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz). After some Q&A, they were joined by surprise guests Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Billy Boyd (Pippin), and Dominic Monaghan (Merry). A cool surprise for all the Rings fans in attendance, while not particularly revealing about the films themselves.