San Diego Comic-Con 2026 Analysis

We’re going a little old school this year. Or back to the basics or something.

Every year I use San Diego Comic-Con to take stock of comics and the wider pop culture business, and every year I promise to keep this shorter. Well, maybe not every year.

This year I meant it more than usual though, as I’m going back to an older format after feeling that I got lost in the weeds in recent years. After 2024’s near 10,000 words and 2025’s trimmed down 7,000, I’m aiming for something like 3,000 (update: it went 4,000). Behind the scenes, I still kept tabs on 135 panels but I guess that you could say that this is me trying to edit things a bit to make it zippy and consumable. Don’t worry, I’ll still mention the “Robotech” panel and other obscurities.

For a couple of years now I’ve wondered if the ‘peak’ Comic-Con of multi-day overnight Hall H lines and headline-grabbing celebrity ‘moments’ was gone for good. I boldly declared a new era in 2025! Did that new era continue into 2026?

Nope, not quite. Well, kind of, but it’s complicated. Marvel came back to Hall H after skipping it entirely in 2025. Star Trek turned 60. Rick Moranis showed up. Publishers said people were spending like it was 2019 again (?!). And Hall H got so overloaded that Comic-Con’s own staff started talking, out loud, about getting rid of it. So yeah, some wild stuff happened.

Wednesday, July 22

Leading into Preview Night we had the early week news of a Marvel shakeup in the comics division. Days before the con, Stephen Wacker replaced C.B. Cebulski as Marvel’s Editor in Chief after Cebulski’s nine years in the job. Amid some earlier layoffs, longtime president Dan Buckley and sales exec David Gabriel had previously both been shown the door.

Cebulski isn’t gone, exactly, but it sure seemed like he was given a parachute. He’s shifting into a new “Editor, Asia Originals” role running Marvel’s manga push with Kadokawa.

Oh, and 100 comics and franchise staffers got told that the whole publishing operation is moving from New York to Burbank. This marked the end of major comics publishing in New York City, with DC having left for California a few years ago.

Rob Liefeld, a man who loves the con and loves the con gossip, used his own post con podcast show to claim Marvel was walking the floor recruiting creators who don’t currently work there. Given how their sales have been of late, this would have been a great idea if true.

Thursday, July 23

Thursday seemed to be a solid start to the convention. It had that mix of comics, entertainment, and ‘anything can happen’ that makes the con the con.

Genndy Tartakovsky is finally landing the 2D Conan project he’d been pitching since 2008. Announced in late June out of the Annecy Animation Film Festival, “Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast” is headed to Prime Video, produced by Cartoon Network Studios, and adapts what some called Robert E. Howard’s most ’emotionally demanding’ Conan story. The logline had a ‘battle-hardened Conan defying gods, fate, and even death to save the pirate queen Bêlit from a dark sorcery that threatens to destroy everything.’ That’s a lot! As best I could tell, there’s no release date and no voice cast yet, and Tartakovsky has floated animatics coming next year and rough animation by 2028, so I need to cool my jets for now.

Collider’s “Directors on Directing” panel, courtesy of Zach Cregger and the “Mayday” pair of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, probably wouldn’t have gotten much mention from me, but then the room got hijacked. Johnny Depp showed up in full Ebenezer Scrooge makeup to premiere the trailer for Paramount’s “Ebenezer,” having already spent the morning in the Gaslamp in character outside a pop-up shop. It was his first SDCC appearance since 2018 and the reaction to the stunt in Hall H was mixed.

“Star Wars” fans had an unexpected surprise thrown their way, probably as yet another way to juice people to get to George Lucas’s new museum in L.A. (not that they probably needed a lot of reasons). Seth Green and Matthew Senreich announced that the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will finally show at least part of “Star Wars: Detours,” the animated parody series that got shelved the moment Disney bought Lucasfilm and has been a talker since 2012 with only glimpses of a purported 39 produced episodes.

Brad Bird confirmed he’s writing “The Incredibles 3” with Peter Sohn directing, then showed footage from “Ray Gunn,” his first animated film since “Incredibles 2.” It’s a very long-in-the-works (I can remember talk of it back in the 1990s movie rumor scene online) noir about a detective in a world that already replaced detectives with machines, with Sam Rockwell voicing the lead in a Skydance production north of $150 million (I have no clue how he got that budget for this), headed to Netflix on December 18.

Harmony Gold, for a second year in a row, claimed it was Robotech’s 40th anniversary with “Four Decades of Robotech.” The panel talked up a new video game from JOYCITY and its Sony and Crunchyroll partnership, which I swear is an annual re-announcement. As a longtime Robotech fan, I continue to be baffled and amazed at the amount of product pushed out to a niche fan base and also how the people running this panel annually somehow spin zero movement on a theatrical front year after year.

In the absence of a Warner Bros. film division official plan, the Jim Lee & Friends panel was one of a few stand-ins with special guests that crossed out of just comics. Lee was on several panels over the weekend and boasted that this was somehow DC’s best year ever. He also made an old man’s case for physical media giving you a visual indicator of the story’s end approaching that I happened to agree with completely. Oh yeah, and whatever’s on the cloud can be taken away from you. But you all knew that.

Oni Press revealed “Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott,” the first new Scott Pilgrim comic in sixteen years.

“Robert Kirkman Live!” packed Room 6BCF with Andy Kubert, Arthur Adams and David Finch on hand for “Terminal,” Kirkman’s latest creator-owned launch (with early word of it having a blind bag gimmick… i.e. the biggest comics flavor of the moment sales trend).

Friday, July 24

Marvel publishing tried to make what had to have been some not-fun corporate drama seem like it was a good time for everyone at the “Marvel Fanfare” panel where Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski handed the mic to his replacement Stephen Wacker in front of a live crowd. Awkward. Wacker joked that Marvel briefly ran two Editors in Chief at once, calling it an “unsecret war.” Cebulski talked up the Kadokawa deal he’s about to run as part of his golden parachute to Japan.

In the morning, fans learned of Eisner Hall of Fame inductions. Gerry Conway, who co-created the Punisher and wrote the death of Gwen Stacy, had been named an inductee while he was still alive. He died April 26 of pancreatic cancer at 73, and the ceremony was a tribute instead of a celebration he could attend himself. Conway shared the Hall of Fame class with Jeff Smith, creator of “Bone,” alongside Colleen Doran, Chris Ware and manga legend Akira Toriyama.

IDW confirmed “TMNT: The Last Ronin III: Return for New York,” with Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz continuing the story past Casey Marie Jones and into four new turtles, building toward a finale set for summer 2027.

And Ballroom 20 hosted “Image Comic Legends Together on One Stage”: Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Robert Kirkman and Eric Stephenson together for a panel billed as untold stories about how Image rewrote the rules of the comics business. As of the time of this writing, oddly enough, I have yet to find a video of the panel or any real reporting on it, which was odd given the venue size but with these characters involved, I plan to keep checking in.

Lucasfilm Publishing delivered a stack of new Star Wars books, and Indiana Jones back at Marvel Comics for the first time since 2008, in a five-issue series called “Indiana Jones and the Sword of Pandemonium” from Jason Aaron and Aaron Kuder. My main quibble with the Jones news is that despite having Alex Ross and Bryan Hitch on covers, the new covers looked ‘assy’ next to how Dave Dorman painted Indy for Dark Horse in the ’90s.

Rick Moranis provided the day’s real ‘moment.’ Spaceballs Troopers combed the Hall H crowd for cosplayers and found him planted under an oversized Dark Helmet, and the room gave him a standing ovation ahead of the “Spaceballs: The New One” panel, with Kevin Smith moderating a cast that also included Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Lewis Pullman and a returning Daphne Zuniga. The hall got a trailer that wasn’t released online, and it was well received. Yogurt turning up frozen in carbonite and rebranded “Frozen Yogurt,” Dark Helmet dueling, and an Avatar Na’vi stepping up to a men’s room urinal were purported highlights. They seemed to be covering the bases. A later gag in the hall unveiling the Spaceballs Cinematic Universe also went over well and played as a bit online too. The film opens next April.

“Lanterns” picked up momentum with a Sinestro reveal and a surprise Nathan Fillion cameo as Guy Gardner.

Saturday, July 25

Before even getting to Hollywood stuff, there were some heavyweight comics panels on Saturday, at least in terms of the stuff that people are buying these days in notable numbers and the lines that are carrying a lot of the proverbial water in the industry in recent years:

DC’s Absolute Universe panel unveiled a new “Absolute Batman Beyond” special and gatefold 25th issues of “Absolute Batman,” “Absolute Wonder Woman” and “Absolute Superman.”

Skybound kept its Energon Universe crossover line expanding across “M.A.S.K.,” “Transformers,” “Void Rivals” and “G.I. Joe.”

Saturday closed out Gerry Conway’s induction week with its own tribute panel, his wife Laura Conway among those sharing stories, a more personal follow-up to Friday’s formal Hall of Fame ceremony.

Oh yeah, and Frank Miller, who was oddly all over the place at the con with numerous panels as he kept pushing his recent bio book. He announced his return to Dark Horse with a new ongoing series, “Invasive Species,” with Ryan Benjamin on art, his first Dark Horse work since 2018.

Saturday’s main anchor news-wise though was Hall H (as it often is). The day was relatively stacked and, as a result, there was some drama that we’ll get to later.

Anyway, Star Trek ran nearly two hours on “Strange New Worlds” footage and a 60th anniversary lap that got 89-year-old George Takei a standing ovation (Shatner, at 95, wasn’t present because he was on his own startlingly aggressive stage tour this year).

Apple TV followed with its first-ever full Hall H takeover and they certainly took it over. A six-title showcase: “Matchbox: The Movie,” “Neuromancer,” “Dark Matter,” “Mayday,” “Widow’s Bay” and “Silo.” “Matchbox” with John Cena looked interesting if disposable. It felt like a plot pulled off a shelf, with kids acting out toy car play shoved into the action scenes like that alone makes something an adaptation instead of a toy commercial with a budget. The panel closed with a surprise Tim Robbins appearance for “Silo.”

Then Marvel’s panel hit at 5:30p and news started to drop. Ryan Gosling was coming to the MCU as Ghost Rider, in a Shawn Levy-directed film. Ryan Coogler was back for “Black Panther 3,” with David Jonsson playing a grown, aged-up T’Challa II.

While there was already an early-week general trailer drop, exclusive “Avengers: Doomsday” footage played for the crowd. Robert Downey Jr. walked out in character as Doom and did a few accent references. Ryan Reynolds heckled the whole hall in a gray Deadpool costume. Everyone left with a Doctor Doom mask and cape, which was kind of nice, right?

Marvel paired all of it with new footage from the already announced “Avengers: Endgame Encore” theatrical rerelease. That rerelease itself got announced back in June at CineEurope, so the actual Hall H news was the footage, not the rerelease.

Reaction was positive if muted. It felt like a continuation of Marvel’s play-it-safe moves. AV Club’s take was that a beloved actor in a legacy role and a numbered sequel are about the two safest bets a studio can make, dressed up as a comeback. Without a doubt, the crowd enjoyed the panel though, as the crowd was on its feet, repeatedly, for both reveals. Marvel put on a real show Saturday. It’s also not the same Marvel that used to walk into Hall H and make you excited about whatever came next.

The logistics around Hall H were seemingly a disaster. Big surprise, the Star Trek and Apple crowds never left the room, turnover collapsed, and Hall H hit capacity hours before Marvel’s slot even started. Comic-Con’s own statement on their blog admitted the reduced turnover.

What did this mean? People who had been in the wristband campout were, to some degree, left out of a supposed guaranteed spot inside. Confusingly, the First Seating wristband guarantees you into the day’s first panel, not into Marvel eight hours later, so the written promise wasn’t technically broken, but the convention clarifying the fine print to people who had camped out overnight didn’t do much to help the PR nightmare.

Sunday, July 26

Sunday had an oddly jam-packed comics-centric day, somewhat unfortunate for those involved as many obviously skipped or cut short this last day of the convention with flight or other travel logistics creeping in. Spotlights and tribute panels for Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Archie Goodwin, Mike Royer, Jeff Smith, and Maggie Thompson all jumped out on my watch list and unfortunately reporting on all of them was sadly lacking.

In an otherwise weak year for comics publishing buzz for Marvel, Marvel’s publishing side had a genuine success story, albeit with a little bit of social media controversy about the creator, John Byrne. And a continuation of the trend with non-periodicals to license out publication (aside: See also news of the Marvel Masterworks line being revived by Clover Press). The “Marvel Comics at Abrams Books” panel rode in on “X-Men Elsewhen,” the hardcover that had already sold through its full 25,000-copy first printing since debuting at last year’s con, forcing a second printing of 20,000 more. That’s real sales momentum for a comics division that just went through a leadership shakeup of its own, even if the book itself broke news back in 2025 rather than this year. Volume 2 of 3 would be up for preorder this fall.

Oddly, the most consequential thing that happened Sunday wasn’t a panel at all. As I mentioned above, Saturday’s Marvel showcase had turned into a full-scale Hall H revolt when more than 500 fans holding guaranteed first-seating wristbands, some who’d camped since Thursday night, were shut out when the room hit capacity. This slow-motion train wreck happened hours before Marvel’s slot, since Hall H never clears between panels and this year almost nobody left once inside. Comic-Con’s response involved a blog post with no apology that leaned on the implication that fans showed up late, which only poured fuel on this roaring fire.

So at Comic-Con’s own Talkback session Sunday, with attendees still venting, communications chief David Glanzer seemingly vented right back. Comic-Con has been giving up exhibit floor revenue for years to keep Hall H running as a giant theater, and he mused that maybe it’s time to look at getting rid of it and going back to revenue-generating space. Dang!

Oddities & Miscellanea

The Floor

Big surprise, aisles were a fight to move through even on Preview Night. Artist Alley kept the same footprint as 2025 and some still felt squeezed against the caliber of talent SDCC attracts. If Comic-Con ever does turn Hall H back into floor space, a less claustrophobic Artist Alley would be one of the floor attractions that likely grabs a bit more real estate.

Dealers were anecdotally doing well? Or at least not bad? YouTuber Swagglehaus (USC alum shout-out) ran two con report videos that had some good man-on-the-spot insights with comics dealers. Predictably, after the Gosling casting news, “Marvel Spotlight” #5, Ghost Rider’s first appearance, visibly jumped in price and eBay activity. Oddly, in the same reporting, there was no comparable bump for “Fantastic Four” #52 after the Black Panther reveal.

CGC is quietly getting into manga grading and still hunting for the right partner to make it stick. Worth watching given how vast the manga market is vs. traditional comics these days.

A couple of the old guard had their own moments away from the main stages. Todd McFarlane revealed in a side interview that a nearly finished Spawn animated film has been sitting on a shelf for years, shelved by a production dispute after the HBO series fell apart. He bought the rights back himself. He’s also rejecting scripts for the live-action Spawn remake, saying flatly he wants it “f***ing dark” and needs writers who’ll work with him instead of around him.

While I couldn’t find an in-depth report on the annual Troma panel, Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman was at the convention, reminding everyone of his fiercely independent, ad-free, fan-funded operation. He told KPBS’s Beth Accomando he’s “still bursting with energy and readily available to his fans” and I don’t think that anyone would challenge that claim.

Marvel repainted its own booth’s Latverian Witch costume display for the multiple days running, which kept attendees curious and speculating.

Off Site

Ignition Press’s new Ignition Pavilion, a calmer creator-focused space across from the convention center, got some solid coverage. HBO Max ran “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” as both a Hall H panel and a separate free public activation, a walk-through replica of a comic shop, and people actually seemed to enjoy it without a three-hour line. Most other off sites drew the standard complaint: a long wait for a short walkthrough and a pin.

Celebrities were in the midst of those who weren’t in the convention center. Johnny Depp was probably the biggest talker in the Gaslamp as Scrooge. Ryan Reynolds wandered around in costume, disguised on the convention floor, although I had not seen direct photo evidence of him being off-site as well.

The Gaslamp sign at 5th and L got physically wrapped in green Doomsday signage, with a Proto Sentinel head set up nearby for photos.

The City

Local restaurants and bars told reporters they were busier than in recent memory. Even the weather got involved.

The weather was not as ideal as in the past, as many complained of hotter temps outside the hall and even inside, at least on the floor.

Winners & Losers

Winners

Comics publishing. DC especially, riding the Absolute line to what Jim Lee is calling its best year ever, and the floor crowds backed him up. Marvel didn’t have a lot of comics pop but they had buzz with the editorial change and Indiana Jones announcements.

Comics business. More broadly, the comics business side of the floor sounded a lot healthier than Hollywood’s visibly smaller footprint. Act 4 Publishing sold out its George Pérez “New Teen Titans” Artist’s Edition, $150 a copy, in four hours. Founder Scott Dunbier said panel attendance had doubled year over year.

Robert Kirkman.  Terminal coming out.  Skybound’s hot streak continued into another year. Its Energon Universe crossover line keeps expanding, with a new “M.A.S.K.” series joining “Transformers,” “Void Rivals” and “G.I. Joe.” “Void Rivals” is bringing back ROM. “G.I. Joe” is building to an issue #25 confrontation with a newly created villain called Major Medusa. I remain dumbfounded that Hasbro’s licensed titles continue to have so much comics ‘heat’ and critical acclaim.

Star Trek fans. The franchise is in transition with the Paramount whatever is going on over there but it made it to age 60 and keeps on trucking.

Green Lantern fans. “Lanterns” proved DC can win a room without a movie behind it with a nice panel that had some footage that finally jumped out on this project, along with panelists that seemed to genuinely want to be there (plus some fun cameos).

The Eisner Hall of Fame class. Gerry Conway, Jeff Smith, Colleen Doran, Chris Ware and Akira Toriyama, was as strong as it’s been in years.

Rick Moranis. We’re all winners with Moranis returning to the screen after a nearly 30-year break. He was a winner too in his first visit to Hall H though, getting a standing ovation for existing after pulling off an amusing Dark Helmet in the crowd gag.

Star Wars fans. “Star Wars: Detours” getting rescued from the vault instead of promised as some future product.

Conan Fans. Tartakovsky reading Robert E. Howard back at his own critics.

David K. Wilson III. My friend David getting to have his first SDCC as a panelist and wrapping up a West Coast signing tour on his new comic “Empiria.” Yeah, many go to the convention for the big celebrity moments but over the years the chance to meet with creators at ‘street level’ is what has always stuck out to me.

Marvel Returns. I wasn’t blown away by Marvel’s Hall H panel but they brought in the star power for sure: Doom masks, Ryan Reynolds heckling everyone, Robert Downey Jr. in character as Doom (even if the voice didn’t do much for me). The crowd was up and down with ovations.

Losers

Hall H operations. Not to keep beating on this, but you know it’s not good when the head of the convention is wrapping up the weekend by suggesting that maybe they should just shut that aspect of the con down, not the wristband policy on paper, which did what it said it would do, but the actual experience of people who followed the rules and still got shut out. The Eisner leak is the other unforced error of the week. Avoidable, and needless during a year comics didn’t need the distraction.

The Eisner Awards. Oh my. The Eisner Award winners leaked onto Comic-Con’s own website roughly two days before the Friday ceremony, first surfacing on Reddit. By showtime most of the room already knew who won. Everyone involved handled it with grace and decent jokes instead of pretending it hadn’t happened, which is to their credit. Word was that it was the first year of a new organizer of the awards and that’s a heck of a way to start their tenure.

Unclear, ask later

Whether Marvel actually held anything back in Hall H for D23 on August 14 through 16, or whether Saturday’s slate really is just narrower now. We’ll know more in three weeks, but the odds seem very high that D23 gets some of the X-Men buzz that was largely absent in San Diego.

Whether Comic-Con does anything structural about Hall H beyond talking about it out loud or venting.

Whether Marvel’s editorial rebuild produces better comics or just a different org chart with the same old problems underneath it.

Conclusions

After a year of wondering if 2025’s show marked what the future would look like for the convention, 2026 arrived and said that my crystal ball wasn’t as clear as I had assumed. Everything pointed toward more of a hybrid. Hall H, mostly due to Marvel tipping the scales with a return, seemed to come back from life support (for now). The convention leaning more into its comics roots seemed to continue though.

I think that the lifeblood of the convention is its ‘anything can happen’ energy and, while I appreciate the comics angles more than some attendees might, I’d like to see this sort of balance continue into the future.

And speaking of the future? San Diego’s locked in through 2030, the extension coming at the opening of the convention in what seems like a traditional announcement every couple of years.