(photo thanks to /Film's Peter Sciretta)

Joss Whedon took to a packed house of fervent fans in Hall H today to announce his next project: a six-issue comic book called Twist arriving next year and answering the question on all of our minds: "Why isn't there a Victorian female Batman?"

He also received Comic-Con's prestigious Icon award, honoring those (like previous recipients Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury) who raise awareness of comics and related pop culture properties. He got a standing ovation and seemed temporarily speechless, until recovering with a pretty good crack about how it's the "most beautiful murder weapon" he's ever received, and how nice it was of Comic-Con to scratch JJ Abrams' name off the award and replace it with his own.



That's really all the news from the panel, which mainly consisted of Joss being charming, wonderful, self-deprecating and hilarious. A few highlights:



On Age of Ultron: "Everyone is so perfectly pleased with how I handled Natasha." To the uproarious laughter, he added, "Comic-Con: the cure for Twitter."



On his favorite character he's ever created: "How can I not say Buffy? She is the distilled evidence of everything I am not."



On the perfection of Firefly's Zoe: "If we're gonna talk about Zoe, it's simple. You get Gina. You get Gina Torres, and it makes your life easier."



When a Mexican fan asked if we'd see any Latin American characters from Joss, he replied, "I've been knocked a few times for my track record in terms of race, and my answer is always 'good call.' But my focus has always been gender, and that's like half the people on the planet, so there's plenty of work to be done there." But in answer to the question: "Soon."



Advice today's Joss would give the Joss who was just starting on Buffy: "Rogaine."



And MOST IMPORTANTLY, "Karaoke is a window into the soul."