5 Burning Questions Ahead of Comic-Con: Superhero Fatigue, Superman’s Absence and Marvel’s Big Moment

Last year’s Hollywood strikes didn’t shut down San Diego Comic-Con entirely like it did the majority of film and television productions, but the 2023 event was a dramatic change of pace as studios — with a few exceptions — either severely reduced their presence or stayed away entirely, effectively sending the annual gathering back to it roots .

Not so this year.

Hollywood — with one notable exception — is returning in force for SDCC 2024. But it does so as the entertainment industry, still recovering from the massive cultural and financial shifts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, faces difficult business challenges and, frankly, hard questions about its relationship to the kind of popular culture celebrated (and the fans who celebrate it) every year in San Diego.

Looking ahead to another packed week at the world’s premiere pop culture celebration, here are the biggest questions we hope to see answered.

Will superhero fatigue be felt?

The box office and popular culture in the 2010s were dominated by superheroes. Driven by the historic success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hollywood was consumed by an arms race of sorts as competitor studios like DC Comics owner Warner Bros. and Sony scrambled to launch their own interconnected movie and TV franchises (with mixed results).

The 2020s are undeniably different. Superhero projects now tend to generate headlines more for cast shake-ups, unexpected flops or for being savaged by critics, and Hollywood’s most significant pop culture phenomenon this decade was Barbenheimer, which had absolutely zero connection to any superhero IP.

Plenty of explanations have been put forth — moviegoing habits changed by the pandemic, the over-saturation of the market related to the streaming wars, or simply overall diminished quality — but they tend to be grouped under the catch-all concept called “ superhero fatigue .”

“Deadpool & Wolverine” premieres this week and is expected to set rated-R box office records , and it comes as Marvel is making a triumphant return to Comic-Con’s Hall H.

But the question remains: Is “superhero fatigue” real, and has it crept in with the fans most inclined not to succumb? We’ll try to find out.

Will comic artists on the main floor still flourish?

The reduced presence of studios in 2023 due to the strikes led Hall H to be largely half-empty throughout the week, which in turn generated an economic boom for the normally overshadowed artists and creators who make up SDCC’s working class.

The lack of major panels and celebrity appearances sent fans back to the show’s main floor, where they happily spent thousands of dollars on art and comics, particularly in Artists Alley. One artist, for example, told TheWrap she earned the $2200 she needed to break even in less than 24 hours. Another told us plainly: “Nothing has been better for Artists Alley than the strike.”

With Hollywood returning in force this year and Hall H programming stronger, will fans make time to keep the Artists Alley boom going? Or will long, long panel lines and the promise of their favorite stars keep them away?

How will Marvel pivot?

The studio that dominated the 2010s has faced cascading setbacks since 2020, among them box office disappointments, diminished critical acclaim, and the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman.

And then in late 2023, the studio’s big plan for the “Avengers” franchise effectively fell apart when Jonathan Majors, the actor cast as villain Kang the Conqueror, who was intended to be the center of it all, was found guilty of assault and harassment in his New York domestic violence case. Following the verdict, Marvel fired him .

The studio is in need of a big reset, and that looks likely ahead of its return to Hall H this year, first on Thursday night for a “Deadpool & Wolverine” victory lap panel , and then on Saturday for its usual hour-plus blitz of previews and announcements.

Will the studio reveal the replacement for Kang the Conqueror? Will the Russo Brothers formally announce their return to Marvel? Is a new plan for “The Avengers” in the works? Will fans get a glimpse of Harrison Ford as Red Hulk or — finally — “Fantastic Four”? Is “Blade” even still happening?

Will fans miss Warner Bros. Discovery’s Hall H showstopper?

While Disney’s Marvel eyes a (hopefully) triumphant return to Hall H, its main rival Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of DC Comics, has gone in another direction.

WBD is of course bringing several upcoming and current TV shows to San Diego. But the studio’s traditional Comic-Con centerpiece is usually the huge Saturday morning Hall H panel, showing off not just DC Films but its blockbusters across multiple genres — past years touted “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Hobbit” and Zack Snyder’s DC-verse. This year, that panel is not happening.

WBD still staked out the first Hall H slot on Saturday but for something much smaller scale: a video presentation and Q&A with the cast of The CW’s “Superman & Lois,” which is heading into its final season. And later in the day, just before Marvel’s Saturday night panel, WBD will be highlighting Colin Farell’s upcoming “Penguin” series. There is also a panel this week for “Harley Quinn” and “Kite Man: Hell Yeah.”

But the studio won’t be bringing “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Joker: Folie a Deux” or the animated “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” to the event, all of which are set to be released this year. It’s not even bringing a glimpse of “Superman: Legacy,” the start of the James Gunn’s DC Universe reboot, which has been filming since February.

In fact, WBD isn’t promoting any movies at SDCC this year, which, frankly, is strange. Will it matter to fans at Comic-Con? Will it matter later as the company tries to build hype for those films via other means? That remains to be seen.

What will dominate the cosplay this year?

Last year, Barbenheimer was the match-up of the summer, but in terms of cosplay, “Barbie,” not “Oppenheimer” was the clear winner. And it wasn’t close.

Comic-Con was flat-out a Barbie world . You couldn’t walk more than a few feet without hearing “Hi Barbie!” and seeing one or more fans dressed as their favorite version of the character.

No movie released this year has come close to having the cultural impact of “Barbie,” but “Inside Out 2” sure did make a lot of money . Will Anxiety and Ennui and the other emotions be the go-to cosplay?

Meanwhile, like “Barbie” last year, “Deadpool & Wolverine” hits theaters the Thursday night of Comic-Con, which means fans in San Diego might not even get to see it until they go home. But that didn’t stop “Barbie” fans from creating amazing looks in 2023, and we suspect it won’t stop “Deadpool” fans either. The film is rife with possibilities, many of them spoiled in the trailers .

We’ll be keeping track of all the amazing looks we see and report back when we know who the 2024 champion is.

The post 5 Burning Questions Ahead of Comic-Con: Superhero Fatigue, Superman’s Absence and Marvel’s Big Moment appeared first on TheWrap .