As far as the eye can see, masses of fans. And it's only Friday.

As I write this, our hotel is apparently under some sort of explosive attack. We have three guesses as to the cause:

a) the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan is in the harbor, and San Diego celebrates with fireworks that we cannot see from our window.

b) A T-Rex has broken free from the cargo hold in which it had been slumbering and now stalks the Gaslamp District.

c) Chuck Austen just won the Eisner Award for Best Writer, causing an armed insurrection amongst Convention attendees.

The great thing about being at the San Diego Comic-Con is that any one of those explanations is believable. Or at least likely to be believed by attendees.

This morning I stopped by Drive Comics, a fledgling company out of St. Louis. So far, they have one book on their table, an interesting CGI thing called The Symbiotes. Call Davis R. Vaughn and George Lippert rookies of the year, because this isn't just an assured debut; it's a complex and well-written book. If that's not enough, try the price: $3 for a 48 page story. Trust me and try it at Booth #5112.

Perhaps to mollify fans and keep them out of Catwoman, Warner Brothers chose to hold a panel for Batman Begins and Constantine, including an appearance from Keanu Reeves. Unfortunately, they had precious little to show of the Batman film, other than a taped greeting from Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan. Screenwriter David Goyer and actor Cillian Murphy appeared live, but Murphy made it clear he had been instructed to be vague on questions about the film, though Goyer stepped in to offer that the Scarecrow mask was (and I'm paraphrasing for our younger readers) messed up. With a capital F.

Still not as wrong as Jack Black in Green Lantern.

Goyer also reiterated what he has said time and time again: that this is the Batman movie he always wanted to see. One disgruntled fan found that hard to believe in light of another release this week, but the writer was insistent. Let's hope he's right.

In a palimpsest of Constantine, Warner Brothers allowed a full eighteen minutes of footage to be shown. Allegedly incomplete, many of the effects still seemed to be in place, with some effective demons tormenting Reeves as Constantine, or someone with that name.

For all the footage, it was hard to reconcile the right bastard of the comics with the joyless pseudo-exorcist of the film.

At the end of the segment, some hope was offered in an improbable but strangely Garth Ennis-like scene involving a cross and a machine gun. If nothing else, it gives one hope for the videogame.

Though Reeves showed up with Djimon Honsou, we left before a bunch of women could ask the dreamboat for hugs.

Cartoon Network delivered a triple-threat panel, taunting us with glimpses of next week's Justice League Unlimited and Teen Titans season premieres. For JLU, among the clips was a climatic couple of moments from the adaptation of Alan Moore's classic "For The Man Who Has Everything," which drove fans wild. Folks, it's effective, and we didn't even get to see the build-up.

Have they shown the Puffy Ami Yumi music video for Teen Titans before? It was as cheesy as you might expect, and sharp-eyed fans may have noticed that in the DC pavilion, they occasionally play a commercial threatening a Puffy Ami Yumi series next year on Cartoon Network. Oh, but they're cute.

Ron Perlman (Slade) and Tara Strong (Raven) bask in fandom.

Several voice actors showed up for the panel, including Ron Perlman. Immediately, he was asked about Hellboy 2, and could only say that he's being kept in the dark on purpose, since he tends to talk too much. Maybe he does, but he also revealed himself to be an extremely gracious actor.

A few secrets about the upcoming seasons of both shows slipped -- on purpose. In the Titans clips, we saw a glimpse of Nightwing, and possibly not from Robin's future. Red X will return, and it will not be the Boy Wonder in disguise. Perhaps most exciting for comics fans, Brother Blood will make his television debut.

Bruce Timm tried to stay pretty tight-lipped, and would not mention much about which villains might appear in the coming months. Under duress, he did tell the crowd that for some obscure legal reasons, they would not be seeing Blue Beetle. (Charlton Comics has a problem with that?) From clips, we learned that Green Arrow wears a mask even while otherwise naked, and having loved and lost a Thanagarian woman, John Stewart will now sport a goatee. He's got to keep pace, because it looks like Kyle Rayner will also be part of JLU, strangely svelte and not at all wacky.

While all that fun went on, Marvel held a panel announcing the fate of The Avengers. Not necessarily much surprising, as we all knew that O Bendis Our Bendis has been at the helm. But what got confirmed tonight was that Warren Ellis would be taking over Iron Man with artist Adi Granov, while Ed Brubaker will be on Captain America with Steve Epting. Despite professing great love for the character, Brubaker warned that he plans to piss off fans with the first six to eight issues of his run.

"I can't talk right now. I have to go mess with fans' heads."

In addition, Joe Quesada announced that Marvel will launch Young Avengers, but also promised that it's not what we think. I think it's going to be like A Pup Named Scooby Doo, or A Kitten Named Tigra.

After both panels (Cartoon Network and Marvel), I bumped into Bendis, Brubaker and Mark Waid. Oh, sure, we say it every year, but this time for sure, we're going to get an interview with Bendis, who after all loves us. Brubaker wants us to at least buy him dinner before he'll say the "L" word.

In movie news today, Variety scooped the whole convention. But really, it confirmed once again things that have been buzzing around the net for a while anyway. Transformers (the live-action movie) has landed at Dreamworks, still produced by the team of Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to talk to DeSanto about it very soon. At the Mirror Mask panel this afternoon, Neil Gaiman announced that New Line Cinema had picked up Death: The High Cost of Living, now called Death's Day, but could not confirm if he was directing.

And finally, to make us all drool and bring us almost full circle, Darren Aronofsky, once attached to Batman: Year One, will definitely be directing Watchmen. Until such time as he is not.

Hey, this may be San Diego, but it's still Hollywood.

For more pictures, go here...

Derek McCaw