Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Star Trek and Dexter: All the big news from San Diego Comic-Con

San Diego Comic-Con is a mecca for pop culture nerds and tragics who descend on the Californian city, all decked out in cosplay costumes, to gather and be captivated.

Which means, every year, the studios and distributors who make genre fare such as superhero titles, crime thrillers and sci-fi spectacles love to make big announcements at SDCC.

Here are all the big revelations out of this weekend’s festival from the likes of Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and more.

DOCTOR WHO

When it comes to geek culture, Doctor Who is basically at its peak. The most recent series, starring Ncuti Gatwa, wrapped up not long ago on its new global home of Disney. But there’s plenty more to come in the Whoniverse, according to showrunner Russell T. Davies.

First, there’s going to be a spin-off called The War Between the Land and Sea, which had previously been rumoured and is now confirmed. It will focus on the conflict between UNIT and classic Doctor Who villains the Sea Devils.

This year’s Doctor Who Christmas season will feature none other than Nicola Coughlan, the Irish pocket rocket of Derry Girls and Bridgerton fame, who is having a very good year that also includes dark comedy Big Mood.

The seasonal episode will be directed by Steven Moffat and be centred on the Silurians, a reptilian species of villains introduced in 1970.

And expect to see some familiar faces but in new roles. Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who both guest-starred during the David Tennant run of the series will appear in the next season.

The panel also confirmed that the Doctor’s companion in the upcoming season will be called Belinda Chandra, who will played by Varda Sethu.

MARVEL

Marvel skipped out on SDCC last year but returned to the con’s 6500-capacity Hall H this year armed with mind-blowing revelations for devoted fans.

The headliner was that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to the MCU after “retiring” from the franchise in 2019. But Marvel isn’t resurrecting Tony Stark. Instead, Downey Jr. will play Doctor Doom, one of the comic book empire’s supervillains and traditionally the archnemesis of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards.

The announcement was made in dramatic fanfare as Downey Jr appeared onstage in costume as the masked character before flinging the mask off and throwing his arms wide, ready to be worshipped.

Downey Jr will play the character in two Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret War, which will both be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who have also been persuaded to return to the MCU after previously helming four movies.

The studio also revealed that the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, due to begin production this week, will be subtitled First Steps.

Director Matt Shakman said it will be inspired by a retrofuturistic version of New York. The team even brought along a preview of the “Fantasticar” and flew it into Hall H.

The Thunderbolts cast including David Harbour, Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were on hand to present sneak peek footage of the upcoming anti-heroes team-up which, according to reports from inside the room, showed Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina is the character who will bring everyone together.

Finally, there was also hype for the next movie on the MCU docket, Captain America: New World Order. The crew revealed Giancarlo Esposito’s bad guy character will be the King of the Serpent Society Seth Voelker/Sidewinder, a villain that first appeared in the comics in 1980.

The crowd saw footage of Harrison Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross transform into Red Hulk, which had been teased in an earlier trailer. The film will star Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon, as he takes on the Captain America mantle.

DEXTER

It’s no surprise that there was a Dexter panel at SDCC – there is the prequel origin series coming out soon. But what was unexpected was special guest Michael C. Hall, who played the eponymous serial killer in the 2006 series and 2022 revival.

Hall was on hand to reveal he and the creative team have reunited for another sequel, Dexter: Resurrection. It was all the more baffling because the character was killed off at the end of Dexter: New Blood.

Hall and creator Clyde Phillips gave no details on how the character would come back – was it a fake-out (again), is he a ghostly manifestation who appears to his adult son, the one who did the patriciding?

Dexter: Resurrection will start production in the new year for a mid-year premiere. The 10-episode prequel series Dexter: Original Sin, which follows a 20-something Dexter when he starts working at the Miami police department, is in production now.

The series, which will star Patrick Gibson and Christian Slater, previewed the show’s opening credits, which is stylistically similar to the 2006 show. Hall will be heard throughout Original Sin as the “inner voice” of Dexter.

Hall told the audience, “I’ve spent so much time with this character and to go back to have those sort of imaginative blanks filled in this technicolour show, it’s amazing.”

The new Dexter show is expected to stream on Paramount+ in Australia.

RINGS OF POWER

Amazon chose SDCC to drop a three-and-a-half-minute trailer for the second season of Rings of Power, Prime Video’s very expensive Lord of the Rings TV series.

If there’s one thing to take away from it, it’s that it’s Big Bad Sauron’s game now. The arch-villain has emerged, hellbent on amassing all the great power in Middle Earth for his evil-doing. He knows that if he can possess the rings of power, he can bend the whole land and its peoples to his will. So, you might call him ambitious.

But the threat is not only from Sauron but the rings themselves, which could influence its wearers, including Galadriel, with nefarious intent. The video suggests Galadriel could be making a grave mistake.

The trailer is packed with glimpses of the large ensemble cast including Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Charlie Vickers, Benjamin Walker, Robert Aramayo and Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who were on present at SDCC and greeted with rapturous fanfare.

THE PENGUIN

If there’s any question over whether the DC’s The Penguin spin-off is meant to be comic books meets The Godfather, you need only to check out the font that’s been picked for the title card. There’s an uncanny resemblance to Francis Ford Coppola’s films.

The upcoming eight-episode series has been teased for so long (the first footage appeared more than 16 months ago), you might have thought it had already come and gone.

The Penguin sees Colin Farrell reprise his role as Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin which he originated in Matt Reeves’ 2022 movie, Batman. The story picks up not long after film in which mob boss Carmine Falcone was killed. Nature abhors a vacuum and Oz rushes in to fill it.

Like the enterprising hustlers America’s cult of the individual rewards, Oz wants to take over Gotham, and not just because he promised his mother a better life.

The new trailer that was released at SDCC sees Oz making moves to consolidate power through the drug trade but he has a challenger on his hand – Falcone’s daughter Sofia (Cristin Millioti), straight out of Arkham, and probably not rehabilitated.

The series also stars Clancy Brown, Michael Kelly, Theo Rossi and Shohreh Aghdashloo and will be released on September 20 on Binge.

VOUGHT RISING

The Boys cinematic universe is on the expansion march. The super violent and politically charged anti-superhero series has now spawned a second spin-off, Vought Rising.

Unlike The Boys and the first spin-off, the young adult Gen V, Vought Rising won’t be set in modern times but in the 1950s. The series had been in development but was confirmed at SDCC.

It will star Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash, both reprising their roles from the main series. Ackles played Soldier Boy in the third season of The Boys while Cash portrayed Stormfront in the second. Both characters were villains with deep psychological issues.

The show has been described by its creator Erik Kripke and showrunner Paul Grellong as a “twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought in the 1950s, the early exploits of Soldier Boy and the diabolical manoeuvres of a supe known to fans as Stormfront, who was then going by the name Clara Vought”.

Vought is the name of the megacorporation in the series which controls superheroes.

The Boys is one of Prime’s most successful series, known for its ultra-violent spectacles and sharp political satire. The fourth season finished earlier this month.

CREATURE COMMANDOS

The first project from filmmaker James Gunn’s reboot of DC’s onscreen universe will be Creature Commandos. Gunn dropped into SDCC to debut the trailer and announce the show will launch in December.

The animated series will span seven episodes and have all been written by Gunn, who is best known for his work on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

The story follows on from the first season of Peacemaker in which the character of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has been told she can’t use human prisoners to do her dirty work anymore. Instead, she assembles a team of non-human, superpowered and definitely unstable fighters.

The voice cast includes David Harbour, Indira Varma, Frank Grillo, Maria Bakalova and Alan Tudyk. Davis and Sean Gunn will both reprise their characters from Gunn’s live-action work in Suicide Squad.

Gunn took over creative control of DC’s screen output in late-2022.

STAR TREK

The folks over at Star Trek hosted a whole panel, and why not? They had a lot to crow about.

First up was the teaser for the long-anticipated Discovery spin-off, Section 31, starring Michelle Yeoh who slips back into the character of Emperor Philippa Georgiou.

She originated the character in Discovery in 2017 as a Starfleet commander but that version was killed off. The actor returned when another iteration of Philippa was introduced, this one a genocidal ruler who learns the value of compassion, mercy and goodness.

But that doesn’t mean she has lost any of her sass or penchant for violence. The spin-off will follow the character into a secret special forces unit called Section 31, tasked with handling the stickier tasks of the Federation. The show also stars Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson, and Kacey Rohl.

The franchise also announced a slate of new names will be joining the upcoming series Starfleet Academy including Mary Wiseman, Tig Notaro and Oded Fehr, who are bringing back their characters from Discovery, and Robert Picardo, who was last seen in the Star Trek universe in Voyager. Previously announced cast include Paul Giamatti and Holly Hunter.

Finally, Star Trek has greenlit an unnamed live-action comedy from Justin Simien (Dear White People) and Tawny Newsome (Star Trek: Lower Decks) about outsiders who work at a resort planet who are surprised to find out their day-to-day activities are being broadcast to everyone.