San Diego Comic Con was action packed even without the big 2

Comic-Con 2025 made one thing clear: the show goes on even when Marvel and DC sit out. San Diego’s five-day pop-culture carnival still ran hot, and Hall H—the convention’s 6,500-seat pressure cooker—kept filling to the brim without a single cape in sight. The applause shifted to other standard-bearers. 20th Century Studios lit up the room with “Predator: Badlands,” Amazon MGM stirred big curiosity with “Project Hail Mary,” and Disney’s “Tron: Ares” stormed in with a glow-stick grin. If anyone feared a lull, the crowd answered with lines around the block and a decibel level that said otherwise. Superheroes took a breather; fandom didn’t.

For studios, Hall H remains the loudest, riskiest focus group on earth. You play a clip, feel the room tilt, and learn in real time whether your campaign has lift or needs a new flight plan. The upside is rocket fuel—a single gasp can turn a “maybe” into a “must-see.” The downside is equally stark—cool the room and you’re staring down reshoots, reedits, or a Monday-morning messaging pivot. Comic-Con has always thrived on that risk, and 2025 leaned into it, proving the brand of the room can outshine the brands that skip it.

Thursday’s Comedy Central Animation Panel delivered the week’s rarest sighting: Trey Parker and Matt Stone back in Hall H after nearly a decade. The timing added extra heat; two nights earlier, “South Park” had torched parent Paramount’s legal détente with Donald Trump—and the president himself—in its Season 27 premiere. Sharing the stage with “Beavis and Butt-Head” creator Mike Judge and “Digman!” co-creator and star Andy Samberg, the duo steered clear of political fireworks. Parker offered one dry, perfect button—“We’re terribly sorry”—and the room cracked up. No grandstanding, no brawls, just a reminder that a well-placed deadpan can do more damage than a flamethrower.

“Predator: Badlands” went the other way and embraced spectacle. A full-costume Predator strode onto the stage, swept the hall with tri-laser targeting, and addressed the audience in crisp Yautja before the lights dropped for a meaty preview. The fifteen minutes focused on Dek, a young Predator desperate to prove to his father that he’s worthy of the clan’s legacy. It’s part rites-of-passage drama, part razor-edged hunt, and all confidence. By the time the lights came up, the fall release felt far away, which is exactly the point of a Hall H play: send 6,500 people out buzzing and let the internet do the rest.

On Friday, “Tron: Ares” didn’t enter; it breached. “Rogue programs” hijacked the stage, the sound system throttled up, and a light-cycle chase roared across the screens like it had IMAX written all over it. Jared Leto made his first Hall H appearance in years as the titular Ares, joined by original “Tron” legend Jeff Bridges, back for another grid run after 2010’s “Tron: Legacy.” The panel unveiled an extended look at the Dillinger Grid—a sleek, ominous world engineered by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters)—and closed on a high with a kinetic light show and the music video for “As Alive as You Need Me to Be,” performed by Nine Inch Nails. It was a reminder that the franchise’s heart is still a rave pulsing inside a motherboard.

Saturday morning belonged to a comeback that once looked impossible. “Coyote vs. Acme,” the live-action/animation hybrid that seemed headed for the vault as a tax write-off, took a victory lap. Director David Green and distributor Ketchup Entertainment planted a flag: August 2026 worldwide. Star Will Forte aimed his thanks where it belonged. “The real hero of this movie is all of you guys sitting in those seats,” he told the crowd. “Like Wile E. Coyote, you guys were an underdog who fought against a major corporation, and because you never gave up, this movie is now going to come out in wide global release.” The panel wrapped with a cheeky teaser reveal, complete with an “Acme lawyer” (P. J. Byrne) attempting to shut things down before the jokes—and the applause—steamrolled him.

If this year proved anything, it’s that Comic-Con’s heartbeat isn’t owned by one studio or one genre. Hall H still mints momentum—and sometimes torches it—but in 2025 it rallied around ambition, craft, and a taste for chaos. The capes may have taken a pause; the crowd did not.