Stay tuned, we’ll be live-blogging the latest in Super Hero Squad at Hasbro’s San Diego Comic Con Marvel panel!

And we’re live!

They are flying through the Super Hero Squad news, but we were able to snap a few shots. First the Super Hero Headquarters Heli-Carrier, expected this fall for $29.99. It plays the SHS theme music!

Toys ‘R’ Us will be offering an exclusive Asgard collectors pack with Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Loki and others.

All these are going to be released to retailers in 2010. Also, in October Marvel is doing Marvel Mania month, with $1 off coupons for SHS 2-packs.

Now for the 2011 news. Here’s a showcase of the 2-packs expected in 2011. Red Hulk and classic Wolverine, schnick schnick!

War Machine, action Spidey and Iron Man in Cap’s clothes!

All those SHS figures need some vehicles, right? Two new Squad Cruisers were debuted. Here’s Captain America’s Cruiser:

And they saved the best for last – Blackbird with Cyclops and Wolverine!

The way Hasbro was talking, these new SHS 2-packs and Cruisers will be tied into the second season of the animated series.

2012 seems to be a busy year, not only for the tie-in with The Avengers and Captain America movies, but with The Avengers animated series as well and the fourth Spider-Man film. So expect many more great SHS and other figures in 2012 and beyond!

And that’s all she wrote. Thanks for reading along.

From left to right: Scott Schultz, Christian Jacobs, Lance Robertson, Kevin Lee, J. Torres (Oni Press), Matthew Loux (Oni Press)

Today’s kid-packed Yo Gabba Gabba panel provided many cool stories about the origins of the series and insight into the production of the show, as well as a couple of newsworthy items. It even had a Dancey-Dance Off for prizes! Here’s the scoop.

J. Torres and Matthew Loux from Oni Press were on hand to talk about the upcoming Yo Gabba Gabba comics. There will be three books due this year. The first will be a 128 page oversized anthology in the fall, and the other two will be shorter comics in the ideal board-book format for younger fans. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve bought traditional comics for our toddlers, only to have the pages ripped out before we got them home. Board books are great, except for those teething who like to chew on those thick cardboard pages!

Next announcement, Vans will produce a line of Yo Gabba Gabba shoes. No date was given on when we would expect to see them in stores, but they did say they were kids sizes only – no adult sizes! Christian mentioned, “We tried to talk Vans into it, and they were like ‘what are you talking about, this is a kids show’!” The audience was instructed to email Vans to let them know we want the Yo Gabba Gabba shoes in adult sizes (you could also contact them on Facebook or Twitter as well).

The follow-up album to last year’s “Music Is Awesome” CD  was formally announced. “Music Is Awesome 2″ will be released this August – just right around the corner! And expect to see official Halloween costumes this fall as well.

And lastly, yours truly asked Christian and Scott about the oft-discussed Yo Gabba Gabba movie, and it seems it’s pretty far off. “We were developing it last year with Jason Reitman – ‘Up In The Air‘ Jason Reitman – and his daughter’s a big fan of the show”, said Jacobs. “And his schedule got so crazy once he became ‘academy award winner’ Jason Reitman. It seemed like it got really hard to get meetings, and so we amicably decided to not develop the movie together anymore, because he’s got things he’s doing. It was not a bad thing, but we’re continuing to develop it on our own, and maybe that might be a better way to at it.” At least they are still working hard on it – maybe there will be some progress at next year’s con.

There will be a fall figure mail-in program for a vintage rocket-firing Boba Fett figure to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.

Okay, they just brought out the AT-AT. This is the full size one, not the Galactic Heroes one. Still looks awesome.

Expect the new line of Galactic Heroes figures in September. The new line of GH figures are mostly redesigns of existing characters. But who cares, it’s a new Emperor and Darth Maul!

And here’s the GH AT-AT, due in stores in August. That’s just right around the corner!

They demoed the new General Grievous lightsaber. It has removable blades and rotates. It’s not a powered rotate, it’s manual via a twist of the wrist, but it does a cool buzzing sound when it spins like Grievous’ guards.

Nice! A Star Wars AT-AT Toys ‘R’ Us exclusive in vintage packaging. This will be released in October.

Target is getting vintage packaging Snowspeeder and Tie Fighter releases later this year.

Mighty Muggs are back! Target is getting exclusive 3-pack releases of “mini” Mighty Muggs! Get these starting in October.

And it’s over. They are saving more announcements for Celebration V in September.

UPDATE: At the Q&A after the panel, it was announced the full size Mighty Muggs will no longer be in production for retailers. They will continue to exist for exclusives, like the Iron Man and Transformers SDCC exclusive Mighty Muggs this year, but there will be no more full size Mighty Muggs from the Star Wars line. The mini line is a test run, and if they sell well, Hasbro will consider bringing more out in the future.

Now this is our kind of kid! Check out this YouTube video of a three year-old playing (well, we might add) Mirror’s Edge on the PC. Yes, we said the PC. Not some dumbed-down controller setup on a kiddie game. We’re impressed with his ability to handle a mouse and keyboard setup as well as any grown-up!

Good job, dad!

V.Tech has just the thing to cure the dreaded “summer brain drain”. The company has announced a new product, the V.Reader, aimed at early readers ages 3-7, to keep kids practicing their reading over the long, hot summer months. Stories are brought to life with sound, music and voices from some of the most popular TV and film franchises, such as Dora The Explorer, Toy Story and Shrek. Multiple modes will allow young readers to follow along with the story and interact with reading games, to help with letters, phonics and even a second language. A story dictionary is also available for new word discovery.

An online bookstore will provide a portal to free titles, themes and avatars kids can then use to customize their e-books. Downloadable content will be available by tethering the V.Reader to a PC or Mac, and feedback will also be transferred from the device to a parent’s registered account to show how their child is progressing on the various games and activities.

The V.Reader will be released in Target stores on June 21, and with other retailers later this summer for $59.99. It will come in two colors, blue and pink, both of which are available for pre-order now at Amazon.com. There will be 11 software titles at launch, at $19.99 each.

The Scooby Gang will take up shop in the spooky town of Crystal Cove, where they’ll encounter their share of ghosts, ghouls, and grumpy old men in monster costumes plotting revenge. Here’s the show description from the press release:

In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the curious gang investigates every circumstance with a questioning mindset. Ghosts and monsters may exist, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and the gang will stop at nothing to learn the truth of Crystal Cove. Plus, the drama won’t be limited to paranormal activities — the gang will be portrayed as real teens with real problems, dealing with situations that arise in their families and personal relationships within the group.

Produced by the same folks who have been involved with series such as Batman: Brave and the Bold, Teen Titans and Ben 10, this series has some great animation pedigree behind it. We’re always looking for some spooky-yet-kid-friendly programming, especially during the Halloween season, and it’s exciting to know Warner Bros. Animation is putting so much quality behind it. We can’t wait.

Read the full press release here.

But is it all worth it? Do we need 3-D that bad?

The answer, in our opinion, is “yes”.

As parents, let’s think back to the first time we took our kids to a 3-D movie. It could have been one of the recent theatrical blockbusters, it could have been Mickey’s Philharmagic or Muppet*Vision 3-D  at Walt Disney World. Think about that experience. It probably went something like, the kids kept removing their glasses to a comparison between what was real and what their eyes were tricking them into believing what was happening, and the subsequent and ongoing struggle as a parent to have them keep their glasses on.

But then once they did, something magical happened. They started to interact with what was going on in the movie. They would reach out and grab something that seemed to appear dangling in the space before them. Or duck out of the way when something was thrown at them. But they started to give in to the illusion and embrace the experience of being immersed into another world.

And then two things happened. One, their experience was stunted by a lack of reciprocation with the movie. Two, the experience ended all too quickly, and you couldn’t resist your children’s begging and pleading enough to avoid getting back in line for the umpteenth time. Hey, we’re parents – it’s hard for us to say “no”!

So what if there was a way to better that experience, by prolonging the journey and improving the interaction component? Well, that is exactly what 3-D gaming will do.

It is truly a revolution, in the same way 3-D graphics were in the ’90s. It will further bring us into the experience, to truly surround us with a world that is fantastical and wonderful, with challenges we never even dreamed were possible. Critics think 3-D gaming isn’t necessary, that it won’t bring any benefit. But we disagree, if only for the explanation we just gave.

But what will this do for our children? This is where we see the biggest benefit.

3-D will be improved exponentially when partnered with the right tools, and we see those as the Playstation Move and Nintendo 3DS. With the Playstation Move, children won’t just reach out into an empty mirage, but rather an interactive environment that feels as real as any they’ve ever experienced. They can take books off of a shelf and learn a new magic spell, or peek around a bush to spy on an unsuspecting subject. When that item floats in front of their eyes, they’ll be able to grab it and manipulate it. They won’t be fumbling to take their glasses off, because those are the portal to the world in which they are immersed.

It is also important for developers to think of 3-D as more than just an added range of perspective. They need to start designing worlds which live and breathe, and place us in situations where intuition, not repetition, get us out of the tightest jam. And it will be this intuitive gameplay which will remove all barriers to video gaming. Kids won’t have to memorize the latest button combination to execute a certain move; they’ll be able to perform that move just as they would in real life, and have it reproduced exactly as intended.

The 3DS is just as important. It might not have the same level of immersion as the Playstation Move, or the sans-3-D motion capture of the Microsoft Kinect, but it will provide the same opportunity to reinvent video game playing as intuitive rather than repetitive. By manipulating assets within an environment possessing real depth, rather than on a flat plane with a perception of depth which requires suspension of disbelief, players can partake in activities as they would in real life. The stylus, as it had revolutionized gaming back in 2004, will continue to capture realistic and fluid player movements and controls in a way that button presses cannot.

Giving in to such immersion, the argument of whether violent actions in video games beget violent tendencies in real life is invigorated. As we saw with “Avatar depression” in individuals who lost themselves in James Cameron’s fictional world of Pandora, there could be the potential where reality takes on an entirely new meaning for some. However, there are many factors which all need to be addressed as 3-D gaming is propagated to the masses – and, interestingly, all exist for today’s video games. Stability of the individual’s mental state needs to be weighed first and foremost. Parents need to take responsibility for what games their children play. And video game publishers need to take responsibility for the content they peddle to children. Admittedly, we anticipate these three factors to exist going forward in a somewhat amplified state until the shock of introducing 3-D into such interactive entertainment settles into society.

We like the idea of 3-D gaming for our children, and we feel the benefits far outweigh the negatives. It will break down typical barriers and introduce kids to gaming earlier, and hopefully spawn new types of gameplay which teach logical solutions to realistic challenges.

So yes, we do need 3-D.

We here at MDIAG! are neither priviledged members of the press – not yet, anyway – nor can we afford to have our bosses catch us huddled around our laptops syphoning our employers’ internet bandwidth to watch the big press releases when we have to catch up with those TPS reports. So we just wanted to alert our readers we’ll be covering the show a little differently.

While the Daily Dadgest is on hiatus, and as we try to keep up with the unstoppable landslide of E3 news, your best bet would be to follow MDIAG! on Twitter or subscribe to our bookmark feed on Delicious, as we’ll be tweeting and linking on show happenings throughout the week.

Now, let the show begin!