Outside on the sunny walkway in front of the Bayside Hilton on Saturday morning, at about the same time that Warner Bros. Pictures was making its presentation in Hall H, some DC cosplay heroes got a chance to shine. If their smiles didn’t move you to tears, you need to have your heart defrosted in Hades.

DC Comics were already a hot topic at San Diego Comic-Con. Warner Bros. sponsored the distribution of pins in the 20 different official SDCC convention swag bags. The pins featured one of six DC heroes: Batman, The Flash, Supergirl, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow. Batman was much sought after, but according to FanSets publicist Dan Madsen, Wonder Woman was “the hardest one to get” and over 150,000 pins were distributed. There was some scurrying around with people attempting to collect them all. FanSets has also created exclusive collectible pins for both ThinkGeek and Fandango FanShop.

Yet there were more impressive and more exclusive DC inspired items, thanks to the Stan Winston School of Character Arts at the Magic Wheelchair Justice League Reveal. Magic Wheelchair is a non-profit organization started by Ryan and Lana Weimer. The Weimers have five children, three of whom use wheelchairs. Each Halloween, Ryan made wheelchair costumes for sons Keaton and Bryce. Other parents of wheelchair using kids asks Ryan if he could transform their kids’ wheelchairs. As a result, in 2015, the couple started Magic Wheelchair.

At the SDCC reveal were Kennedy as Cyborg  (build lead Eric Fox),  Naya as Wonder Woman (build lead Matthew Stowers), Marshall as Batman (Seattle build team led by Chad Larson, Paul Strong, and Jamie Von Stratton), Zoe as Supergirl (build lead Cory Hunt), Kumaka as The Flash (build lead Lior Molcho) and Emma as Aquagirl (build lead Jeff Watamura)

Marshall confided that he had already seen his Batmobile at a Seattle comic convention. There were some glitches getting Kumaka into his Flash costume but once in and with the costume lit up, he was very impressive. My favorite was Watamura’s Aquagirl chariot drawn by seahorses (the seahorse heads nodded), and Emma’s smile was one of the highlights of my San Diego Comic-Con experience. 

When I’m old and confined to a wheelchair, I hope someone will give me a Toothless wheelchair build and roll me around a con. Toothless was one of Ryan’s first builds. My husband asked for a silver Aston Martin with a martini shaker. 

While we dream of our retirement dotage, you can help put “a smile on the face of every child in a wheelchair” by donating to the Magic Wheelchair organization (www.MagicWheelchair.org).