Although Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown is rumored to have been included in the London filming of the White Council scene with Saruman, Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond (pictured above), he was not in White Council scenes screened at this year's San Diego Comic Con.

Figwit returns! Bret Mackenzie will appear in The Hobbit as Lindir, an elf in Rivendell who is present during a poetry reading by Bilbo at Elrond's house.

Thrain and Thror appear in the first film and we will most likely see them in earlier (and happier) times as part of sequences that illustrate the dwarven race of Middle-earth in its glory days. The panel was split on whether we'll see the history of Moria, such as the battle at the Gates of Moria.

We'll see Legolas and his father Thranduil spar.

What Smaug looks like is being kept a complete secret. During a five-week stint that Larry Curtis, the DragonCon Tolkien track coordinator, spent working on The Hobbit there were absolutely no trace of the dragon anywhere on or off set. The offices of illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee were similarly vacant of Smaug sketches.

The OneRing folks also revealed some exclusive set pics, but requested that they continue to be kept hush-hush

The movies focus on the journies of three characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, and Gandalf. The panel was very insistent that Thorin will not be portrayed as a supporting character; that is he is absolutely a main character in these films. Bilbo and Thorin's journies have emotional arcs to them, while Gandalf is more plot-heavy.

Issue 198 is on-sale now and comes with four incredible free posters, featuring Man Of Steel, The Hobbit, Skyfall, and Django Unchained.

Coming to a rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

Gandalf looked at him. "My dear Bilbo!" he said. "Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were."