My Favorite News From San Diego Comic-Con 2019
San Diego Comic-Con — one of the most important events in the world of nerdery — has come and gone, and with it came a whole slew of announcements guaranteed to excite nerds and geeks the world over. Here’s a brief list of some of my favorite items that emerged from the convention’s various panels, presentations, and announcements.
Picard
As far as I’m concerned, this was the biggest reveal of the convention: the first trailer for the upcoming Star Trek: Picard series, which brings back one of Star Trek’s most admired characters.
The good captain will be joined by some familiar faces, too, including Data, William Riker, Deanna Troi, and Seven of Nine.
Marvel Announces Their Next Phase
Not surprisingly, Marvel dominated much of the convention as they announced the first titles of “Phase 4” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the series coming to the Disney+ streaming service. I’ve already written about this, but I’ll just take this time to once again point out the awesomeness that is Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness. I’m glad to see that Marvel, at least for the time being, seems to be embracing the weirdness.
Netflix Dives Into Epic Fantasy with The Witcher
Now that Game of Thrones has ended, other folks are trying to capitalize on the epic fantasy cash cow. For example, Amazon is ramping up production of their massive Lord of the Rings series. Later this year, however, Netflix will debut their adaptation of The Witcher, an acclaimed Polish fantasy series that’s already been adapted into several acclaimed video games.
I’ve never read or played any existing Witcher titles, so I can’t comment on how faithful Netflix’s adaptation looks to be. I will say that parts of the trailer look like fairly stock fantasy, but other parts look really good. I like lead actor Henry Cavill — his appearance in Mission: Impossible — Fallout proves he can have an onscreen presence — so I’m hopeful that this will be a unique spin on fantasy tropes that can beat the inevitable Game of Thrones comparisons.
Amazon Announces The Expanse’s 4th Season
The best sci-fi series on television avoided cancellation when it was picked up by Amazon for a fourth season. Since then, fans have been eagerly awaiting any news or footage about the impending season, and Amazon obliged with the following trailer that reveals a new planet and villain.
The Expanse’s fourth season will begin streaming on Amazon on December 13.
And the rest…
All 255 episodes of Robotech can be streamed for free, along with several hours of bonus content.
The guys behind the recent Mister Miracle series — which is quite the trippy experience — will be creating an Adam Strange series that looks like it’ll be equally trippy.
Dungeons & Dragons’ 5th edition is turning 5, and to celebrate, Wizards of the Coast is releasing a deluxe reissue of the first 5th edition campaign.
Not surprisingly, io9 has a roundup of pretty much everything that happened at this year’s Comic-Con.