The Fall of Mark Waid

No, Mark Waid did not lose this year's Fans Versus Pro Mr. Silver Age Trivia Contest (although the proceedings did end with the scores a bit closer than usual).

No, Mark Waid's fall on that fateful Sunday was a far more literal one. At the end of last week's C2E2 Contest panel, Mr. W jutted up his arms in jubilation at his win (much like he did in the above photo from the Contest of a year or two back) and his chair tipped right off the edge of the dais! Toppling to the floor, his eyeglasses went flying. A long hushed silence hung over the room as we saw no movement. There was a moment of simultaneous relief and dread as the encyclopedic icon of comics bellowed "I'm not okay!" It's still unclear to me if the gentleman misspoke or was joking, but seconds later came a retraction as he uttered "I'm okay, I'm okay." Fans rushed over to help him and everything turned out fine.

Craig "Mr. Silver Age" Schutt noted that this year's Trivia Contest was the twentieth annual match-up! I have attended them all and I wonder how many old-timers besides me remember that in the early days there used to be a panel of Pros facing off against the panels of Fans? It became clear before long that anyone else on the Waid team proved to be woefully extraneous.

One member of the Fans team is a journalist who wrote this newspaper article about last week's festivities. Included are a number of the actual questions that were asked this year so you can put yourself to the test!