[michaelwoodcock]

Poor Haitian Poor Haitian's Dad

Comic con interviews with Tim Kring, Masi Oka (Hiro to all of us), and the God of comic book art himself, Tim Sale.

I'll leave posting thoughts on the interviews for a while, to prevent spoilers.

[michaelwoodcock]

Oh, and Dania Ramirez, who played Callisto in X-Men 3, has been confirmed as one of the five new Heroes to join the cast for Volume 2. Her name will be Maya, but her powers at this time are unknown.

[michaelwoodcock]

Heh, no-one?

A little tidbit to chew over then, with some clues and stuff about next season.

With the conclusion of the inaugural season of "Heroes," NBC hosted a live blog with creator Tim Kring and everyone's favorite cheerleader, Hayden Panettiere. Over a thousand comments were left when the show's creator left a message last Thursday on the "NBC Heroes" blog calling for fans of the show to leave their own questions for the pair to answer.

The first question they tackled was that of "Heroes: Origins," the new spin-off series debuting next year. "The idea was to try to do about half a dozen episodes that are stand-alone episodes dealing with the origin stories of characters all around the world who are waking up with the discovery of these unique abilities," Kring said "They are not connected necessarily to the show 'Heroes,' but if you do watch or are a fan of 'Heroes,' you'll see tiny little clues that tie into the show."

Kring said he almost wanted to do, "Rod Sterling type of story telling. Cautionary tales and morality tales. Dealing with these people with unique abilities. So they're completely stand-alone episodes that don't follow a serialized formula."

Some of the stories in "Origins" can be similar to characters currently on "Heroes" and one of the people on "Origins" may be involved on "Heroes," eventually.

When asked for hints about Volume 2 of "Heroes," Kring responded that "the title of Volume 2 is 'Generations,' [meaning] we are going to deal with the idea of multiple generations of these people who have discovered their powers. Clearly, Hiro has landed himself in a very unique situation and expect the first part of next season to find him there dealing with new adventures." Also noting that "the fate of several of our characters is in the balance and you'll just have to stay tuned to discover what the ultimate outcome is."

When the subject of Uluru was broached, Kring noted that, "For those paying close attention, the first time we saw this image was in the pilot on the cover of the '9th Wonders' book that Micah was reading and that character lives in the world of '9th Wonders.' When and how we will deal with who that character is has yet to be decided in the writer's room. "

Kring spoke for a while about the symbol and the fact that there have been several explanations as to its origin, specifically that of how it was the combination of two Japanese symbols. The first being Godsend, while the other being that of Great Power. "If you're paying attention to the last 30 seconds of tonight's episode, you will see that that symbol showed up again in a very unique way, so the beginning of next season we will explore the ancient origin of that symbol."

When asked of a comparison between Heroes and his previous work on "Crossing Jordan," Kring said "The two shows are totally different species." With "Crossing Jordan" "each episode was a stand-alone episode that allowed you to break stories in different ways. So a writer could come in with a great idea and write that idea. We don't have that luxury on 'Heroes' since each story is so connected to the episode before it on 'Heroes.' Which means that every story can affect the next story. Which also means you have to be much more diligent about story lines since one thread can unravel a whole run of episodes. So, in that way, it's a much more difficult kind of story breaking to do on a show like 'Heroes.'"

Kring continued to discuss the differences in shooting with sets and on location, concluding that, "Both are tremendously satisfying...having a show on the air in this extremely competitive industry is incredibly satisfying."

When asked about fan input, he remarked that "The truth is, we try not to spend a lot of time worrying about the fan input because we are often very far ahead in terms of where are stories are from where the fans are watching the show - often 10 weeks ahead. So, often, when they're responding to something, we've already moved past that or answered their questions, which makes it hard to engage in a dialog cause we're in a different place." Thought he acknowledged the fact that what they try to do is "listen to the general trends of what fans are saying about the show so we can gauge if we're connecting with them. But in terms of specifics of the show, we don't really try to gleam too much from peoples' suggestions on the boards."

When one fan brought up the question about there being less gaps between the show, Kring found that "Interesting that someone brings this up, cause that was our thinking as well. One of the things that 'Heroes' does... as you notice Volume 2 started the end of tonight's episode, but by no means does Volume 2 have to be the entire length of Season 2. In fact, don't expect it to. It will end sometime in the middle of the season, wrapping up a story with it that will allow us to launch into a new storyline."

He also stated, "Carrying a long storyline over the course of one season can get very cumbersome and complicated for the writers and audience, so breaking it into smaller storylines will allow new viewers to join without feeling like they've missed too much story."

As for the question all comic fans were curious about, who would be coming to Comic-Con International in San Diego later this year, Kring said, "Everybody we can bring will come that day.

"The thing about Comic-Con is that it was very instrumental in launching the show, so this year is a big thank you to them when we come back. We'll have a big event with lots of things to hand out." "Heroes" fans, mark your calendars - Comic-Con International takes place July 26th - 29th..

Hayden and Tim continued covering topics such as Hayden's new album, crushing the dreams of fans that were looking for a relationship between Claire and Peter, and what it was like to have the entire cast together to film a scene. You can check out the entire live blog session at NBC's website: http://blog.nbc.com/heroes.

[retired_sajnesh]

wow. the latest comic is very good.

[michaelwoodcock]

Okay, so Kring's comments about generations of Heroes seems to fit with my "Heroes in time" theory, and over the past few days, I've been thinking more and more about which moments in history, and which figures they could apply it too (for spin-off purposes, be it comics, internet shows, a new series, etc..). Retro would probably be a decent shout to have in here atm, but I've mentioned history, so no doubt his "opportunity to go on and on about medieval warfare" sense is tingling, and he'll be joining us shortly.

I know they were not confined to Salem, but the instances of witches, and in particular the Salem witch trials spring to mind instantly. Although imagining them trying to burn someone with Claire's abilities at the stake makes me smile.

Thinking more UK based, King Arthur and the other associated legends have got to stand out. Merlin the most of course, but the Yamagato website already features a profile of Gawain, and it got me thinking that perhaps Arthur and his Knights were all evolved humans. A medieval X-Men perhaps? Certainly some of the legends concerning them talk of things like magic and monsters, which we could assume were the folks of the time just trying to make sense of the sights they were beholding.

On a side note, it's refreshing to see confirmation that a volume will not always equal a season. Pressuring the writers to always drag an arc out over a complete season ran the risk of compromising their abilities. Loeb knows that some of the best arcs only run for a few issues, and hopefully we will see that here too.

Another random thought that popped into my head yesterday while ironing. We know Hiro can travel through time and space, and we have seen him take others with him. Now, while I suspect Charlie was his Gwen Stacy, he could travel back to spend time with her, again and again. But, what if he tried to bring her back with him? What would happen? Universe implode?

[retired_exoticpanther33]

Originally posted by LycanGav:
Rumours continue that it's 124 days till Volume Two:Generations starts, which makes a restart date of September 24th. Imo, that's a bit optimistic. Fall schedule starts that day, and I'm not sure Heroes will return on the first night. Although Heroes was NBC's only big performer this past year, so they could decide to hang their hats on it. Might be dependent on how their other shows fare between now and then.

come on Sept 24th... quality birthday present for me from NBC

[retired_lilliepf]

Another random thought that popped into my head yesterday while ironing. We know Hiro can travel through time and space, and we have seen him take others with him. Now, while I suspect Charlie was his Gwen Stacy, he could travel back to spend time with her, again and again. But, what if he tried to bring her back with him? What would happen? Universe implode?

Your trying tomake my head hurt again

I think what we have seen in the tv show and the next chapter being generations proves your theory has alot of truth in it.

[retired_sajnesh]

Originally posted by LycanGav:

Thinking more UK based, King Arthur and the other associated legends have got to stand out. Merlin the most of course, but the Yamagato website already features a profile of Gawain, and it got me thinking that perhaps Arthur and his Knights were all evolved humans. A medieval X-Men perhaps? Certainly some of the legends concerning them talk of things like magic and monsters, which we could assume were the folks of the time just trying to make sense of the sights they were beholding.

"A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" featured a solar eclipse, interestingly.

But if we can assume that abilities cover the magic part of the legends, what accounts for the monsters?

What would obviously be massively fb is if the coming of the eclipse is the trigger for an upswing in heroic abilities as a way of the earth protecting itself against something monumentally horrible that is created/caused/sent to earth as a result OF the eclipse.

<hr class="ev_code_hr" />
I've just got to the end of page 23 of a traning manual that I am writing which is likely to run to a couple of hundred pages. I need these random moments of theorizing to keep me sane.

[retired_derek]

that sucks dude

I do like the idea that it's a natural defense system of some sort, but don't think that's likely.

[michaelwoodcock]

Well, one "monster" we know is definitely still to come is our old friend Uluru the invincible. Kring has admitted that this character is still to come.

I guess that evolution doesn't always have to be an internal process, and for every unseen biological change, there could be someone who goes through a physical metamorphosis, leading them to being branded a monster, especially in those times of little understanding. Astral projection another possibility, or perhaps someone with abilities similar to Candice. Plenty of options anyway.

Regarding the solar eclipse thing, I had given it alot of thought, but couldn't find much information supporting it as a theory. Turns out eclipses are actually quite common, as a global phenomenon, so an "upswing" as such, wouldn't make much sense. A solar flare made much more sense, as it's rare, and can bombard the Earth with solar radiation, which would have been a nice trigger mechanism.