Day One is always the day the con actually starts feeling like the con. Preview Night was just a tease for the next few days of the con. It was pretty packed this morning because Hall H kicked into gear right out of the gate with Percy Jackson and the Olympians leading things off. If you wanted proof this weekend was going to move fast, that was it.
By the way, we’re officially 48 hours out from Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity dropping its first episode. Saturday can’t come fast enough, and honestly, being at a con while that countdown ticks down in the back of your mind adds a weird kind of energy to everything else you’re doing.
Star Trek Just Dropped a New Episode
This one was going to happen since it’s a headline image on the badges. Strange New Worlds Season 4 quietly premiered on Paramount+. And SDCC clearly planned around it, since the whole convention is leaning into it hard this weekend: the official 2026 badges are even Strange New Worlds themed, with the Enterprise flying over the convention center.
If you’re a Trek fan and haven’t caught the episode yet, don’t panic because the actual Hall H panel with the cast isn’t until Saturday. But if you’re here at the con today, there’s also a “Collector Frontier” panel happening in Room 5AB, where Paramount, LEGO, and Magic: The Gathering are showing off Trek collaborations tied to the franchise’s 60th anniversary. Smaller room, but a nice detour if the Hall H line isn’t moving.
Speaking of Paramount+, the Paramount+ Lodge is absolutely worth the line. I know “wait in another line at a con that’s already all lines” sounds miserable, but this one earns it. The two Strange New Worlds photo opportunities were great and genuinely well-designed, not just a backdrop with a logo slapped on it. The custom swag was a pleasant surprise too where you’ll walk away with an engraved luggage tag, and I saw people getting engraved wallets as well. And if you’ve got a friend with you, do the rodeo pull together. It’s a small thing, but it’s the kind of small thing that ends up being the memory you actually talk about later.
PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS Panel — And It Was PACKED
Hall H opened Thursday morning at 10 AM with Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and if you weren’t already in line by then, I hope you had a backup plan, because this room filled up fast. Walker Scobell, Aryan Simhadri, Charlie Bushnell, Tamara Smart, and newcomers Levi Chrisopulos and Olive Abercrombie all took the stage, alongside executive producers Craig Silverstein and Dan Shotz, and the energy in that room did not feel like a 10 AM crowd. People were locked in.
The big reveal: Season 3 premieres November 20, along with a teaser and the first few minutes of actual footage. It opens with a cloaked figure walking through dark city streets while ominous holiday music plays in the background, which is a wild vibe shift if you’re used to this show’s usual tone. Season 3 is adapting The Titan’s Curse, and Shotz confirmed something book fans are going to have feelings about. Annabeth gets separated from the group for a chunk of the season, more than she was in the source material. Levi Chrisopulos and Olive Abercrombie, who play Nico and Bianca, were also up there for their first-ever SDCC, which felt like a nice full-circle moment given how much those two characters matter later in the story.
One name notably missing from the stage: Leah Sava Jeffries, who plays Annabeth. She couldn’t make it in person since she’s currently on set filming the new Cheetah Girls movie, but she still sent a message to fans watching at SDCC, which got a genuinely warm reaction from the crowd. It’s a nice reminder that even when a cast member can’t physically be there, the fandom still wants to feel like she showed up.
If Percy Jackson is on your must-see list for next year, definitely be prepared for it.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender — Hall H’s Headliner
At 1 PM, Hall H shifted over to Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, and this was the panel of the day as far as buzz goes. The voice cast and creative team walked through the making of the film and teased what’s next in the Avatar universe, including a possible new look at the follow-up series Avatar: Seven Havens.
Here’s the awkward part nobody in that room could fully avoid: the entire movie leaked online weeks before the con. Full leak, not just clips. The panel didn’t dodge it outright, but the tone in the room was interesting — a mix of people who’d already seen it illegally and were just there for cast interaction, and people who’d held out and were hearing everything fresh. The one silver lining, if you can call it that: reaction to the leaked film itself has reportedly been positive, so at least the leak didn’t sour anyone on the movie. The film moved its release up to Saturday, July 25 on Paramount+ (the same day as the SDCC Marvel panel and the Bleach premiere), which, if you’re keeping track, is a wild amount of major release traffic happening on one single day this weekend.
New Clip From Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Composer Michael Giacchino wrapped up his “Anatomy of a Superhero Movie” panel Thursday and came bearing gifts: an extended clip from Spider-Man: Brand New Day showing Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in full web-swinging mode through New York City. That might sound minor, but longtime fans will get why it matters: real web-swinging was largely missing from the last trilogy until the very end of No Way Home, so seeing it front and center again feels like a genuine callback to the earlier films. This is something I always enjoy especially the cinematic portion of it. The clip also gave a closer look at some of the POV shots the movie’s been teasing, following Spidey mid-swing straight into a tank chase.
Giacchino’s returning to score (music for) the franchise after Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home, so hearing his music layered under that footage landed exactly the way you’d want it to. With the film opening just five days after the con wraps, this was clearly something that’s needed and to get everyone excited whether it was for Spider-Man or Avengers: Doomsday.
Family Guy Spinoff “Stewie” Reveals Its Cast
News broke around the con that Fox’s Stewie spinoff has locked in its voice cast, and it’s a genuinely fun lineup. Seth MacFarlane is doing double duty, reprising Stewie and also voicing a new character named Bean, described as a classmate who’s “dropped on his head one too many times.” Kenan Thompson joins as Royal, a new friend of Stewie’s with a healthy skepticism about all his sci-fi schemes, and Vanessa Bayer plays Morgan, Stewie’s new preschool teacher who sounds like she’s more invested in her social life than actually supervising toddlers.
Rounding out the cast: Mike Henry (a Family Guy mainstay) as BJ, Melissa O’Neil as Wanda, Jessica Lowe as Caroline, and Aaron Lee voicing Skunk, a hundred-year-old class turtle. The premise is Stewie getting kicked out of his old preschool and landing somewhere less prestigious, which is exactly the kind of setup you’d want for a Stewie-led spinoff.
It’s not premiering until the 2027–2028 season, so this is very much a “mark your calendar for later” announcement. That is, if you were or is a fan of Family Guy.
My Hero Academia Turns 10
Over in Ballroom 20, Crunchyroll took the morning slot for something a lot quieter but honestly just as emotional: the My Hero Academia 10th Anniversary Panel. Christopher Sabat (All Might), Justin Briner (Izuku), Clifford Chapin (Bakugo), and David Matranga (Todoroki) sat down together, and the timing mattered here. This wasn’t just “hey, it’s been 10 years,” it came right on the heels of the show’s actual ending. The Final Season wrapped in December, and the epilogue special “MORE” closed things out for good back in May. So this panel doubled as a victory lap and a goodbye, which gave it a different weight than your typical anniversary panel.
If you were in that room, you know what I mean (or if you were at Anime Expo 2 weeks prior), there’s a specific kind of quiet that happens when a voice cast that’s been with a series since episode one starts reminiscing, and it’s not something you get from every 10 AM panel slot.
Gundam Announces Its Next Anime
Bandai Namco Filmworks used SDCC to officially unveil the next Mobile Suit Gundam series, and it’s a bigger swing than a typical franchise entry. Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO is coming in 2027, directed by Kenji Kamiyama. It’s the same guy behind Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which is basically an instant credibility stamp for anyone who grew up on that show like I have. This isn’t a standalone series either. It’s the anchor of something called the RG Project, a new shared Gundam universe spanning anime and games, tied directly to the previously announced Gundam Rogue Orbit game.
A couple of details that stood out to me: this marks Gundam going back to a male protagonist after the last two projects, and it’s the first Gundam anime to actually feature aliens, which is a genuinely funny thing to type out given how hard this franchise has avoided that for nearly 50 years. If you’ve been burned out on mecha lately, this is the kind of announcement that makes you sit up a little.
No release date beyond “2027” yet, so don’t expect an episode one anytime soon, but if you’re the type who tracks these franchise expansion moves, this was one of the bigger anime announcements of the entire con.
Thursday night wrapped with the 12th Annual Her Universe Fashion Show at the Harbor Ballroom in the Manchester Grand Hyatt, hosted by Ashley Eckstein and Michael James Scott. This year’s theme was DC Super Heroes and Super-Villains, and for the first time in the show’s history, every single design in the competition had to pull from DC characters exclusively with no mixing franchises. Twenty designers hit the runway, ten of them first-timers, with looks inspired by Batman, Superman, Harley Quinn, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and the Teen Titans, among others.
Two designers walked away as winners, chosen by a mix of audience vote and a celebrity judging panel, each taking home $2,000 and a shot at co-designing an actual collection with Her Universe. If you’ve never caught this show in person, it’s worth seeing honestly. You can shop their San Diego Comic-Con Collection at their booth #1314 and Booth 2913-O or online.
Wrapping Up Day One
If Preview Night was just that, Day One made it very clear this con is not slowing down.
One day down, three to go. If today was any indication, Friday and Saturday will be a lot.
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