The First ICON Festival Officially Adds 3 Legends as Guests of Honor [Exclusive]

1 week ago 23

Published Oct 13, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation."

An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.

Once considered completely disposable, the art of comic books has become an increasingly respected art form. Now, a new festival will celebrate that art form: the ICON Festival. The first-ever ICON Festival will take place at the historic Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles from November 7-8. Several notable guests from the comic book art world have already been announced to be in attendance, including Absolute Batman's Nick Dragotta, Young Avengers' Jim Cheung, and Invincible's Ryan Ottley, and many, many more. The festival, unlike most comics conventions, will allow attendees one-on-one time with the artists in attendance, who will have much to share about their artistry.

Today, Collider is proud to exclusively announce a new VIP event at the ICON Festival featuring three disparate legends: Bill Sienkiewicz, Glen David Gold, and Thomas Jane. Reporter Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter will host a special tripartite discussion between the three luminaries. Sienkiewicz broke out with Marvel's Moon Knight in the early 1980s before moving on to a seminal run on New Mutants, which spotlighted his increasingly surreal and inventive work. He has subsequently worked on titles like Elektra: Assassin, Daredevil: Love and War, and Stray Toasters. He also worked as a concept artist on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Gold is best known as the writer of the novels Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, but is also a noted expert on and collector of comics and comics art. Jane may be most famous for playing comics character the Punisher on the big screen, but he's also a celebrated comics author: he co-created The Lycan, a horror comics series that won a Harvey Award last year.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Superhero Team Should You Join? Avengers · X-Men · Teen Titans · The Boys

Every team is a personality test with a uniform. One saves the world and argues about it the whole way home. One has been fighting for the right to exist since the day it formed. One is still working out who it is while the fighting happens. And one has no powers at all, plus no intention of playing fair. Eight questions decide where you actually belong.

🛡️Avengers(Marvel Studios)

🧬X-Men(Marvel)

🐦Teen Titans(DC)

💊The Boys(Prime Video)

FIND YOUR TEAM →

What kind of power would you actually want? The power matters less than what you would be willing to do with it.

ASomething enormous and obvious. I would not hide it. BSomething I was born with, whether I wanted it or not. CSomething still growing that I cannot quite control. DNone at all. I would rather nobody sees me coming.

NEXT QUESTION →

Why join a team at all? Nobody puts on the suit for the reason they say out loud.

ABecause some threats are too big for anyone alone. BBecause people like me are safer together than apart. CBecause I did not want to do any of this alone. DBecause somebody has to hold these people accountable.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about the people in charge? Every team has a chain of command. Very few of them survive contact.

AI will follow a good leader and argue with a bad one. BThey have never protected people like me. I expect nothing. CI am still learning who to trust, and getting it wrong. DThey are the problem. That is the entire point.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is your role inside a group? Every roster needs the same handful of people to function.

AThe big personality. I take up room and I earn it. BThe one who protects whoever arrived most recently. CThe heart. I keep everybody talking to each other. DThe one who says the uncomfortable thing out loud.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you win a fight you should lose? This is the scene the entire film gets built around.

AOverwhelming force, and a very good landing. BWorking together in a way nobody saw coming. CRefusing to give up long after I should have. DPreparation, leverage, and one extremely dirty trick.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is this work costing you? Nobody does this for free. The bill just arrives differently for everyone.

AMy private life. Everybody knows my face now. BMy safety. The world is frightened of me. CMy childhood. I grew up faster than I should have. DMy peace. I cannot stop now that I know.

NEXT QUESTION →

How should the world see your team? Half of this job is public relations, and everybody knows it.

AAs icons. The team everyone is relieved to see arrive. BAs people. Just people, which is all we ever asked. CAs proof the next generation is going to be fine. DThey should not see us at all until it is done.

NEXT QUESTION →

The offer arrives. What makes you say yes? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your team.

AThe scale. If the world is ending, I want to be there. BThe promise that I would not have to hide anymore. CThe people. I would be joining friends, not an employer. DThe chance to take down somebody who deserves it.

REVEAL MY TEAM →

Recruitment Is Complete Your Team Is…

Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it would cost you to stay.

The Avengers

You belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart.

The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process.
You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the real entry requirement here.
The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement, usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building.
When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line.

The X-Men

You have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway.

This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being wanted gone by the same people they keep saving.
You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable.
The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else to go and are never once asked to explain themselves.
You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any.

The Teen Titans

You do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an inconvenient side effect.

Every Titan is somebody's sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the villain of the week, is what the team is actually about.
You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you, which is far less lonely than being the only one.
The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more honest model of growing up than any other team here manages.
The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours.

The Boys

You are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it.

The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage, patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences.
You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed not to mention.
This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean.
You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

What Else Is Happening at the ICON Festival?

The ICON Fesitval will also host The Art of Alex Ross, a travelling exhibition showcasing the painted art of the legendary Chicago-based artist. Ross is famous for his painted interior art on series like Marvels and Kingdom Come, as well as his covers on series like Immortal Hulk, Astro City, and Earth X. A curated collection of over 100 pieces of Ross' art will be showcased in Los Angeles for the first time, after debuting at the Dunn Museum in Chicago.

The inaugural ICON Festival will take place from November 7-8 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.