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San Diego Comic-Con 2018: all the trailers, updates, and pictures from fandom’s biggest event

San Diego Comic-Con International 2018 is upon us. It’s the year’s biggest event in fan culture, which means plenty of news about upcoming films and television shows, toys, comics, collectables, books, costumes, and more.

This year, things will be a little different, as some of the big, traditional benchmark projects will be skipping the show, like Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and HBO’s Game of Thrones. But we do expect to see some news about the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984, Shazam, The Walking Dead season 9, and more.

Follow along for all of our updates and coverage this week.

  • Jul 26, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    The secret weapon of San Diego Comic-Con: scooters

    When I flew out to San Diego Comic-Con last week, I noticed one big change to the scene from last year. It wasn’t that Marvel and HBO weren’t there, and there were still thousands of fans dressed up in their favorite T-shirts or costumes. But as I rode in from the airport, I noticed that there were hundreds of electric scooters and bikes strewn around the sidewalks from companies such as Lime, Bird, Ofo, and MoBike. It was a drastic change from 2017’s convention, where I didn’t see any, and it highlights a point where these mobility solutions are useful — most of the time.

    On-demand electric scooters have become the next big thing when it comes to personal mobility, and in the last year, major cities like San Francisco and Miami have had to contend with them piling up on sidewalks. The vehicles are simple to use: you download the app from the company that owns the bike or scooter, put in your payment information, scan the QR code, and off you go, zipping along at a pace that’s comparable to a run. They’ve been popular, too. Lime said earlier this week that it provided 6 million rides in its first year of operation, while companies such as Uber and Lyft are looking into offering their own versions to complement their fleets.

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  • Jul 25, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Star Wars author Timothy Zahn on Thrawn: Alliances and toxic fandom

    Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

    Earlier this week, Timothy Zahn published his latest Star Wars novel, Thrawn: Alliances. The book is the sequel to his 2016 novel Thrawn, a long-untold origin story for his fan-favorite character, Grand Admiral Thrawn. In the new novel, he brings together two of the franchise’s greatest villains: Thrawn and Darth Vader.

    Thrawn, originally introduced in Zahn’s 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, is a master tactician who attempted to resurrect the Empire after Return of the Jedi. While that storyline was wiped out when Disney acquired LucasFilm and reset the franchise’s canon, Thrawn was reintroduced in Star Wars Rebels, and Zahn wrote the definitive origin story for the character in Thrawn — which could serve both the old canon and the new. Thrawn: Alliances picks up the story, but alternates between an encounter between Anakin Skywalker and Thrawn during The Clone Wars, and much later, during the events of Rebels.

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  • Jul 23, 2018

    Laura Hudson and Devon Maloney

    The biggest news you might have missed from San Diego Comic-Con 2018

    Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

    Any given year at San Diego Comic-Con, there is — to put it lightly — a lot going on. There were lots of new movie and TV trailers to see and very special experiences for our Verge writers. But there was also no shortage of news for the worlds of film, television, and actual comic books. Here are some of the biggest announcements you might have missed over the weekend.

    After a right-wing troll and conspiracy theorist with a history of smearing progressive voices pointed out some offensive tweets made years ago by James Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy director was abruptly fired from the third installment of the Marvel film series. The reaction from fans was strong and firmly in opposition. Currently, there is a fan petition with more than 200,000 signatures asking for his reinstatement. His co-workers have spoken up as well, including Dave Bautista (aka Drax) who expressed his support for Gunn and actor Michael Rooker (aka Yondu) who quit Twitter in protest.

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  • Jul 23, 2018

    Devon Maloney, Andrew Liptak and 1 more

    Purge supplies, Clone Wars tears, and shrimp cocktail carousels: the best things we saw at San Diego Comic-Con 2018

    Comic-Con International 2018 - Universal Pictures’ ‘Halloween’ Panel
    Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

    San Diego Comic-Con may have had a relatively light year this year since many of the con’s usual major presenters — including Disney / Marvel, Netflix, and HBO — scaled back their presence, but even a reduced schedule at the second-largest fan convention in the world is overflowing with news and events. While many of those moments were easy enough to catch up on — new trailers for Aquaman and Glass, the lowdown on DC’s new streaming platform DC Universe — the weekend contained some hidden gems that could only be highlighted if you were there when it happened. Below, we’ve rounded up some of our personal favorite moments of SDCC 2018, so if someone asks, it’ll be like you were there, too.

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  • Jul 23, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    We reported our UFO encounters to the government at San Diego Comic-Con

    Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

    By now, San Diego Comic-Con is far more than a series of reveals for high-profile film and television projects and a giant, geek flea market. Over the years, it’s increasingly become home to immersive pop-up activations that bring to life a tiny sliver of a world for fans. This year, the History Channel brought with it a declassified bunker experience to promote its upcoming scripted UFO series Project Blue Book.

    Some backstory: At the height of the Cold War, the United States Air Force began a project to document and investigate sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects in an effort to determine if said unexplained sightings posed any sort of threat to national security. Over the course of the study, between 1952 and 1969, it collected more than 12,000 reports. That project is the basis for History’s new show, which dramatizes some of the sightings reported to the Air Force. This year’s activation transported us back to the Cold War — or at least, into the bunker where it all went down — to allow us to report our own unexplained sightings to the government.

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  • Jul 22, 2018

    Andrew Liptak and Devon Maloney

    Comic-Con 2018 trailer round-up: Aquaman, Godzilla, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and more

    Image: Lucasfilm

    San Diego Comic-Con wraps up today, and it’s been a busy week for pop culture news. While big names like Marvel and HBO skipped the show this year, it still nevertheless showcased a number of big trailers from the films and shows that are slated to premiere in the next year.

    Warner Bros. stole the show this year with its massive, two-hour Saturday morning panel, during which the studio revealed its slate of upcoming films: Aquaman, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Shazam. The clips and trailers served as the weekend’s high-profile reveals, but they also proved Warner Bros. is about to be more exciting than it has been in years.

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  • Dami Lee

    Jul 21, 2018

    Dami Lee

    Ghostbusters World is basically Pokémon Go, but with proton packs

    Two years after Pokémon Go gave us the purest summer of our lives, comes the inevitable wave of copycat location-based AR games, one of which is Ghostbusters World. A collaborative effort between Sony Pictures and Korean mobile game studios 4:33 and Next Age, the game was made possible by Google opening up its Maps platform to developers. Thanks to this, and the rising functionalities of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore, AR-based games aren’t just the territory of Pokémon Go developer Niantic anymore.

    The demo version of Ghostbusters World, which I played at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, felt a bit like playing an alternate reality version of Pokémon Go. Instead of throwing pokeballs at cute Pokémon, you blast your proton pack at grotesque ghosts.

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  • Jul 21, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    The first trailer for DC’s Aquaman shows off a war between the surface and the sea

    This year’s slate of Hall H panels at San Diego Comic-con have been relatively quiet, at least compared to prior years. We’ve seen new looks at what’s to come from The Predator, Glass, Star Trek: Discovery, and The Walking Dead, but the biggest panel by far this year was the Warner Bros. panel, which just showed off the first look at James Wan’s Aquaman.

    While Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, human name Arthur Curry, was a highlight of 2016’s Justice League, this is the first time we’ve gotten to see him in action on his own. Highlights in the new trailer include a look at the Marine Marvel’s straw-haired aquatic family, including Nicole Kidman as his mother Queen Atlanna and Patrick Wilson as his warmongering half-brother Orm (AKA Ocean Master), as well as an epic origin-story scene in which a young Arthur Curry (Kaan Guldur) marshals the righteous anger of an aquarium full of sharks. Another highlight is Amber Heard’s Mera, who manages to neg Aquaman — “You do your best thinking when you’re not thinking at all” — and jump out of a plane with no parachute (“Redheads! You gotta love ‘em!”) in the trailer’s two-minute span.

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  • Jul 21, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    The first trailer for DC’s Shazam is like Big, but with superheroes

    At San Diego Comic-Con today, DC unveiled a surprise first look at another of its upcoming superhero films, Shazam!, which will star Zachary Levi as the film’s titular superhero. It’s a surprisingly funny-looking film, which feels like it’s just what DC needs to get away from the dark and grim image that its franchise has been saddled with.

    The trailer introduces us to Billy Batson, a kid who’s introduced to a new foster family and school. After fighting off a couple of bullies, he’s chosen by a wizard called Shazam, who tells him that if he utters his name, he’ll gain superpowers. He does, and he abruptly turns into an adult hero. Think Big, but with superpowers — he works on trying to figure out what his powers are — zapping people’s phones to charge them and discovers that he’s bullet proof. It looks like a surprisingly funny and zany superhero film, which will be a huge turn from the incredibly grim DC films like Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman.

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  • Jul 21, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Watch the first trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters

    At San Diego Comic-Con today, Warner Bros. used its Hall H panel to show off its work on not just three films, but the latest installments in three different major franchises: Fantastic Beasts, DC, and its monster films. Among them: the first trailer for its upcoming film Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the sequel to Gareth Edwards’ 2014 film Godzilla.

    The trailer kicks off with Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) fleeing a disaster as a scientist (Vera Farmiga) explains that we’re experiencing a new threat — the “fever” sent to fight the “infection” that humanity has become — as monsters like Godzilla are returning to the Earth after remaining in hiding for years. “Unless all the Titans are found,” she says over a surprisingly effective “Clair de Lune” synch, “our planet will perish, and so will we.” It looks as though there’ll be more than just Godzilla here as well: Mothra makes an appearance, as well as several monsters, teasing some major clashes between the film’s titular hero and those that would challenge him.

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  • The latest Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald trailer shows off more beasts, crime, and Grindelwald

    Comic-Con is the time for new trailers, and along with the superheroes and science fiction, Harry Potter fans were offered another look at the upcoming return to J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World during Warner Bros.’ Hall H presentation with a new trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

    The sequel to 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is still set before the Harry Potter books and movies. Crimes of Grindelwald sees the return of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magical zoologist who later becomes famous within the series for his indispensable guide to the magical creatures of the world.

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  • Jul 21, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Freeform has renewed Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger for a second season

    Marvel Entertainment

    Marvel has largely taken a backseat this year at San Diego Comic-Con: Marvel Studios skipped the con, but there’s been a bit of news from its television divisions: it announced that the second season of Iron Fist will begin later this fall, and today, it revealed that its Freeform show, Cloak & Dagger will come back for another season next year.

    The show follows two teenagers, Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) and Tyrone “Ty” Johnson (Aubrey Joseph), who gained superpowers from an accident. The show has proven to be extremely relevant, tackling issues such as racism, depression and drug abuse.

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  • Bryan Bishop

    Jul 21, 2018

    Bryan Bishop

    Joss Whedon is developing a ‘richly diverse’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot

    Joss Whedon’s TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended its original run back in 2003, but 15 years later, a new iteration of the show is in development. Deadline reports that Whedon and Midnight, Texas creator Monica Owusu-Breen are developing the series at Fox 21 TV Studios. There is no home yet for the new Buffy, but the plan is for the series to be pitched to cable networks and streaming services later this summer.

    The original show followed Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a “Slayer” destined to fight evil forces in her new hometown of Sunnydale. Inspired by Whedon’s feature film of the same name, the series ran for seven seasons, inspiring a spin-off series (Angel), a larger expanded universe of comics and novels, and a fanbase that has remained devoted to the show years after it came to an end.

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  • Jul 20, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Watch the first trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass

    A year ago, M. Night Shyamalan scored a surprise hit with his film Split, about a teenager named Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) being kidnapped and held hostage by Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder. The end of the film had a surprise: a direct tie-in to Shyamalan’s comic-book superhero homage Unbreakable, which led to an announcement that his followup film Glass would further connect the two films. At its Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con today, Universal Pictures released a full trailer for the film.

    The trailer introduces Dr. Ellie Staple (played by Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who specializes in “those individuals who believe they are superheroes,” addressing Bruce Willis’ Unbreakable character David Dunn, Kevin Crumb’s various personalities, and Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass. The three characters have come together in a hospital under her skeptical supervision for treatment. Jackson’s titular character seems to be at the center of the film, saying he wants the rest of society to know that people like him exist, and meeting the Beast — the monstrous personality that became Split’s primary antagonist — for his own sinister ends.

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  • Jul 20, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    The next Star Wars novels will flesh out the prequel era

    Image: Lucasfilm

    Today at San Diego Comic-Con, Lucasfilm assembled a panel of its authors to preview the next crop of Star Wars books and comics. With Episode IX yet to begin production, the next couple of novels will focus on the prequel era.

    Ever since Timothy Zahn wrote Heir to the Empire in 1991, books have been a major part of the larger Star Wars franchise, expanding the story beyond the films and introducing new characters. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the past books and comics — the Star Wars Expanded Universe — were rendered non-canon. But ever since, publisher Del Rey has worked with the Star Wars Story Group to coordinate all the franchise’s new stories across its various media to ensure that everything fits together and collectively tells a consistent and much bigger story.

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  • Devon Maloney

    Jul 20, 2018

    Devon Maloney

    Star Trek is getting a series of standalone mini ‘Short Treks’ episodes

    When Star Trek: Discovery’s original showrunner, Bryan Fuller, first met with CBS executives about bringing a new Star Trek series to the small screen, he proposed the new property as an anthology series, similar to the format and style of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. That would allow a much wider lens on the larger Trek universe than any of the previous series or films had been able to accomplish. CBS was reportedly interested, but suggested he start with a serialized story first to test the waters.

    With his exit from the show in October 2016 went any chance of a more eclectic take on Discovery — until now. This afternoon at the Discovery panel at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H, co-creator and current showrunner Alex Kurtzman announced Star Trek: Short Treks, a series of monthly short-form stories that will function like bonus content and air on CBS All Access in conjunction with the larger Star Trek: Discovery series. CBS says Short Treks, which will air in installments of about 10 to 15 minutes, is “an opportunity for deeper storytelling and exploration of key characters and themes that fit into… the expanding Star Trek universe.”  

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  • Jul 20, 2018

    Andrew Liptak and Devon Maloney

    Star Trek: Discovery’s season 2 trailer teases Spock, Christopher Pike, and Tig Notaro

    CBS All Access

    CBS held a big panel on Friday for the latest installment of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Discovery, offering the first look at the upcoming season of the show on CBS All Access.

    Star Trek Discovery launched last year on the channel’s much-maligned digital platform, and it was a new look for the Trek franchise: it broke a number of the series’ traditional conventions and ended up being a much darker show than previous series installments, a move that has divided the fandom. The show, set about a decade before the original 1966 Star Trek aboard the eponymous USS Discovery, follows the disgraced Starfleet officer Michael Burnham after she’s found guilty of mutiny, stripped of her rank, and sent to space jail. When her services are abruptly commandeered by an unorthodox captain (Jason Isaacs), she struggles to redeem herself, a journey that includes traveling with the Discovery’s crew to a Mirror Universe and encountering a brutal version of their world.

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  • Nick Statt

    Jul 20, 2018

    Nick Statt

    The Walking Dead gets a season 9 trailer and October 7th release date

    The Walking Dead is preparing for a life after Rick Grimes, as both actor Andrew Lincoln and comic creator Robert Kirkman confirmed this week at San Diego Comic-Con that the show’s season 9 will be Lincoln’s last. Now, at The Walking Dead’s official Comic-Con panel today, AMC has released the first trailer for season 9 and confirmed an October 7th, 2018 premiere date.

    Season 9 takes place after the “All Out War” saga of Kirkman’s comic, and it will be the first season in more than four years that showrunner Scott Gimple will not be in charge. Long-time writer and story editor Angela Kang will be taking over as Gimple assumes the chief content officer role of the expanding franchise, which includes Fear the Walking Dead and a number of spinoff media properties.

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  • Dami Lee

    Jul 20, 2018

    Dami Lee

    Neopets is making a mobile game that combines Scrabble and Neopets lore

    Neopets

    At a party at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday, Neopets announced that it is developing a mobile game called Legends and Letters. The company also announced that a mobile site and app are on the way, which will allow users to play dozens of the excellent mini-games available on the browser site.

    The new game is noteworthy for being one of the company’s first ventures into mobile territory, especially by a website that’s been around since 1999. CEO David Lord described Legends and Letters as a combination of “Neopets lore, a puzzle game mechanic, and battles.” It follows the format of puzzle fighting games like Puzzle & Dragons, pitting the user’s Neopets against enemies. The game is separate from your browser account, though, so, unfortunately, you can’t play with your own Neopets. It’s unclear whether Neopoints (the browser game’s in-game currency that drives the Neopets world economy) will transfer. However, you can customize the mobile game pets with clothes and accessories, available through in-app purchases. A story runs throughout the game told in a comic book style to keep users playing through the levels.

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  • Jul 20, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Marvel’s Iron Fist season 2 will begin streaming on September 7th

    Today at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel announced that Iron Fist would return to Netflix for its second season on September 7th. The news was accompanied by a short teaser showing Danny Rand (Finn Jones) fighting on the streets of New York City.

    The teaser hints that Danny and the city will face some sort of larger conflict, and he sees it as his duty to protect his new home. The show comes shortly after the larger Netflix team-up show, The Defenders, and it follows the sophomore seasons for Netflix’s other Marvel shows Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage.

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  • Jul 19, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Watch the first trailer for Nightflyers, the George R.R. Martin space horror show

    Today at San Diego Comic-Con, the Syfy Channel hosted a panel with its cast and crew for its upcoming space horror show, Nightflyers, and it showed off the first full trailer for the series. The show, based on a novella by George R.R. Martin, teases the horrors that the crew of an interstellar spacecraft face when they embark on their mission.

    When we got a first look at the show in March, Martin said that it would be like “Psycho in space.” This new trailer teases out a bit more of the story: Earth is dying, the crew of the Nightflyer is going farther into space than anyone has before, and it is humanity’s only hope of survival. But once the mission gets underway, there’s a “malfunction” that kills several people, and the crew begins to realize that there’s something wrong with the ship, and it can’t return to Earth. In Martin’s original novella, the crew is bound for an alien spacecraft, and we’ll see how that figures into the series when the show premieres at some point this fall.

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  • Jul 19, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Disney is bringing back Star Wars: The Clone Wars

    During the 10th Anniversary Clone Wars panel at San Diego Comic-Con, creator and producer Dave Filoni announced that the show would return on Disney’s streaming service, finishing off the story that was widely considered to be left hanging after the show’s abrupt cancellation in 2013.

    From 2008 to 2013, The Clone Wars ran on Cartoon Network, revealing the massive war that took place between the theatrical, live-action movies Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It featured existing characters such as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as a number of original fan-favorite characters, including Anakin’s apprentice Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex. In 2013, Lucasfilm announced that it was “winding down” the show, eventually sending its final, six-episode season to Netflix, while another unfinished story arc was written up as a novel, Christie Golden’s Dark Disciple. Lucasfilm and Disney then focused on creating a follow-up Star Wars animated show, Star Wars Rebels, set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope / Rogue One. After a four-season run, Rebels ended earlier this year. More recently, Lucasfilm announced a third animated show, Star Wars Resistance, set prior to The Force Awakens.

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  • Chaim Gartenberg

    Jul 19, 2018

    Chaim Gartenberg

    Doctor Who’s Thirteenth Doctor looks for some new best friends in latest trailer

    Doctor Who’s upcoming 11th season got a new trailer at Comic-Con 2018, and much like the teaser aired during the World Cup final last week, the focus is all on the three new companions that will be accompanying Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor on her journeys through time and space.

    “All of this is new to me,” intones the Doctor in a voiceover, “New faces, new worlds, new times,” — a fitting sentiment, given that the long-running British sci-fi show is entering an entirely new era: along with Whittaker beginning her run as the Doctor, Chris Chibnall is taking the helm behind the scenes as the new showrunnner. Whittaker is also the first woman to play the role of Doctor, taking over for Peter Capaldi, who portrayed the Twelfth Doctor for the past few seasons.

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  • Jul 19, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    Robin gets dark in the first trailer for DC’s live-action show Titans

    DC has unveiled the first look at its upcoming live-action TV show Titans, and it’s dark. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Robin say “Fuck Batman” before taking out a group of street-level thugs, this will be the show for you.

    The show is a darker take on DC’s superhero team, Teen Titans. The trailer introduces us to Raven (played by Teagan Croft), a haunted girl who reaches out to detective Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) for help. Grayson is a former circus performer who lost his parents as a child and moonlights as Robin, Batman’s famed sidekick. We also get a couple shots of Beast Boy (Ryan Potter) and Starfire (Anna Diop) in action.

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  • Jul 19, 2018

    Andrew Liptak

    DC’s streaming service will be a one-stop shop for its TV shows, movies, and comics

    Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

    Today at San Diego Comic-Con, DC announced that its streaming service, DC Universe, will launch this fall, and the company has released a trailer for its slate of forthcoming live-action shows for the platform. The first look at DC Universe reveals that it’ll go beyond being just a repository for the numerous television shows and films based on the company’s characters. It will also be a hub for all things DC, featuring a library of comics, an encyclopedia, and it will serve as a platform for fans to discuss their favorite characters and stories.

    The goal of DC Universe is to gather all the fans under one roof to revel in their shared love of DC and its characters, which is something that company reps noted existing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter weren’t great at fostering. The platform is intended to be a single stop for fans that connects the company’s various offerings, including films, television shows, and comic books. The site will launch later this fall, and the company says that it’ll be competitively priced against services like Netflix. It’ll cost $7.99 a month or $74.99 for an annual subscription. Subscribers who preorder will get an additional three months for free.

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