What Won Comic-Con 2018?

Another Comic-Con has come and gone and as our fellow sweaty nerds have left San-Diego the talk inevitably turned to who won Comic-Con? Now you may have noticed that we didn’t have a lot of coverage of the main Hall H presentations and the trailers on Saturday, but rather than leave you with nothing I’m going to cover the 5 things that I thought stole the show at San-Diego Comic-Con 2018.

Now before I start, this year it was really Warner-Bros and DC’s to lose since we learnt early on that 2 of the big hitters Marvel and Star Wars were not going to have a heavy presence there.  By and large I think they were the clear winners since their trailers and their news seemed to dominate the headlines over the weekend, but I think there was enough from other sources for us to cover.

Number 5: Young Justice Season 3

Young Justice lands at number 5 in large part to its legacy. This is a show that was taken off the air, but there was such a strong support from the fans that it was brought back as part of DC’s streaming service which is set to launch later this year. While the first section of the trailer is given over to essentially recapping the first two seasons of the show, we did however get a very good look at the trajectory of the season.

It seems that the team will be taking down a human trafficking ring that specializes in meta-humans, Artemis is still dealing with the loss of Wally and there’s a whole lot of Jack Kirby’s the Fourth World, which will pay off the twist at the end of Season 2 and the hints that have been dropped throughout the shows’ run.  Considering that this is the first trailer, we got a good mix of the shows major characters and with any luck we’ll get more of the rest of the team.  If I were to be nit-picky is that the recap lasted a little bit too long, but considering that this is a show that has been off the air for about 5 years  it was needed to interest newcomers and remind folks that  aren’t as deep in the show’s history what happened. Hopefully this has intrigued you enough to go back and watch the first two seasons because now is the perfect time!

Number 4: Doctor Who Series 11 trailer

While being just 40 seconds long when coupled with the teaser we got earlier in the week, this was just the right amount to get the internet talking. We got a very good look at Jodie Whittaker’s take on the Doctor, filling the character with a joy and energy that hasn’t been seen since David Tennant’s tenure as the character. While we didn’t see any of the show’s signature monsters, both trailers had the focus squarely on the Doctor and her companions; it in essence takes the show back to its roots, a mad person in a box with their friends, traveling the universe.

The trailer also gave us a good look at the tone that Chris Chibnall and the team in Cardiff are trying to establish. The show looks glossier and the shorter episode count has allowed for them to make more use of the budget. The only reason it lands outside of the top three is that I only wished that there was more for me to savour.   

Number 3: Fantastic Beast’s: The Crimes of Grindlewald 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a solid addition to the Harry Potter world. Its sequel seems to be following the Harry Potter method of getting more adult as the story progresses. While this trailer didn’t offer a lot of new footage (it’s in fact a lot of the footage from the first trailer just cut slightly differently ) we got a deeper look at the story and some of the characters motives . Grindlewald played by Johnny Depp sees himself as a revolutionary trying to bring Wizards out of the shadows and into the light where they can take control of the world. The stakes seem to be a lot higher than the last one, and that one ended with a lot of down town New York destroyed and the Wizarding World nearly revealed.

I think I have now reached the point with this film where, I’m going to inevitably watch this opening weekend so if they weren’t going to put out anymore trailers I’d be fine with that. I know of course they will and I like Newt, won’t be able to resist watching it.

Number 2: Star Wars the Clone Wars Season 7

Of course Star Wars was going to find its way onto my list of the best bits of Comic-Con! The series that was cancelled so abruptly will finally get the conclusions that fans have been wanting for years! From what has been said about the series in the past, the intention by George Lucas and Dave Filloni was to always end it during the events of Revenge of the Sith. To finally see some of these events play out and see how the likes of Darth Maul ended up as the head of a criminal empire (yes I know we got some of that thanks to the Son of Dathomir series) or to actually see the events of the Ahsoka novel will hopefully bring so much more to Star Wars canon.

The only issue is that it will be on the Disney streaming service so if you want to see what happens you’ll have to join it, but that’s a small price for me to pay just so I can watch the conclusions to one of the best pieces of Star Wars storytelling ever!

Number 1: The Worlds of DC

At number 1 this year was the Worlds of DC trailers which gave us looks at Aquaman, Shazam and for those lucky enough to be there, Wonder Woman 1984. DC has rebranded their cinematic universe focusing less on building a universe and more on story. While films obviously share the same Earth, I doubt there will be the same level of interconnectivity as Marvel or Star Wars. Let’s start things off with Shazam. This had no right being as funny or as good as it was. It does a good job of establishing the character and the world that Billy inhabits and then BOOM! We get Zachary Levi as Shazam perfectly showing how a kid would act in a Superman type body. At the moment it has done enough to whet people’s appetite.

 Aquaman sounds like it should be a film that would be a parody of the Superhero genre, but here thanks to James Wan and Jason Mamoa the character seems to have a lot of depth. We see explicitly that Arthur Curry doesn’t fit in either world he belongs to, but has to step up to the plate and put aside the surfer bro version of the character we saw in Justice League. Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that we got a version of Black Manta complete with ridiculous helmet, that seemed to fit in the world that they had established.

After this presentation I can say that the Worlds of DC stands to be in a solid place and it has left me with more hope for its future. The only things I would have liked were a confirmation of Matt Reeves’ The Batman and a Superman film, but that’s me being a greedy fan boy.

So there you have it, my list of all the big moments from San- Diego Comic-Con. What did you think? Did I leave something really obvious out like Godzilla King of Monsters or the Predator? Let me know what you thought in the comment’s section.