Now that 2019’s San Diego Comic Con is in our rear-view mirrors, it is time to debrief and take a look at all the news, announcements and reveals that came out of this annual event!
As is always the case, all eyes were on the famed Hall H panel presentations. This year, however, it was a Marvel Studios solo show as Warner Media, Fox and SONY all back out of their presentations. Marvel revealed to audiences their slate for Phase Four. Phase Four includes both theatrical releases and television series that will stream on Disney Plus. This phase will last from 2020 to 2021, a curious length of time at a mere two years.
Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor 4: Love and Thunder were the films announced, complete with new logos, official release dates and some cool surprises such as Natalie Portman’s reveal that she will be Thor. On Disney Plus, the shows will release as Captain America and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, What IF, and Hawkeye in that order.
But Kevin Feige said don’t worry because Mahershala Ali will be Blade and we do have Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 all on the way – presumably as Phase 5 along with Fantastic Four and X-Men in development! Will these get dates at next month’s D23 event?
While DC Entertainment didn’t bring anything to Hall H for the DCEU, we still got some pretty cool news!
During the Batman: Hush panel, DC unveiled its slate of DC Universe animated movies which will come out in 2020: Superman Red Son and Superman Man of Tomorrow. Superman Red Son is based on an epic “elseworlds” story about how Superman, instead of landing Kansas in America lands in the Soviet Union. It’s a great story that was written in 2003 by Mark Millar. Man of Tomorrow will be an original story about a young Clark Kent. There’s also Justice League Dark: Apokolips War which is a follow-up to 2017’s Justice League Dark movie
During the DC Universe panel, we got news of new seasons and premiere dates. The second season of Doom Patrol will be on both DC Universe and Warner’s new streaming service called HBO Max. The second season of Titans debuts on September 6th of this year. We got a first look at Deathstroke played by Esai Morales and Aqualad played by Drew Van Acker for the second season. We will also see Connor Kent, Batman and Deathstroke’s kids Ravager and Jericho. DC confirmed that a foruth season of Young Justice is on the way. We also got a very “not-safe-for-work” trailer for the very “not-safe-for-work” animated Harley Quinn series.
Over on CW, for the Berlanti Arrow-verse, we got news of the upcoming crossover event based on the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book event. Burt Ward who played Robin on the Batman ’66 show alongside Adam West’s Batman will be making an appearance as well for the event, coming to us via the Batwoman series. Brandon Routh’s Superman will also show up with Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman. Interestingly, Brandon Routh played Superman in 2006’s Bryan Singer-directed Superman film which saw Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. But what’s most interesting about this is that he already plays a character called the Atom on Legends of Tomorrow, another part of the Arrowverse. Here, he will be playing a Superman based on an Elseworlds story called Kingdom Come. Read this one after you read Red Son, its’ very good! We also know that LaMonica Garret will play both Monitor and Anti-Monitor. Ruby Rose had to back out of her con appearance at the last moment due to filming for Batwoman but we did get confirmation and bit more detail about season One for her show. They are pulling a villain from one of my absolute favorite Batman stories: Hush. Thomas Elliot as Hush will play antagonist to Kate Kane’s Batwoman! If you’ve never read the Hush story, do yourself a favor and pick up Batman issues 608-609 or the trade paperback and give it a read. Great stuff. In season 5 of Supergirl, Supergirl will wear a new costume with pants and Lana Lane is going to take a dark turn. We’ll also see Meaghan Rath play a female Brainiac 5.
A trailer for the 6th season of The Flash was shown, with the villain Bloodwork. Bloodwork debuted in Flash 29 in 2017 so he’s a new character. Basically he’s a Hematology / Oncology physician – a cancer doctor – who used to work with Caitlin Snow at S.T.A.R. labs which makes his moniker quite apropos. Arrow’s final season will deal with teaming up with Monitor to stop the Crisis and is 10 episodes long.
On Sunday, DC Comics announced that in 2020 Tom King and Mitch Gerads would be working on a new Strange Adventures book. They worked on Mister Miracle together, which won an Eisner Award. Tom is really in his sweet spot with a maxi-series, something around 12 issues long as opposed to an on-going series like Batman. Strange Adventures began in the 1950s so this is another reboot of a very old DC Comics titles.
The channel EPIX gave us lots of info about their Batman-related series Pennyworth which follows the Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth during his time after military service when he meets Thomas and Martha Wayne. The EP for the series, Bruno Heller said that through the Waynes’ personalities you’ll be able to recognize some of where Bruce gets his. “Thomas represents the righteous detective part of Batman, Martha represents the fearless ‘screw it we’re gonna do this’ side,” He said. This is set in London in the 1960s and so it won’t be a Batman origin story like the show Gotham was.
Some of the most excited news came from the Star Trek fandom. Trekkies got a good look at the animated Lower Decks series, new information regarding the next season of Star Trek: Discovery and am amazing trailer which gave a great look at the first season of Star Trek: Picard. The trailer revealed a plethora of people returning for the show. Brent Spiner’s Data, Geri Ryan’s Seven of 9, Riker and Deanna Troi, The Borg and a Borg that LaForge named named Hugh. Picard’s dog is offically named “Number One”.
In addition to the ones I mentioned earlier in this article, trailers launched for Top Gun: Maverick, The Mayans, It Chapter 2, Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, Cats, The Witcher, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Westworld and the next season of The Walking Dead. Speaking of Walking Dead, AMC announced that the Rick Grimes movies will get theatrical releases instead of the previously-thought AMC debuts!
So that’s all of the biggest and boldest news to come out of 2019’s SDCC! Go ahead and leave a comment down below and let us know what has you most excited this year!
