If there are too many acronyms in the title, the great and powerful J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the epic science fiction series Babylon 5, appeared at San Diego Comic Con this weekend to made several announcements on his upcoming projects.

An unnamed “upcoming project” was hinted at, and the only detail that was given involves three names: Bradbury, Gaiman and JMS. Two out of three isn’t bad. Given the nature of Bradbury, if you told me it was yet another attempt at The Twilight Zone, I’d believe it. Considering that JMS considers Rod Serling an inspiration, it would be interesting.

The comic Midnight Nation will be made into a TV series: if you don’t know about Midnight Nation, you’re missing out. This was pure, unadulterated awesome. An LA cop finds himself caught in the crossfire between Heaven and Hell, and loses his soul, becoming one of the lost people of the Midnight Nation. In order to get his soul back, he has to cross all of America to New York City to face the Devil himself. Think of it as Stephen King’s The Stand, only writ small, and less preachy, and much more awesome.

JMS’ project Rising Stars has been optioned for a feature film … oh well. Pity one of his good series couldn’t have been produced. I would watch the heck out of Dream Police. Rising Stars was way too political, and the ending was a bit of a train wreck. I’m not sure if it was a deus ex machina, JMS just ran out of time, or if the artist got way too invested in making political hay out of evil politicians who happen to look like real ones.

In other news, JMS is leaving comics behind in order to concentrate on novels and plays along with TV and feature films. This includes more of Sense8 … which, as Matt Bowman pointed out in his review, is such a train wreck of a show, I’m surprised JMS has even attached his name to it.

And yes, the Babylon 5 film is still in the works. Apparently, JMS wants to build his ‘street cred,’ so when he approaches investors for over a hundred million dollars, they won’t laugh in his face. He thinks after another TV show or two and a couple more feature films, he should have achieved that credibility for Studio JMS.