10 Things We Learned From The 2013 San Diego Comic-Con

Like something straight out of National Geographic, this past weekend saw the mass migration of thousands of comic book geeks, movie buffs, and TV addicts to the San Diego Convention Center for the annual San Diego Comic-Con. What started out in 1970 as a humble convention for comic book fans to score some rare books and interact with their own kind has now turned into a 460,000 square-foot marketing showcase, where every self-respecting publisher and movie studio pushes their future projects to generate buzz and create further brand awareness.

Featuring exclusive trailers, mega announcements, and celebrity guest appearances, Comic-Con has become the preeminent celebration of all things geek. And as the entertainment industry has embraced the superhero and sci-fi genres over the years, movie studios have poured serious cash into making sure their presence is felt at the largest convention of the year.

However, the downside to the Con growing into an international sensation is that tickets have become increasingly scarce, sometimes selling out in a matter of days. Even if you’re lucky enough to actually get into the convention center, sometimes the lines to see all of the exclusive footage from your most anticipated movie and TV show is too daunting to even to even attempt.

That’s where we step in. For everyone who didn’t want to brave the cramped convention hall, complete with its curious odors, masses of perspiring cosplayers, and overcooked hot dogs, we’re here to give you the highlights of the weekend’s biggest developments with our list of 10 things we learned from the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con. From blockbuster superhero announcements to epic trailers and an animated crossover that should have comedy fans drooling onto their keyboards, this was a convention that actually lived up to the hype.

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Despite the presence of a new showrunner, Scott M. Gimple, The Walking Dead's upcoming fourth season is looking to pick up right where it left off earlier this year. Premiering on October 13, this season will further the story of the prison and the Governor, while the main characters fill out their ranks and deal with the deaths that plagued them last year. The highlight of the show’s presentation at the convention was the release of the first trailer for season 4, which you can view above.

Here, we see the cast becoming a much more organized, militant force than ever before. Unfortunately the walkers seem just as organized and they are headed right towards the group’s prison base. During the footage, there are flashes of high drama and brutal violence, all mixed together to get our salivary glands working overtime. The sense of dread showcased here gives us a strong comic book vibe as the characters are slowly realizing there won't be a happy ending to their journey.

Marvel may rule live-action (for now), but for the last two decades, DC has been absolutely killing it in the animation department. At Comic-Con, Warner Bros. announced the upcoming release of three new direct-to-video DC animated movies: Justice League: War, Son of Batman, and Batman: Assault on Arkham.

War has a 2014 release and will be based on Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s introductory Justice League arc from the beginning of The New 52, which saw the formation of the team in order to take down Darkseid. Son of Batman is an adaptation of Batman & Son by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert. This story focuses on Batman finding out that he had a son with Talia al Ghul named Damian, who would later become Robin. And finally, Assault on Arkham is a spin-off of the mega-popular Arkham video game series.

Don’t think that just because these projects are animated that they don’t provide the excitement of a blockbuster film. In fact, the animated releases from DC over the past couple of years have been more entertaining and imaginative than most live-action comic book movies to come out. Any self-respecting comic book fan should do themselves a favor and check these out, as well as DC’s back catalogue of animation, when they become available.

The first X-Men movie hit theaters back in 2000, yet in the 13 years since, the team’s most iconic villains outside of Magneto, the Sentinels, have yet to appear, despite the outcry of diehard fans. Thankfully, it was revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con that these iconic, mechanical mutant hunters would finally make their way to live-action in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. The film's distirbutor, 20th Century Fox, had the robotic head of one of the Sentinels on display at Comic-Con, along with some propaganda posters showing off a bit more of their designs.

In the Days of Future Past comic book storyline, the Sentinels run rampant in an alternate future that sees them hunting down and killing mutants in a war-torn dystopia. Much like the comics, the movie versions are created by Bolivar Trask, who will be played by Peter Dinklage. Outside of that, though, we don’t know how closely the movie will fit in with the comics. Despite the secrecy, we do know that this is a movie that X-Men fans have been waiting 13 years to see.

[via IGN]

Next year's movie release schedule may be packed with comic book flicks like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, but 20th Century Fox may have a dark horse on its hands with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) remains one of the best blockbusters of the past five years, and with the mythology and backstory out of the way, we’re finally going to get the all-out war between apes and humans that we’ve been craving.

During Comic-Con, Fox unleashed a wave of viral marketing that filled us in on some of the major plot points, while keeping enough under wraps to make us drool just a bit. On the film's official pre-release website, we’re given a mock Office of Public Health Awareness page illustrating the dangers of the Simian Flu, which was a major plot point of the end of the first movie. It shows the scary reality of an illness that is set to destroy the human race.

The studio also released the first official still from the movie, featuring an older Caesar decked out in war paint and ready to kick some human ass. It might not have the highest profile, but we’re already predicting that Dawn will be the sci-fi movie to beat when the dust clears next summer.

Just days after it was revealed that The Simpsons will have a crossover episode with Family Guy, Matt Groening revealed at Comic-Con that the characters from Futurama will appear on The Simpsons. This will happen during either the upcoming season's last episode or the following season's first episode. Whenever the episode does air, it will be after Futurama wraps up its final run on Comedy Central, making its crossover with the folks of Springfield a sort of last bow for the cult favorite show. It worked for The Flintstones and The Jetsons, so why not for Homer and Bender?

Being that the episode is so far off, voice recording on it hasn’t even begun yet and no details on the plot have been released. It could be a physical meeting between the two casts or more of a meta crossover in a dream sequence or television appearance. Whatever happens, we’re just happy to get some closure for Futurama, which had the rug abruptly ripped out from under it by Comedy Central.

The first Hunger Games movie was a mixed bag. While it was refreshing to see the teen fantasy genre bounce back after the horrors of the Twilight saga, it still didn't live up to our lofty expectations. Yet that didn’t stop the movie from making a ludicrous amount of money worldwide. The next installment in the franchise, Catching Fire, will hit theaters this fall, just a year and a half after the original. It will once again star Jennifer Lawrence, with director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) stepping in for Gary Ross.

A new trailer for the movie was released at Comic-Con, and despite our lukewarm reaction to the first chapter in the saga, this one already looks like a marked improvement. By slowing the tempo down and focusing more on the allegorical nature of Katniss’ struggles, Catching Fire looks like an intriguing follow-up to a movie that had so much unrealized potential.

If Lawrence can explore the source material's themes with the sophisticated touch that this trailer shows, Catching Fire could transcend the teen lit genre and become a thoughtful sci-fi flick with important social themes. As Hollywood becomes more focused on empty CGI fare, some brains would be a welcome sight.

After teasing the villainous Thanos at the end of the The Avengers, Marvel threw us a curve at the San Diego Comic-Con by revealing that Ultron will be the main baddie in the sequel, now titled Avengers: Age of Ultron. In the comics, Ultron is an android created by Hank Pym and based on his own personality and brain functions. It was originally designed for good, but like every robot ever, Ultron turns evil and has battled the Avengers constantly for the past five decades.

Interestingly enough, Age of Ultron is also the name of a recent Marvel crossover comic that featured the titular villain battling the company’s biggest heroes across time and multiple dimensions. In a word, it was absolute garbage. However, we highly doubt that the movie is borrowing anything from the actual comic book other than the name, especially since the original story has multiple elements that simply wouldn’t work in the Marvel cinematic universe.

With Age of Ultron still being two years off, that’s probably the only information we’ll get on the project until next year’s Comic-Con. Still, this was a complete shock, as there was no hint of this announcement coming. The idea of Ultron brings up so many possibilities, especially when it comes to Pym and The Vision. This morsel of information should be more than enough to hold longtime fans over until more news surfaces.

In an ironic twist, this year's San Diego Comic-Con was pretty much completely devoid of any major comic book news whatsoever. Usually there are a few big announcements that send the fans who actually read the comics home happy, such as last year’s reveal of Marvel NOW and the upcoming return of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. This year? Nothing.

Sure, we saw the debut of Marvel's upcoming sequel to Origins, which will further explore Wolverine's early days, and some new details on DC’s "Trinity Wars," but overall the comics have taken a back seat to multi-million dollar movies, TV shows, and video games. Unfortunately, small indie publishers have also been shying away from making major announcements at Comic-Con for fear of being drowned out by the deafening cacophony of the corporate conglomerates around them.

It turns out that Comic-Con just isn't the place for big comic book news anymore. Floor space is too precious to waste time announcing new books that only a small fraction of the antendees will actually read. The times have changed.

For years comic book fans have been watching as Marvel/Disney has unleashed a suffocating amount of superhero movies upon the masses that have racked up huge box office numbers and a rabid fan following. Now, Warner Bros. is finally getting its act together. The studio announced its first-ever team-up movie between Batman and Superman to be released in 2015.

The as-yet-untitled movie will be directed by Man of Steel helmer Zack Snyder, written by David Goyer, and produced by Christopher Nolan, with Henry Cavill returning as Clark Kent/Superman. However, because this movie will feature a new version of Batman, don’t expect Christian Bale to return to the role.

This titanic meeting between DC’s most recognizable heroes is way overdue. Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed that Warner Bros. subtly hinted at a Batman/Superman movie with the simple blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance of a Wayne Enterprises satellite during the climax of Man of Steel. It wasn't much, but it made us aware that Batman does indeed exist in this world. This might be a team-up movie, but we’re fully expecting these two spandex-clad icons to exchange some mighty blows throughout.

The choice of going with a Batman/Superman movie before a Justice League film is logical for WB. Both heroes alone have the brand recognition to challenge The Avengers franchise, especially since the last two Batman movies have each grossed over $1 billion worldwide. With the glut of comic book movies hitting theaters over the next few years, it's hard for any of them to stand out at this point. But when you put the two pillars of the superhero world in the same film, you've got our attention.