Marvel Comics kicked off the second annual Special Edition: NYC convention with a time honored tradition: the Next Big Thing panel. With the company's post-"Secret Wars" plans starting to come into focus, fans crowded into the panel room hoping for information about what's coming up next. On the panel were writers Brian Michael Bendis ("Old Man Logan," "Ultimate End"), Charles Soule ("Civil War," "Lando") and Marguerite Bennett ("Years of Future Past").

Even though it was first thing in the morning, enough fans made a beeline to Theater 1 for the Next Big Thing panel to pack the room. Marguerite Bennett and Brian Michael Bendis took the stage before the rest of the panelists arrived; manager of talent relations Rickey Purdin and sales an c communications administrator Chris D'Lando also joined as moderators.

D'Lando kicked off the presentation by discussing a new women of Marvel themed True Believers initiative which will see ten female-lead series receiving new $1 printings of their debut issues. "Silk," "Spider-Gwen," "She-Hulk," "Thor," "Ms. Marvel" and other will be in the lineup. "If you ever missed any of these, these are a perfect place to hop on," said D'Lando. "For $10 you get ten great single issues."

Additionally, D'Lando announced a new variant program focusing on manga artists. The artists will be providing covers for twenty Marvel series, all rounded up by Purdin and "Mavel globetrotter" C.B. Cebulski. "It's going to be a bunch of really popular Manga artists taking a spin on Marvel characters you haven't seen before," said D'Lando.

With Soule now on the panel, D'Lando moved on to discuss a new line of cosplay variants. "It came out of our retreats, seeing all these cosplayers of new characters like Spider-Gwen," said D'Lando. "We thought it would be a great way to give back to the community. Photographer Judy Stephens tracked down some of the best cosplayers we could find and thse covers will be available in the fall." D'Lando pointed out a picture of a full Groot cosplay, noting that "They didn't even build a Groot suit for the movie!"

When the presentation moved on to "A-Force," the audience erupted into applause. Bennett began talking about the book, noting that "A-Force" stands for "Awesome Force" "That's my executive decision," she said. "It's going to be an ongoing; it features She-Hulk, Sister Grimm, Medusa, Dazzler, Captain Marvel and a new character called Singularity. The entire story takes place on this island called Arcadia. All the brutality in Battleworld, Arcadia has been spared. It's almost a paradise and now it's coming under fire and exposing it as not this idealized society it was supposed to be." Purdin showed the next batch of covers, for issues #2-4, which featured the full cover for #4.

Before talking about "1602: Witch Hunter Angela," Bendis talked to the back of the room and told them to come on and sit on the floor up front, which a number of people did. Bennett then began talking about the series, praising all of their hard work. "I love every single person on this book," said Bennett. "We've got the 1602 Guardians of the Galaxy, MODOK, Kieron Gillen and I are swinging for the fences and just being terrible people in this... Cover artist Stephanie Hans really classes us up."

Purdin and D'Lando ran through the premise of Peter David's "Secret Wars 2099" since the writer had not yet made it to the panel. They noted that it's a continuation of his run on "Spider-Man 2099" with artist Will Sliney and has 'nefarious" plans, according to D'Lando. David's other book, "Future Imperfect," was up next. "It's like what if the Hulk was evil and smart and liked to do bad things," said D'Lando. "The Maestro is going to be super important to some cool stuff happening after 'Secret Wars.' It's a lot of fun."

"That's something we want to emphasize," said Purdin. "A lot of this stuff is going to continue on after 'Secret Wars,' so they're not just one-offs."

Soule began to talk about his "Secret Wars" book, "Inhumans: Attilan Rising," beginning with what he thought when he first heard Jonathan Hickman's world-bending idea for the event. "Here you can really break them and do something different," said Soule. "It's almost like a life during wartime story, like the French Resistance during World War II. The story is that Doom runs Battleworld, and there's a resistence going on that he's not happy about. So he asks his regent in Attilan, which lies just off Manhattan and is home of the Inhumans; he asks Medusa to shut down the resistance, and you find out that the leader of the resistance is Black Bolt -- her husband. They don't know each other in this universe, though."

"Lando," Charles Soule's upcoming "Star Wars" series, came up next to applause. "Lando is the best," said Soule. "I was fortunate to be asked to work in the Star Wars group at Marvel. There was a lot of discussion about who should get a mini series, and Lando was obvious. It's set between 'A New Hope' and 'Empire Strikes Back.' He's lost the Millennium Falcon but he's not an administrator at Cloud City. I treat him like a gambler; we don't know a lot about him from the movies, but apparently he's a bad card player because he lost the Falcon to Han Solo. I took those traits and turned them into a story. I figure he's a gambler that chases his losses. In this, Lando is making the biggest bet he's made in quite a while; he's been asked to steal a ship and if he can do it, he'll be squared away. He assembles a crew of new characters as well as Lobot. He's an expressionless robot in the movies but here he's snappy, he's Lando's bud."

Alex Maleev will be providing art for the series, as revealed in two pages from "Lando" #1 that made their debut in the panel. The pages showed a smooth Lando coveting a golden orb in what appeared to be the living quarters of a mysterious woman. Yes, Lando was smiling.

"Old Man Logan" came up next, but Bendis prefaced his discussion about the book by urging more people to come up front and sit down instead of stand in the back. He then moved into talking about the series, which is on sale now, calling the original "Old Man Logan" story the best work Mark Millar and Steve McNiven ever did at Marvel. "We needed to find an artist that was equal to McNiven but not a McNiven clone, and Andrea Sorrentino and I were put together for the 'X-Men Annuals' this year and he's a world class, one of a kind, unique storyteller who is jsust now starting to find his next level of amazingness. This is the next story of Old Man Logan and it's unique because he's one of the few characters that will journey out of his region into other regions and discover things other characters won't know about. I think it's clear from the promos that he's going to find his way out of 'Secret Wars' and into the Marvel Universe."

At this point, the panel next door -- separated by a curtain -- kicked off at full volume causing a competition for attention. "We should just look at the art now," joked Soule.

Purdin moved on to the teasers for "All-New All-Different Marvel" that were revealed over the past few days, saying that they can't talk about much -- but they do have a reveal of one title coming out post-"Secret Wars." Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez will be working on "Invincible Iron Man."

With his mic turned up just a little more, Bendis talked about the book. "The entire 'Ultimate Spider-Man' team is coming over to 'Iron Man,'" said Bendis. "He's getting new armor, a new girlfriend, new villains, a whopper of a last page, and thanks to Kieron Gillen who revealed in his run that Tony Stark is adopted. We're going to find out who Tony's biological parents are and I'm gonna tell you right now, they are Thomas and Martha Wayne. The book is gorgeous; over the years, Tom Brevoort and I have talked about doing this and I love Iron Man with all my heart. I thought, what does he need? Tony needs more villains. Tony needs more friends that aren't Avengers and more things around him. This new armor design has new cool things that it does, including -- you know how Tony has 20-30 armors that show up? This one can turn into all of them. This is an armor that can do whatever it needs to do for whatever mission."

Purdin closed out the panel by telling everyone to keep their eyes peeled for many more announcements from Marvel regarding the post-"Secret Wars" universe.

A fan asked if "Secret Wars" is rebooting the Marvel Universe, to which Bendis firmly, firmly denied. "What we have is a way to be additive," he explained.

"For lack of a better word, [all the 'Secret Wars'] stories count," said D'Lando. "They've all been tasked with creating something that can be brought over, that they're adding to the pot."

Bendis was asked if his Iron Man is 100% Tony Stark, and the writers stated that yes, it is 100% Tony Stark. "Everything that has happened to Tony is in continuity and will all be reflected in this new series," said Bendis.