For people who follow the massive annual barrage of news out of the Comic-Con International trade expo — popularly known as San Diego Comic-Con, or SDCC — part of the big news in 2024 is that the con won’t have a corresponding virtual or online event this year, for the first time since 2019. That’ll leave fans looking for more ways to follow all the announcements streaming out of one of the year’s biggest fandom events. But don’t worry, Polygon has you covered.
Marvel and DC are both heading into 2024’s big show with major questions to answer. Marvel dialed back its plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe after some major box-office disappointments, a new wave of “superhero fatigue” discourse, and the conviction and sentencing of actor Jonathan Majors, once the centerpiece of the MCU’s upcoming strategy. Comic-Con will be a preemptive victory lap for the company, with Deadpool & Wolverine opening in theaters July 25, and already tracking as a hit. But this year’s Marvel panel is also where we’ll catch up on Marvel projects that seem to have disappeared, and learn how Marvel plans to invigorate its fan base and retool Phases 5 and 6. Replacing Kang with Doctor Doom? Replacing Majors with a different actor? Something entirely different?
DC, meanwhile, went through its own major reboot in 2022, when Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad director James Gunn took over the company’s movie and TV franchise — but Gunn says he won’t be at Comic-Con for any kind of big DC presentation because he’s too busy shooting his take on Superman. Parent company Warner Bros. will have a small presence, repping the upcoming HBO series The Penguin and My Adventures with Superman. Instead of a presentation, DC will have a booth where it’ll try to stir up excitement over new DC Comics merch. But it’s always possible DC could drop a major announcement during Comic-Con just to maintain its presence.
Leaving aside those big two (and Disney, which saves its announcements for its annual D23 expo), there’s still a lot going on in media at the con, with panels on upcoming franchise plans for Star Trek, Doctor Who, Transformers, Walking Dead, and Alien, as well as upcoming seasons of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and a lot more.
The event will run from July 25-28, and Polygon will be covering the whole thing. Stay tuned to this page for all the news, trailers, announcements, casting reveals, sneak peeks at upcoming projects, and more.
