SDCC 2026: Day 3-4 Recap

Some folks go to San Diego Comic-Con and spend their Saturday (and Friday…) in a folding chair outside Hall H, and some folks spend it in Room 6DE listening to Joshua Williamson talk about why Superboy Prime is the most interesting thing happening to the Superman mythos right now. Spoiler alert - that second one’s me! I have no regrets, and by the end of the weekend, given how Saturday went outside that big room, I had considerably fewer.

After an eventful Preview Night and Days 1-2, here is how the back half of my San Diego Comic-Con played out.

Saturday: Zod, the Absolute Line, and a Hall H I Watched From My Phone

The morning belonged to DC, and specifically to the Metropolis and Beyond panel, which had the unenviable job of laying out two years of Super-title payoff in about an hour. The centerpiece is Kingdom of Zod, the crossover that finally puts the super-family in direct conflict with General Dru-Zod over El Caldero, the Kryptonite Kingdom. With Superman missing, Supergirl is the one assembling the response, pulling together a team that includes Prime, Conner Kent, and Tomorrow Man to go take the fight to Zod on his own ground. That framing does a lot of work. Kingdom of Zod could easily have been sold as a slugfest, and instead it is being positioned as the moment the supporting cast has to prove it can carry the line.

Williamson had the line of the panel, and it stuck with me all weekend. He talked about how every Wednesday is a chance to discover something new and interesting, and said that mindset is exactly why he loves writing Superboy Prime. Prime is a character built out of comics fandom itself, which makes him a useful pressure valve for saying things about the Superman mythos that a straight Clark Kent story cannot. Coming from a writer who just put four dozen issues on the board, that is not a throwaway comment. It is a working philosophy.

Mark Waid came out from stage right to talk Action Comics #1100: on the hunt for the missing Superman, J'onn J'onzz brings Superboy into the timestream and uses him as a dowsing rod. That is the kind of high-concept swing that Action Comics at a milestone number should be taking. Waid also confirmed that he and Nicole Maines are handling Justice League Unlimited #24, dealing with the fallout from DC K.O. and, more pointedly, the very contentious question of granting villains amnesty. Post-event books usually get stuck doing cleanup. Building one around an argument the readership is already having is a smarter use of the slot.

On the art side, Dan Mora is handing the reins on Superman over to Xermanico. Mora's run has been the visual identity of the book for a while now, so that is a real transition, and Xermanico is a strong enough draftsman to make it land rather than just survive it.

Jeremy Adams and Morgan Hampton took the back half of the panel to walk through what is coming for the Green Lantern corner, and Adams got the second-best laugh of the hour when he joked that somehow Guy Gardner has become the spiritual guide for the Lanterns. Anyone who came up on Guy as the guy who got one-punched by Batman will appreciate the absurdity of that sentence, and also appreciate that it is currently true. The bigger news out of that stretch was the announcement that Hampton will be writing a new Steel book, which is exactly the kind of announcement I want out of a panel like this. Not a variant cover. An actual new book for a character who has been waiting a long time for one.

Scott Snyder and Sanford Greene closed things out with Darkseid vs. the World, the next All In beat arriving in October, with Greene on art. Greene drawing Darkseid is one of those pairings you hear announced and immediately picture. That was a good note to end on.

The Absolute Universe panel followed, and it was denser than I expected. Highlights:

An Absolute Black Canary one-shot from Pornsak Pichetshote and Belén Ortega, arriving in January and slotting in between Absolute Green Arrow #6 and #7. Worth knowing that Green Arrow was originally pitched as a six-issue limited series and has since been expanded, which is what created room for this in the first place. It digs into Dinah Lance's past and ties into the mysteries seeded in the back half of the Green Arrow arc.

A tease of Absolute Cyborg, with Jeff Lemire pointing to an expansion of the super science side of S.T.A.R. Labs and Victor Stone showing up in Absolute Flash #20. Lemire also hinted that Cyborg will not be the only Teen Titan turning up, which is about as close to announcing Absolute Teen Titans as you can get without announcing Absolute Teen Titans.

The reveal of Absolute Deluxe editions, which is the kind of announcement that gets a modest cheer in the room and a much bigger reaction from anyone who has tried to buy Absolute Batman #1 lately.

A tease for Absolute Batman #25, and then the announcement I did not see coming: Absolute Batman: Beyond Ark M, from Frank Tieri and Francesco Francavilla. It follows up on Ark M by going into the other Arks under the Joker's control, and it introduces Absolute Professor Pyg as Jack Grimm's right hand. Francavilla on an Absolute horror-adjacent Batman one-shot is close to a cheat code.

After a morning of back-to-back panels I did what I should have done more of this year - which is nothing in particular. I finally got the Marriott Marquis photo op I missed on Thursday because of an interview, then spent a long stretch just walking the hall, catching up with friends, and shooting cosplay. That is the part of the show that does not make anyone's announcement roundup and is also the reason a lot of us keep coming back.

While I was out there, Hall H was having a day. Apple TV made its first-ever Hall H appearance with a two-hour block moderated by Josh Horowitz, splitting time across Silo, Dark Matter ahead of its second season at the end of August, and Widow's Bay, with cast and creatives on stage for all three, plus a surprise teaser for Neuromancer, which lands January 22. That is a genuine milestone for a streamer that started at SDCC in 2022 with individual series panels in smaller rooms.

Then Marvel Studios came back to Hall H for the first time since 2024, and it did not come empty-handed. Everyone in the room got Doctor Doom masks and capes, which apparently helped pass the time while the panel ran late, and H.E.R.B.I.E. did some crowd work before an all-eras MCU sizzle reel brought Kevin Feige out. From there: an Avengers: Endgame re-release this September, and then the first real surprise, Ryan Gosling cast as Ghost Rider in a 2028 film directed by Shawn Levy from a Jonathan Tropper script. Jon Bernthal interrupted Feige to remind everyone Spider-Man: Brand New Day was a week out, which set up a clip of Punisher showing up mid-fight to help Spidey against the Hulk. The Russos then brought out sixteen Doomsday cast members, including Hayley Atwell confirming Peggy Carter's return, alongside Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal. Ryan Reynolds asked a question from the audience in the Deadpool suit. A new Doomsday trailer leaned hard into Sue and Reed's relationship with Doom. And Ryan Coogler closed it out by announcing Black Panther III for December 15, 2028, shot on film, with David Jonsson playing a grown T'Challa II.

I missed all of it in the room and caught most of it in real time from the floor, which was fine. I got back to the hotel Saturday night feeling like the weekend still had one good day left in it.

Sunday: Signature Day, and a little bit of Bartering

Sunday had exactly one mission. I needed a Scott Snyder signing ticket, and I had a stack of books that still needed his name on them.

That meant getting to the main line earlier than usual, so I was at the hall around 8 AM, roughly an hour before doors opened. Standing there I was honestly not sure I had come early enough. But once the line started moving I ended up at the Comic Sketch Art booth right as tickets started going out, and mission one was done before 9:30.

From there I went to check the Nick Dragotta line at Felix Comic Art, which was capped, and stayed capped the entire time. Under normal circumstances that is the end of the story. But Comic-Con runs on favors, so when I offered up some of my Snyder signing slots in exchange for handing off a few of my books in the Dragotta line, I quickly made a new friend. Over the next few hours I came away with a handful of Absolute Batman issues double signed by Snyder and Dragotta, plus a few Daniel Warren Johnson signatures knocked out along the way. Two capped lines, one trade, everybody wins.

Having spent most of the morning standing in various lines, I wandered over to see Brad and Lisa from Comic Book Couples Counseling, who were at a signing at the IDW booth for Ben Wickey's More Weight. It picked up an Eisner nomination for its treatment of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and Brad talked me into picking up a copy of what is a genuinely hefty book. I got it signed, though not before talking the next person who walked up into buying the last copy behind me. I have since read More Weight cover to cover and it absolutely earned that nomination. Fantastic book.

My last autograph of the show was Sanford Greene on his Superman/Spider-Man special variant cover from Felix Comic Art, and while I was waiting I spotted Brett Bean, who has been getting a lot of well-deserved attention lately for D'orc. If you have not read it, it is endearing and genuinely well-choreographed action, which is a harder combination to pull off than it sounds. Grabbed a selfie with him for the collection and called it a con.

The Parts That Did Not Work

I would be doing this recap a disservice if I only wrote about the fun.

The Hall H situation on Saturday was a mess, and it is still not fully resolved. Hundreds of attendees who had camped out for wristbands and returned on time were turned away, with many left standing in overflow tents while the Marvel panel started without them. Rumors of counterfeit wristbands spread quickly, and reports circulated that several hundred seats were held for VIP guests. To be clear about where things actually stand: Comic-Con has said it saw no evidence of counterfeit bands, pointed instead to unusually low turnover between panels as the reason fewer seats freed up, and the VIP hold figures being passed around remain unconfirmed. When the question came up at Sunday's Talk Back panel, organizers acknowledged the reports and said they would look into what happened. No apology, no compensation, and by some accounts the idea of eliminating Hall H entirely got floated in the room. Whatever the cause turns out to be, a system where people sleep on a sidewalk for two nights and still do not get in is a system that failed the people who trusted it most.

A similar cloud hung over Funko's Preview Night distribution, where collectors in the later groups arrived to find the premium pieces already gone, and where the same counterfeit wristband theories started circulating. Again, unverified, and again, the practical result was the same for the people at the back of the line.

Then there were the offsites. HBO's Lanterns activation was the clear standout this year and probably the single best executed thing outside the convention center. Beyond that, I came away underwhelmed. A lot of activations were thin on swag, thin on food, and long on waiting outside in genuinely unpleasant heat. Standing in a ninety-minute line in direct sun for a sticker and a photo backdrop is not a value proposition. The offsite arms race has been escalating for a decade, and this felt like the year a lot of brands decided to spend less and hope the line itself would look like demand.

Closing It Out

All of that said, San Diego Comic-Con is what you make of it. My weekend was signatures, trades, and conversations. I helped some fellow fans get books signed they otherwise would not have, spent time talking with strangers in line while we all waited for the hall to open, and got real hours with friends I mostly see once a year in this building. That is the show for me, and it delivered.

With no PAX West or NYCC on my calendar this year, the long wait for WonderCon starts now.