TV Guide Magazine Comic-Con Special 2018

2017 san diego comic-con

1. Even without the Pussycats, her character Josie’s former band, Riverdale’s Ashleigh Murray was ready to rock out. 2. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Melissa Benoist! The down-to-earth Supergirl star swooped into our HQ to chat about her character’s high-flying heroics on The CW’s hit. 3. After all these years, Comic-Con is still a scream for Gotham villain Robin Lord Taylor. 4. Misha Collins (lower left, with Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) quipped about not getting to pose with his two Supernatural costars on last year’s Comic-Con Special cover: “I wasn’t available [anyway]!” 5. “There are 219 Wellses and I plan to play all of them…much to the chagrin of the viewing public,” The Flash’s Tom Cavanagh joked of his multiple personae on the show. 6. Black Lightning’s Pierces (China Anne McClain, Cress…

behind the scenes

As cool as it was to shoot on the Vancouver streets, Melissa Benoist (Kara/Supergirl) says the season’s biggest blast took place indoors. “The ‘Trinity’ episode, where Lena [Luthor], Supergirl and Alex [Danvers] go into a dreamlike dimension where the Worldkillers lived… was a fun homage to Buffy [the Vampire Slayer] and packed with girl power,” she raves. “We all had too much fun.” How does Mehcad Brooks (left, with Benoist and Katie McGrath) stay loose between takes? “By pontificating about [politics] while eating vegan snacks with hummus!” he says. An extra greenroom for downtime hangs was built on-set last year. “We put them through lots of challenges,” executive producer Robert Rovner says of the cast. “We wanted them to have a special space.” It’s three men and a Saturn Girl! David Harewood…

worldkillers’ killer suits

Reign THE IDEA: Craft something less sexualized than Reign’s comic book look that would still take Sam Arias (Odette Annable) from day to fright. THE EXECUTION: Riley’s predecessor, Kiersten Ronning, matched an ominous-looking mask and cape with more mobility in the pants—so Reign could terrorize in comfort! Purity THE IDEA: Juxtapose the kindly Kryptonian Julia Freeman (Krys Marshall) with her dark and intense alter ego. THE EXECUTION: Copper insets were created by printing the pattern and color over black fabric, “to highlight the shape and give it an armor feel,” Riley explains. Heavier leather was used on cuffs and shoulders. Pestilence THE IDEA: “I was feeling purple” for the pain-loving Grace Parker (Angela Zhou), says Riley, who wanted to project “a fierce, feminine, strong energy.” THE EXECUTION: Riley had an L.A. artist craft metal-accented gloves to match the…

burning quetions

“WE WANT J’ONN J’ONZZ FIGHTING FOR THE UNDERDOG NEXT SEASON, AND HE LEAVES ALEX IN CHARGE OF THE DEO”—ROVNER The Reign is done and those World-killers appear to be gone for good! and while the exploits of Winn and Mon-El will be the stuff of Legion, will national City get Brainier? Supergirl showrunners Robert Rovner and Jessica Queller spill all. Is Reign’s reign really over? “it’s a happy ending” for Sam (Odette Annable), says Queller. “She’s vanquished Reign forever, she’s normal again and she and [her daughter] Ruby move to another town and start over, like at the end of a horror movie.” Have we lost Winn (Jeremy Jordan)? Certainly for now, with Winn joining the Legion and leaving Earth to save the artificial intelligences from Brainiac-5’s (Jesse Rath) evil kin. “One of…

behind the scenes

“Mark Consuelos is such a nice guy,” swears executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who saw a video of the soap vet boldly defending wife Kelly Ripa from the paparazzi and thought, “That’s our Hiram Lodge.” Here, Consuelos’s onscreen wife, Marisol Nichols (as the equally conniving Hermione Lodge), gets a touch-up on the couple’s penthouse set, which, like most of the town’s hot spots, “we try to make look a bit noir,” Aguirre-Sacasa says. That’s a bonus for the show’s stylists: “They don’t have to tone down the makeup or costumes in those scenes,” adds the exec producer. Betty’s mom’s got it going on! “It’s not a bad time to be Alice Cooper,” says Mädchen Amick, just before shooting the greatest party-entrance scene ever, after being exposed as a onetime member of the…

the black hood unmasked!

In a town full of people with daddy issues, Hal Cooper (Lochlyn munro, inset) beats all. after months of targeting “sinners”—RIP midge, miss Grundy and the sugar man—HAL’s reign of terror as the Black hood came to an end in the season’s penultimate episode, when he tried to kill daughter Betty (Lili Reinhart) and wife alice (Mädchen Amick). now behind bars, Hal is sure to pay for his crimes, but according to Munro, the man under the hood may have a few more surprises up his sleeve. How early did they tell you that Hal was the Black Hood? Are you ready for this? After the episode where it was revealed. [Laughs] What? We started episode 19, and I was like, “hold on. Betty thinks it’s her dad?” in [the episode when]…