5 Best And 5 Worst Reveals At San Diego Comic-Con 2018

It's hard to believe San Diego Comic-Con 2018 is done and dusted. This year's event was a bit more subdued than previous editions, with HBO's epic series Game of Thrones and Westworld forgoing the convention and Marvel Studios skipping it altogether, leaving the slots usually filled by packed-from-wall-to-wall Hall H presentations open for other studios to snatch. This meant no Thrones season 8 teases, no loopy Westworld immersive experiences, and, much to our dismay, absolutely no looks at the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entries Captain Marvel, Avengers 4, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. 

Still, even with two major companies out for the count, San Diego Comic-Con 2018 brought the heat to an already sweltering southern California as studios dropped movie trailer after movie trailer, unveiled eye-popping new looks at fast-approaching television series, and allowed for some downright unbelievable stuff to happen on the venue's massive panel stages.

A ton of reveals had people practically drooling, doing grabby hands at the screens in front of them, but others were met with the sound of crickets in certain cases and audible boos in a fair few others. Looking at everything that was announced over the course of the con's four frenzied days, here are the five best and five worst reveals from this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

"Why was the trailer for Titans one of the worst reveals at San Diego Comic-Con 2018?" you might ask. Well, sweet reader, we have two words for you: "F*** Batman."

DC's live-action Titans series made a shocking introduction on the second day of the convention, bringing the F-bomb, a Batman-hating Robin (Brenton Thwaites), R-shaped throwing stars, and plenty of gunfire to the Worlds of DC — plus the heel of the former Boy Wonder's boot straight to another dude's neck. 

Bloody, brash, and deliberately, shockingly bleak, the Titans trailer was dark — arguably too dark. Granted, the series is meant to be as different as humanly possible from its poppy, bubble-gum-bright counterpart Teen Titans GO!, the Cartoon Network animated show that's the visual equivalent of sucking down a dozen Pixie Sticks and then listening to Ariana Grande on repeat, but Titans going as grim as it did was a surprise that didn't sit well with most people. 

Teen Titans: Raven comic artist Gabriel Picolo said what a lot of Comic-Con attendees and pop culture fans at home were thinking after catching the Titans trailer: "My problem with Titans is how unnecessaryly [sic] edgy they're going. I don't want this to be a joyless hero show, let them be teens with superpowers doing some silly s***."

For some, the thought of yet another entry in the Transformers franchise is enough to inspire dramatic eyerolls and groans from the deepest pits of one's diaphragm. Fortunately, it appears no one is more aware of that fact than Travis Knight, the director of the newest Transformers series installment Bumblebee — a prequel spinoff that promises to focus on the gentler, less explosive, more character-driven side of the franchise. 

Based on details we heard and footage we saw prior to Comic-Con, we knew Bumblebee was going to be good different. But during the convention, we realized it might also be sad different, as it won't include the iconic Decepticon Starscream as the final of its three main villains. (The other two are Shatter, voiced by Angela Bassett, and Dropkick, which Justin Theroux offers his voice to.)

"I'm gonna break a few hearts here today. It is not Starscream," Knight said during Bumblebee's SDCC panel, adding that the flying Decepticon seen in the film's trailers is actually a Triple Changer called Blitzwing that only looks extremely similar to Starscream. 

Those who witnessed Knight drop the Bumblebee bombshell live noted that there were "lots of disappointed 'awwws' in Hall H," and that enthusiasm for the film was already "starting to evaporate" after learning Starscream, a prominent player in Michael Bay's Transformers movies, wouldn't be in the upcoming outing. 

You know Newton's Third Law — that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction? Warner Bros.' SDCC 2018 panel perfectly encapsulated that.

After unleashing a magical trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Warner Bros. opened the Hall H stage to the sequel's cast members to answer fan questions. Between the trailer drop, Jude Law calling his version of Dumbledore "sprightly," and Credence Barebone actor Ezra Miller cosplaying Toadette and declaring he would "destroy the patriarchy" if he was a real-life wizard, it was all happy times and goofy antics at the panel.

And then Johnny Depp showed up.

In full costume as Gellert Grindelwald, Depp took the same stage earlier occupied by Aquaman star Amber Heard, Depp's ex-wife who accused him of assault, and proceeded to give a "Shakespearean monologue." Depp's appearance "drew both cheers and boos" from those in attendance, but it sparked especially negative reactions online. "When is Johnny Depp just gonna f*** off?" one Twitter user wrote. Another posted, "The fact that the audience didn't boo Johnny Depp off the stage at Comic-Con highly disappoints me."

Though Depp's arrival was a total surprise, we can't say the same for the responses to it. After the actor was confirmed for The Crimes of Grindelwald, some fans were horrified, suggesting he be replaced and pointing to Heard's allegations against him as grounds for a potential firing. Not so "fantastic" after all?

One of the most shocking things to happen during San Diego Comic-Con 2018 actually took place outside the convention halls — but had serious repercussions on what subsequently went down within them. 

On Friday, July 20, the second day of SDCC, it was announced that James Gunn had been fired as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the threequel for which he was already whipping up a script. Not only was he kicked out of the director's seat, a choice the company made after conservative site The Daily Caller dug up controversial tweets Gunn posted as many as 10 years ago, but Gunn was also taken off Sony Pictures' SDCC panel mere hours after his firing. 

Just a few days before being ousted, Gunn teased a major announcement that was meant to happen during the presentation, tweeting a photo of a symbol that's often been spotted in Image Comics' Nameless, with "Hall H Friday 6:15 PM" written across it in red text. Many took this to mean that, at the Sony panel, Gunn would reveal he was working on a film adaptation of the Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham-created comic series. Sadly, we may never know what Gunn was truly going to unveil.

Gunn getting fired and then not appearing at SDCC was a twofold shocker that Twitter user Evangeline Gale best summed up: "It's crazy that the only thing the MCU brought to Comic-Con this year was the firing of James Gunn."  

And now, a moment everyone knew was coming but no one wanted to actually experience: The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln giving verbal confirmation that the post-apocalyptic drama series that spawned a zombie-filled television empire will go sans Rick Grimes super soon.

Word of Lincoln's intended departure from The Walking Dead, on which the actor has starred since its inception in 2010, first surfaced in late May 2018, with reports indicating Lincoln had gotten all his ducks in a row to appear in a mere six episodes of the series' upcoming ninth season and then dip out, never to be seen again. Fans were instantly in a storm of uncertainties: How will the series say goodbye to Rick? What will become of The Walking Dead once he's gone? And wait a minute — this some kind of an elaborate, really belated April Fools' Day prank?

It wasn't until The Walking Dead's panel at SDCC 2018 that Lincoln broke his silence on the subject, affirming that yes, he really is hanging up his hat. 

"This will be my last season playing the part of Rick Grimes," Lincoln announced at the presentation. "This has been the most extraordinary, amazing, and beautiful experience of my career ... These guys here and everybody back in Atlanta [where The Walking Dead films] are the greatest surrogate family I could have wished for. But I do have a real family, and it's time for me to go home." 

We're not crying, you are.