San Diego Comic-Con: The 2024 edition brings some unexpected and innovative announcements for the fans

San Diego Comic-Con of 2024

The San Diego Comic-Con, which has been a thing since the 1970s in the city of California, is not only a massive festival for comic book fans but also for people interested in other entertainment content. As in this convention, many things are being announced or shown, which makes the fans stunned for a few days, perhaps even months. This year’s San Diego Comic-Con was also not exceptional as in this convention, various announcements and content were shown, and some even broke the internet. Most of the fans, as noted come to the convention dressing up as their favourite character in cosplay.

The history of SDCC

The concept of convention for comic book fans was first nurtured by comic book enthusiasts like Richard Alf, Ken Kruger, and other people as a platform which can help to gather all comic book fans together. This idea permanently took shape in the year 1970. However, the San Diego Comic-Con was unpopular except for some hardcore comic book fans, but slowly, things started to change, especially during the ’90s and 2000s when the superhero films genre began to take off by the success of films such as Batman, Batman Returns, Blade, Batman Trilogy of Nolan and the Raimi trilogy of Spider-Man which created new fans in this particular genre.

However, the arrival of the mass phenomenon of the shared superhero franchise name MCU slowly made it the largest convention in the world with various amounts of the large range of pop cultures and other entrainment elements like video games started to make their place here. As of today, superheroes and other pop culture fans also heavily look forward to this convention for some groundbreaking announcement of their franchise or series. Every July it is like a festival for them.

The successful execution of the SDCC of 2024

This year’s San Diego Comic-Con, just like its previous years, was also filled with several jaw-dropping announcements, which made the convention of this year once again on the line of success and even more than their previous outings.  Marvel, DC, Dynamite, and Doctor Who all had a brilliant and successful panel in this edition, but perhaps amid that, Marvel has overshadowed every competitor.

Marvel, being the boss of SDCC.

Without mentioning the name of Marvel, discussing the San Diego Comic-Con of this year is impossible. The first big announcement of Marvel in their panel was to announce the homecoming of the greatest director duo of Marvel, which has made Marvel and quality both toe on-toe. The Russo brothers are returning to direct Avengers 5 and 6, titled Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, respectively.

The premises, especially the latter one, if someone had read the comics, know how much this is the biggest event of Marvel, perhaps bigger than the Infinity Saga has brought as there would be various multiverse heroes and villains on the stage. Some are familiar (Like Tobey Maguire Spider-Man) or unfamiliar (Like heroes of Earth 838 that we haven’t seen in Multiverse of Madness film, for example Iron Man) for the viewers. Nothing could have managed the execution of this event in a better way than the Russo Brothers.

If this news regarding the return of the Russo Brothers in the MCU would have made the Marvel fans at San Diego Comic-Con excited, the next announcement made them stunned as the next moment the director duo revealed the MCU version of Doctor Doom. It was none other than Robert Downey Jr, the man who carried the franchise for 11 years; the fan favourite Tony Stark once again made its way to the franchise, but now, in a polar opposite way, the big hero of the franchise is the big bad. This news single-handedly made Marvel the winner of the San Diego Comic-Con.

Besides this news, other things have been shown on the panel of Marvel at San Diego Comic-Con. One of them is a few minutes of footage of the 2025 film Captain America: Brave New World, where this time, Steve Rogers would not don the mantel of the iconic hero, but his sidekick will do the job which is Falcone, aka Sam Wilson, due to Rogers retired from the role after Avengers: Endgame.

In this footage, one of the biggest reveals that is seen is that Adamantium (Which is a fictional metal in Marvel comics like Vibranium and the thing which is tied up with the origins of James Logan Howlett, aka Wolverine) has been made by the body of Tiamut (A Celestial and the second antagonist of the 2021 Marvel film Eternals).

Also, the fans at San Diego Comic-Con got to know about the character of Giancarlo Esposito (A  fan favourite actor, especially for his role as Gustavo Gus Fring in Breaking Bad and Stan Edgar on The Boys series of Amazon  ), which fans were anticipating from Magneto to Norman Osborn to Bolivar Trask but ultimately he was revealed to be playing the antagonist Sidewinder (In the comics Sidewinder is the leader of a Hydra type cult call Serpent Society who is primarily the foe of Captain America and also Avengers ).

Also, at San Diego Comic-Con, the fans got to see the Red Hulk finally, which they had been waiting for since 2008 as Harrison Ford, who was recast in the role of General Thunderbolt Ross (The alter ego of Red Hulk) after the death of the original actor Willem Hurt as the footage of this film being showed where he transformed into the fan fav character of hulk mythology whom the avid comic reader is familiar with.

Apart from that, the next year’s highly anticipated MCU film call, Fantastic Four, referred to as the first family of Marvel, got a new title called Fantastic Four First Steps, with test footage being shown at the San Diego Comic-Con (which was described by the people there as basically the live action to equivalent of The Jetsons) that confirmed the film taking place in 1960s but in an alternate universe where the technology progression was much ahead than the normal 1960s.

Just announced in Hall H:

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps begins production on Tuesday. Only in theaters July 25, 2025. #SDCC pic.twitter.com/iPAlXlajnr

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) July 28, 2024

The first footage of the next year’s film Thunderbolts (Which is Marvel’s answer to DC’s Suicide Squad) was also shown at San Diego Comic-Con, where it is seen Black Widow, aka Yelena Belova, was fighting with Ghost and a US agent.

DC is playing with the aesthetic aspect.

DC or Detective Comics, the arch-rival of Marvel in this field, however, in comparison, was genuinely so much behind Marvel at San Diego Comic-Con. Nonetheless, it is seen that DC has put the element of aesthetic as the prime mascot of their announcements at the San Diego Comic-Con as James Gunn, the head of the new cinematic universe of DC called DCU, has unveiled a new logo of the particular comic book company which will easily resonate well with the nostalgia gang as the logo particularly is a homage to the logo that has been used in the company from the early 70s to mid-2000s.

Tear down the empire from the inside out.

Academy Award nominee Colin Farrell is #ThePenguin in the new @HBO Original Limited Series, premiering September 19 on Max. pic.twitter.com/vVp5mgleng

— Max (@StreamOnMax) July 28, 2024

However, DC has provided a treat for Batman fans at San Diego Comic-Con as the trailer of the HBO Max series called Penguin, which is the spinoff of Matt Reeves’ Batman and a part of the shared universe called Batman Epic Crime Saga, which is separate from DCU was released on San Diego Comic-Con.

The trailer already shows that the series will be different than a traditional superhero flick as not only was this trailer from the point of view of someone who was literary an antagonist in the prequel, but this will also show his rise in the Gotham underworld on the style of Tony Montana in  Sopranos and Young Vito Corleone in  Godfather Part II (Two critically acclaimed underworld based film ) that is quite different from the superhero genre the viewers are traditionally being familiar with.

This was also a pretty good day for the DC animation fans as the teaser of the animation film Creature Commandos was released at San Diego Comic-Con, which is part of the new continuity called DCU. The impact of this film will also be carried forward on phase 1 of DCU, referred to as Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. Also, the animation series has provided the first look at Rick Flag Sr (Played by Frank Grillo, who previously portrayed Brock Rumlow /Crossbones on MCU), who will play a major role in the upcoming Phase 1 film of DCU that is Superman: Legacy and the season 2 of Peacemaker starring John Cena.

Dynamite Entertainment is a dark horse on SDCC.

Even Dynamite Entertainment on San Diego Comic-Con, compared to the hype that Marvel and DC are receiving, was nowhere near. Still, their announcement has also created excitement among the superhero fans. There was only one Dynamite Entertainment franchise that was on the SDCC, but the franchise is already a household name for pop culture fans; which is none other than The Boys series of Amazon Prime, which is a satirical take on how superheroes could have been if they were active on the real world.

Two major news regarding The Boys was released on San Diego Comic-Con. One is that the fan-favourite character, Soldier Boy (Who is played by Jensen Ackles and is a dark take on Captain America, which is pretty much inspired by the obscure DC character called General Glory and the Ultimate Marvel version of Captain America), is being returned as a series regular on season 5.

Another major piece of news, which the fans of the series have been demanding for two years, has been announced at San Diego Comic-Con is that Soldier Boy and another fan favourite antagonist called Stormfront, aka Liberty (Played by Aya Cash, who appeared on season 2 as series regular and guest appearance on season 3) both will feature in the spinoff which is a prequel set on the 1950s titled Vought Rising. This news has automatically made Dynamite Entertainment get the tag of Dark Horse on San Diego Comic-Con for this year.

Introducing the next deranged entry into the world of The Boys: VOUGHT RISING, starring Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash. Set in the 1950s, exploring the early exploits of Soldier Boy and a supe you know as Stormfront. Only advice for now is keep your hands off the fucking shield. pic.twitter.com/Ss9lqnnbP3

— THE BOYS (@TheBoysTV) July 26, 2024

Other Announcements

Besides Marvel DC and Dynamite Entertainment leading the San Diego Comic-Con, there were other popular announcements at the convention, which received notable attention from pop culture fans. One of them is Doctor Who, the British science fiction series broadcasted by BBC since 1963, getting a new spinoff called The War between the Land and Sea, which will dive into a cult classic Doctor Who storyline.

Another announcement which got a notable amount of hype from fans at San Diego Comic-Con is that veteran, well-known voice actor Mark Hamill (Who is known for his iconic take through voice acting on the character of Joker in DCAU, also known for his portrayal of the iconic character called Luke Skywalker in the space opera series called Star Wars) is once again returning to the role of voice acting this time he will appear as The Flying Dutchmen on the new SpongeBob film.

Meanwhile, Stark Trek (It is Star Wars, but the space opera genre is not in the past in a galaxy far, far away but on Earth in a future far, far away) surprised their fan base when at San Diego Comic-Con they announced that Star Trek is for the first time producing a Paramount + series that have undertaken a genre which is not familiar on this franchise it is comedy. Neither the title nor the release date is confirmed, but it will show the day-to-day life of the Outsiders, a branch of the Federation (The main organisation of the particular franchise).

A new @StarTrek series is in development from co-creators Justin Simien and @TrondyNewman! In this live action comedy, Federation Outsiders serving a gleaming resort planet find out their day-to-day exploits are being broadcast to the entire quadrant. pic.twitter.com/Hugz1rZtdf

— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) July 27, 2024

On the other hand, the trailer of season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is the prequel to the classic fantasy series based on Middle-Earth written by British author J.R.R Tolkien, was also released at San Diego Comic-Con and the most noteworthy factor that has created excitement for the fans of this franchise is that Sauron the big bad of the franchise will be the main focus of the series.

The San Diego Comic-Con looked like a market of prequel announcements by the time it was announced on the panel of Transformers that a prequel animated series is being developed titled Transformers One, which will showcase the journey of Young Optimus Prime and Megatron before they became sworn enemies. This show is already hyped because prominent A-list actors like Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm will be voicing the characters, with Hemsworth voicing the titular character Optimus Prime.

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