"Badger" debuted in 1983 and has gone through several reboots over the decades, most recently in February.
The smartest thing the organizers of Wizard World Comic Con may have done is to move our fair city a couple months back on the 2016 tour schedule. Last year’s inaugural pop-culture circus drew thousands of people to the Alliant Energy Center, there to rub shoulders with — or at least be in the same building as — celebs, jaw-droppingly creative cosplayers and throngs of fellow sci-fi/comic/pop-culture fans. But it also took place in frigid February, when even a dude like Deadpool isn’t immune to shivers and chills.
No such problem for year two, which runs April 8-10. There’s no question the lines will be long and the rooms will be packed for the main headliners, a list that includes a Doctor Who, two actors from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the man who voices Nintendo’s Mario. Attendees can score signed artwork, gawk at the gregarious geekiness and debate the ways in which Batman v. Superman sucked (no, seriously — there’s an April 8 panel dedicated to that specific topic).
The more discerning con visitors know that face time with the people who actually create the comic book stories and art that fuel all the Hollywood blockbusters and TV shows we now enjoy is where it’s at. And this year, we’ve got a chance to reconnect with one of our own: Mike Baron, the two-time Eisner Award-winning comic book writer who called Madison home during the height of his comic-based success in the 1980s and ’90s and was a contributing writer for Isthmus.
This year’s guests include actors David Tennant ("Doctor Who," "Jessica Jones") and Elizabeth Henstridge ("Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.").
Baron has written for a ton of sci-fi and superhero books — everything from Batman and The Flash to The Punisher and Nexus, the popular character/series he created with artist Steve Rude — but his most memorable is Badger, a Madison-based hero with a multiple personality disorder caused by his experiences in the Vietnam War. The character debuted in 1983 and went through several reboots over the decades, including the latest, which just launched in February through indie publisher Devil’s Due/1First Comics. In Baron’s words, the new take is “forward-looking, but it retains all the craziness of the original.” Given that the series’ primary villain is Vladimir Putin, we’ll concur with that assessment.
Baron left Madison for Colorado in 2003, in large part because his wife was dealing with major health issues that were exacerbated by Madison winters. After her death in 2006, Baron slid into a full decade of depression, a funk from which he admits he only recently emerged.
“If I hadn’t moved out there, I wouldn’t be the writer I am now,” he says.
Baron’s shifted his primary focus from writing comics to writing novels, his lifelong dream (“I tried for 30 years, but all I did was pile up trash,” he jokes). Biker, published in 2013, tracks a reformed motorcycle hoodlum-turned detective, and has already generated a green light for three sequels from its publisher. Like Badger, the books are set in Madison.
Known for juggling multiple projects at once, it’s not surprising to learn that Baron is simultaneously working to keep the Badger reboot afloat (and maybe spin it into a movie?), convert his Biker books into graphic novels and begin work on a new novel called Banshees, about a rock band that comes back from the dead.
“I’m always writing, I’m always bursting with new ideas,” says Baron. “I have a lot of stories that haven’t been told.”
Baron is the focus of a Wisconsin Comics Creators panel set for 11:30 am on Saturday, April 9, at Wizard World Comic Con.
