San Diego Comic-Con Trailer Round-Up — Day 1

by Ashley Hobley

San Diego Comic-Con is here and a bunch of trailers for a heap of nerdy properties have dropped. Unfortunately, we can’t do our regular reacts this week (normally live on Twitch or later on YouTube). But check out my thoughts on some of the big trailers from Day 1 of Comic-Con below.

TITANS

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This looks… alright. It certainly looks darker and more violent than the other Greg Berlanti shows—which is saying something when the first season of Arrow had Oliver killing people left, right and centre. You’d have to assume Robin and Raven are going to be the central characters based off this trailer, but they could still be working on the SFX for Starfire and Beast Boy. I’ll admit I was disappointed when they cut shots as Beast Boy was jumping, clearly about to turn into an animal of some sort.

It’ll be interesting to see how true to the characters’ backstories they stick, particularly Starfire and Raven. I’m concerned it’s going to be all teenage angst and none of the fun that’s part of the Teen Titans comics. Hopefully it finds the right balance, like Marvel’s Runaways. I still have hope this will be good, but I’ll need to see more to get hyped.

Rating: 👍👎

DOCTOR WHO SERIES 11

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Not a lot to go off with this one—it’s only about 40 seconds long. It’s still too early to tell what kind of Doctor we’re getting with Jodie Whittaker. She appears friendlier than 12 and has a larger crew of companions, but this trailer doesn’t really give any clues as to the season’s direction (especially compared to Peter Capaldi’s first trailer). I’m keen to see more of the new direction—or anything more in general.

Rating: 👍👎

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS

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I’ve watched very little of The Clone Wars (pretty much only what we watched as part of the first season of Alderaan Explosion), but I know—having Dylan Blight as a friend—that this is a big deal.

It’s hard to be unbiased here. I’m sure for someone with no connection to the series this trailer wouldn’t really work, but it debuted at a Clone Wars anniversary panel. They knew their target audience and played them perfectly, slowly building to the reveal that the show was returning. I’m sure Dylan was squealing somewhere when his beloved Ahsoka showed up at the end.

Rating: 👍👍

NIGHTFLYERS

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Well, that was interesting. First thought: it looks impressive. Some of the visuals are very cool—which you need, because we’ve seen several sci-fi properties set on spaceships at this point. This looks like it’ll be a bit more of a horror show than I was expecting, or at least psychological. This trailer has definitely piqued my interest.

Rating: 👍👍

ORIGIN

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This has my attention. It’s a YouTube Original, but it looks like a network sci-fi show—a sign YouTube is getting more serious about originals. While not a lot appears truly original (people leaving to start a new life; people waking up too early on a spaceship), I’m interested. Although… it could just be the interesting cover of “Bizarre Love Triangle.”

Rating: 👍👍

RISE OF THE TEENAGE
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

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Hmmm. I’m conflicted. I was on board after the trailer portion of the video. I like the art style, the character designs are interesting (Splinter reminds me of General Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender) and the animation looked pretty good. But after the full clip, I’m concerned about the tone. It looks like they’ve turned the humour way up, and not in a good way.

I’m also not sold on changing Raphael and Leonardo’s traditional roles. Raph is now the leader—so where does that leave Leo? Being a leader was his main characteristic. I have faith it could be good; I’m just not sure it’ll be for me. See our reacts to the first trailer here.

Rating: 👍👎

SPIDER-MAN

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Another Spider-Man trailer and I am still pumped. Insomniac reveal Silver Sable and Norman Osborn, but that only leads to more questions. What role is Norman playing? Is he being set up to be the Green Goblin? I got the impression he might be mayor or something and has turned the police force against Spider-Man, which would make things challenging.

Is Mary Jane playable? She seemed to be sneaking into a meeting between Silver Sable and Osborn—was that gameplay or a cutscene? What role is Miles playing? Was that spider foreshadowing Miles getting powers? AAAHHHH—just give it to me already!

Rating: 👍👍