Mark Hamill on Batman, Stan Lee, and Comic-Con's Beginnings!

If you were to dress up this year, what what would your outfit have been?

Gee, that's a tough one. I I sort of like uh uh the Green Hornet because he has just the mask. You take it off, he's just got, you know, the fedora and a and a business suit. I love the subtlety of his outfit.

RJ here, so our Comic Con coverage continues with the one and only Mark Hamill. How are you?

Hi RJ, good.

So Comic Con, you you've done a few of these. What number is this for you now?

You know, I've lost track, but I do remember when it used to be much smaller. It wasn't corporate sponsored. There weren't movie companies involved, there weren't gaming companies involved. It was like 15 dealers in the basement of the ambassador with a 16 mm projector to show old Flash Gordon cereals. Wow. And we just went over one time because we wanted to see the Silent Lost World. And uh that was probably 72 or 3. I remember the first con where they said, you know what, it's going to top 5,000 people this year. We went, no way. And now it's like 150 almost. It's crazy. It's shocking. I didn't know that there were that many obsessive compulsives in the world.

And of course some crazy costumes out here. What's one that stands out? What's the craziest one you've seen the last couple days out here?

Well, I I'm partial to the sushi girl costumes because they're they're barely there. You know, so uh uh there's nothing like a little eye candy to uh give you self-confidence. You know, it's what I love are the family costumes where there's a dad Green Lantern, a mom Green Lantern, and a little baby Green Lantern in the stroller. You know, The future generations of comic book geeks. I saw a family in mafia costumes. That was kind of interesting. You know.

What is a mafia costume consist of?

It's just like a suit, a top hat, a mustache painted on, but

Yeah, the Ray Liotta look, I guess.

Yeah, exactly, right? Uh and if you were to dress up this year, what what would your outfit have been? Gee, that's a tough one. I I sort of like uh uh the Green Hornet because he has just the mask. You take it off, he's just got, you know, the fedora and a and a business suit. I love the subtlety of his outfit. Uh Spandex, you know, gets less desirable as you get older and older. I would say, right? It's hard to hold in your stomach that long.

Yeah. And you of course can't talk about Comic Con without talking about the legendary Stan Lee, who you've been spending a lot of time with. That's right. Last couple days.

Well, Stan actually was in Comic Book the Movie. I did a mock documentary in 2004, and he was one of the people that participated in it. It was great. It was the first thing I ever had directed on camera uh besides voice over stuff. But uh he's amazing. You know, I ask him how he maintains the energy that he does at his age. And he says, well, Mark, I get up every morning and I worry really hard. So.

Good impersonation, by the way.

Well, that's pretty much Stan to me. And his metabolism is shocking because the Lord knows he's a bazillion years old, and uh uh he has more energy than I do.

We were with Adrian earlier, and she was talking about the panel yesterday, and you did a little Joker voice there yesterday. She said she loved it. That was the highlight of her trip.

Seeing as how I'm feeling generous, I'll give you this one for free. Ta-da.

You guys made a big announcement yesterday. We got a podcast that's going to be becoming out soon. Yeah, we're screening tonight. So give us a a little sneak peek. What can people look forward to when when checking it out?

Well, I always yeah, in the cast are people like Tony Todd, and Noah Hathaway, James Duval, and Andy McKenzie, and David Dastmalchian. It's a Courtney Palm is our sushi girl. It's very much in the mold of a Reservoir Dogs. It's a really sort of gritty gangster picture. I was flattered that they thought of me for such a flamboyant uh character. And in fact, ironically, I said, why would did you think of me? They said, well, if you can play a psycho like Joker in animation, you can probably do it on camera too. So this is my uh sort of first part that was directly because of the Joker.

And now you're part of the the World of Heroes family, so so that's kind of cool to be part of that.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I love I love pop culture myself. So aside from the galaxy far far away, now I've got a little piece of the DC Universe. I gotta figure out Stan Lee's my connection to Marvel because I really have, I've done a lot of Marvel animation. In fact, Stan was did cameos in shows I've done. I was on, I did Incredible Hulk, I did Fantastic Four, I did the Superhero Squad, uh and Stan came in and played uh a couple of characters for us. He's so much fun. I mean, I hope I'm that happy when, you know, uh in my senior years.

Yeah, when as you said, old age. Exactly.

Well, I'm already myself, so I know what it's like.

All right, last thing. If if you had to describe the entire Comic Con experience just in one word. What would you have to say that word is?

Surreal.

There you have it. The one and only Mark Hamill. Comic Con, as he said, it's pretty surreal.