New York Comic Con 2018 news, trailers and announcements

The 1960s were a time of social upheaval and artistic revolution and, shall we say, chemical experimentation — but the Marvel Comics offices were a more straight-laced than you might have expected.

That is, according to legendary comics editor Denny O’Neil, who at New York Comic Con 2018 shared the story of the time another writer dared him to spike the notoriously straight-edge Stan Lee’s coffee with LSD.

Peter Jackson’s next project, Mortal Engines, is based on a fantasy book series with a number of sequels and prequels. It’s certainly well-trodden ground for Jackson, who lived and breathed the work of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for more than a decade. But with The Hobbit films, Jackson saw criticism in deciding to break up the relatively-short children’s book into three massive movies, befuddling some fans and critics.

With Mortal Engines, though, he’s returning to the format that was so successful with The the Rings trilogy: one book for one movie. The first movie in the series will only cover the events of the first book, no more, no less.

A flurry of media attention over the depiction of Batman’s penis in an official DC Comic series has prompted the publisher to be more mindful with its new imprint going forward, according to DC Comics co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio.

DC announced Black Label in March of 2018, and defined the imprint with three factors: Big name creators, big name superheroes, and big helpings of creative freedom — including freedom from DC’s main continuity. But that message was confused when Batman: Damned #1 went to print with full-frontal nudity.

After debuting a new trailer earlier this week, a confident Sony Pictures brought the first 35 minutes of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to a packed theater of New York Comic Con attendees in Madison Square Garden, and Polygon was there.

From Miles Morales’ quirks to the ins and outs of yet another Spider-Man multiverse, these are the big things we learned from this massive preview.

Star Trek: Discovery finally gave fans what they’ve been anxiously waiting for: Spock.

A new trailer for CBS All Access’ popular series debuted today at New York Comic Con, and the most notable addition to the show is the return of a TOS favorite. Spock, originally played by the late Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series in the 1960s, will be played by Ethan Peck, grandson of To Kill a Mockingbird star Gregory Peck.

Dark Phoenix, the sequel to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, will offer an intimate look at Jean Grey and her struggles with the Phoenix Force. After the first trailer premiered earlier this month, the release date was pushed from February to June, delaying the already-delayed blockbuster even more. But visitors to New York Comic Con got an early glimpse and were treated with 14 minutes of the film.

Director and screenwriter Simon Kinberg was on hand for the event, saying that the movie would combine the intimate and character-driven aspects of Logan with the grand stakes and scope of Apocalypse. After Jean comes in contact with the Phoenix Force, which augments her already impressive powers, she starts to lose control of her abilities and manifests an alter personality. The X-Men are torn between saving Jean and saving the world from her.

Netflix’s adaptation of Gerrard Way’s popular gothic comic book series, The Umbrella Academy, is finally upon us.

Netflix brought the comic adaptation to New York Comic Con as part of its “Netflix and Chill” spooky programming block. Way, who is best known as the front runner for emo band, My Chemical Romance, was in attendance with his cast, which includes Ellen Page, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Colm Feore, Adam Godley, John Magaro, Ashley Madekwe and Kate Walsh, were on hand to talk about the series and show off footage (which has yet to be released to the public).

Nightflyers is the next series fans of George R.R. Martin will be available to stream all at once this December, Syfy announced today.

The network brought a new trailer for the show to New York Comic Con, where details surrounding the series were announced. Although Syfy is splitting up the 10-episode series into two runs for traditional cable subscribers, all 10 episodes will be available to stream as of Dec. 2 on Syfy’s app.

Netflix announced today that The Dragon Prince, the streaming service’s critically acclaimed animated series, will return for a second season in 2019.

The announcement was made at New York Comic Con, where Netflix has brought many of its original series. There aren’t too many details about the second season available just yet, but they did tease it with the image below. One episode of The Dragon Prince ended with a similar image in the credits, but instead of the arm holding up a peace sign in the reflection, there was a hand pressed against the dangerous mirror. This version of the mirror bleeds into theories that someone — possibly an elf — is trapped inside.

Yesterday at New York Comic Con, a new trailer dropped for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the series’ latest feature-length film, coming to Japanese theaters later this year. While previous trailers have shown off the battles yet to come between the three warrior Saiyans — Goku, Vegeta and Broly — this new one delves into the origins of their entire race, as well as the Saiyan’s ultimate destruction.

However, the trailer suggests that Broly will be retconning the Saiyan backgrounds as originally depicted in Dragon Ball Z and beyond. For instance, we see both baby Vegeta and baby Goku, both of whom are sleeping in mysterious test tubes at the same time. We later see a slightly older Vegeta, who’s around the same age as young Goku in Dragon Ball. Subtitles also directly state that all three Saiyans were born around the same time.

Following a teaser trailer late last year, we finally have a longer trailer for Mortal Engines, based on Philip Reeve’s quartet of sci-fi novels of the same name.

Mortal Engines mounts the return of Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings franchise), as well as co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Jackson’s trusted visual effects supervisor Christian Rivers in the director’s chair. Jackson was on hand at New York Comic Con to introduce the trailer, which can be seen above.

Aquaman is the next installment in Warner Bros.’ DC Comics movie universe, but a new 5-minute extended look reiterates that it won’t be the gritty, dark universe that some may have expected.

The five minute segment focuses on Arthur’s relationship with Mera, as the two hunt down his trident. It’s funny, which is to be expected following the San Diego Comic-Con trailer.

Netflix’s upcoming She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series is one of the streaming service’s most anticipated, so the studio brought a brand new trailer to New York Comic-Con.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, which is a reboot of the original ‘80s cartoon, will focus on superheroine Adora as she bands together with allies to defeat evil. We got a first glimpse of Adora turning into She-Ra for the first time in a trailer released last month. The new trailer delves even more into Adora’s abilities as She-Ra, and her connection with the Rebel Princesses.

New York Comic-Con is this weekend and Digital comics distributor Comixology is celebrating the East Coast’s largest pop culture and comics convention with a massive sale on hundreds of titles, from massive hits to weird indies.

Comixology’s sale is divided into sections, with collections of comics grouped by publisher, hero or theme. The DC Volume 1 Sale discounts the first volumes in some of the publisher’s best series, including my personal favorite, Batgirl of Burnside, to $5 each. Nearly every Walking Dead comic ever published is at least 50 percent off. There are four horror sales just in time for Halloween. And that’s just a few of the 20 collections on sale, most of which include at least 50 titles.

The latest trailer for the third season of Marvel’s Daredevil brings back Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, who was put behind bars at the end of season 1.

It looks like Fisk is released from prison at the beginning of the show’s third season. He claims he’s a changed man, but Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) knows otherwise. Murdock vows to put Fisk away for good this time, but Fisk taunts him, saying he doesn’t have what it takes. Cue dark and angry Daredevil in a makeshift mask out for vengeance — but will he go too far?

In the premiere of Titans, Detroit police detective Dick Grayson explains to his new partner why he’s been avoiding her.

His last partner, by which he secretly means Batman, was a hero. But he solved problems with his fists. And at first, Dick looked up to him. Then he realized he was becoming too much like him, so he had to step away. Now he’s uneasy about teaming up again.

We got our first glimpse of DC’s animated Harley Quinn series on the heels of the 2018 New York Comic Con. Not only did the trailer reveal a lighter, meta tone, but we also confirmed the official voice actress for everyone’s favorite kooky villainess.

Voiced by The Big Bang Theory’s Kaley Cuoco, Harley Quinn jovially announces the new animated show while in a grim-looking Arkham Asylum cell. Next to her, Poison Ivy is less than impressed and flat-out tells Harley that no one’s going to watch her show because people just hate everything. Harley replies that her show’s going to be great and full of comedy and action.

The newest trailer for Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina shows us just what’s at stake for the teenage witch.

Though the teaser only hinted at the darker things to come, the full trailer gives us a glimpse of Sabrina’s (Kiernan Shipka) conflict: Will she chose to walk the path of night and follow her family’s tradition of worshipping the Dark Lord? Or will she turn her back on the ways of Satan and stay with her adorkable boyfriend Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch, fresh off My Friend Dahmer) and her mortal friends? Or will she take a completely different path entirely?

Sony Pictures’ has debuted a brand new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse just ahead of New York Comic Con and, once again, the animation is the real showstopper.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is gorgeous — something we knew after a trailer for the film was released in June. The new trailer expands on what we’ve seen, showing us the flowering relationship between Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) and Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore). Into the Spider-Verse will mainly focus on Parker’s mentorship with New York’s new friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Welcome to #1 Comic of the Week, a series where our comics editor, Susana Polo, tips you off to a neat new story or series that kicked off in comics this week — just in time for some weekend reading.

Superhero comics are no stranger to depicting superheroes dying. It happens in loud explosions or bright flashes of light, disintegrations or fading-outs. More often than not, we don’t even see a body (the better to resurrect them later). That is not how it happens in Heroes in Crisis #1, the first issue in Tom King and Clay Mann’s prestige DC Comics series.

There are echoes in the careers of comic writers Brian Michael Bendis and Tom King.

Bendis’ first successes, on Spider-Man and Daredevil, hit just as comics were climbing out of the malaise of the ’90s, while Tom King’s co-writer stint on Grayson put him on the map in the comparatively young year of 2014. Bendis’ work on the Avengers and his invention of Jessica Jones and Miles Morales has defined Marvel Comics to the wider world. And while Tom King’s Vision was a big Marvel hit, he’s primarily produced critically-acclaimed-book after book for DC Comics with Omega Men, Mister Miracle and more.