New York Comic Con turns twenty this week. From Thursday, October 8, to Sunday, October 11, the Javits Center hosts the 20th edition of the show, themed around Coney Island and, by every measure of ticket demand, as big as ever: Saturday badges sold out back in August. But look closely at the schedule and something has shifted. The Hollywood studios that used to treat comic conventions as launch pads are mostly missing. The publishers, the anime companies and the people who actually make comics are filling the rooms instead. For a show built in a city of publishers, that may be the most interesting story of the weekend.
The Panel With the Vaguest Description
The single most intriguing slot on the schedule is Marvel Comics: The Spider-Web, on Saturday, October 10, at 3:30 p.m. in Room 405. Marvel's description is almost entirely mood. It promises a look at the futures of Peter Parker, Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, and a major announcement that will, in the publisher's words, turn their world upside down.
Coming a month after Amazing Spider-Man #1000, that is a loaded promise. Milestone issues are usually followed by a reset, a relaunch or a status-quo shock, and Marvel's Spider-Man line has a long history of all three. When a publisher refuses to tease even the shape of an announcement, it usually means the announcement is the kind fans will argue about for months. The vagueness is the marketing.
Marvel's New Editor Takes the Stage
The Spider-Web is one of four Marvel Comics panels, all in Room 405, and together they read like a publisher introducing a new administration. Stephen Wacker, who replaced C.B. Cebulski as editor-in-chief in July, gets his first NYCC spotlight with Bullpen Bulletins on Friday at 3:30 p.m., billed as a look at the future of the Marvel Universe. We wrote about the changing guard after San Diego this summer; New York is where Wacker gets to set the agenda in his own voice.
Right after him, at 5:00 p.m., comes The Midnight Hour, devoted to Midnight X-Men, Midnight Fantastic Four and Midnight Spider-Man. Those three books ship on Wednesday, October 7, the day before the show opens, as the only Marvel comics on sale that day, a decision we analyzed this week. That makes Friday's panel the first public read on whether the horror line landed. If Marvel opens it with sell-out numbers or second printings, the line is working. If it opens with a slideshow of variant covers, it is not.
Marvel closes on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. with House of Ideas, billed as its wall-to-wall announcement panel. On the screen side, the only Marvel Studios-adjacent slot is Up Next From Marvel Television and Marvel Animation, Thursday at 4:15 p.m. on the Empire Stage, with no guests or titles yet named.
DC Brings Its Publishers, Not Its Studio
DC is matching Marvel room for room. Vertigo and Black Label open on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in Room 409, promising announcements across horror, crime, fantasy and science fiction. The Absolute Universe, the line that has reshaped what a DC reboot can be and that has been the company's most reliable publishing engine, gets Friday at 11:00 a.m. in Room 405. Next Level follows on Saturday morning, and on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Jim Lee, DC's president, publisher and chief creative officer, hosts his annual Jim Lee and Friends panel, which traditionally saves its biggest reveals for last.
What is missing is DC Studios. James Gunn has no listed panel. He will be in New York, but at Crunchyroll's Anime Future Forum on October 7, the day before the show opens, alongside Guillermo del Toro and the directors of Beyond the Spider-Verse. It is a small detail that says a lot: the head of DC's film universe is spending his New York week talking about anime.
Anime, Creators and the Rest of the Weekend
The anime slate is deep. Square Enix opens the entire convention on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. on the Main Stage with the full English voice cast of Final Fantasy VII Revelation and director Naoki Hamaguchi, the first time that cast has appeared together for the finale of the Remake trilogy. One Piece gets a Crunchyroll and Toei dub panel on Friday ahead of the Elbaph Arc. Toho brings Godzilla Minus Zero to Room 405 on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with members of the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One effects and sound team. And on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. on the Empire Stage, Junko Takeuchi and Noriaki Sugiyama, the Japanese voices of Naruto and Sasuke, lay out the roadmap for the new Naruto limited series, on Naruto's birthday.
The creator panels are where comics fans will want to be. Image Comics pairs Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, the Paper Girls team, on Saturday at 4:00 p.m., hinting at a surprise. Todd McFarlane has his usual spotlight on Friday. Frank Miller, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Stephanie Phillips are among the creators signing on the floor.
Television and film are present, just quieter than they used to be. Peacock and A24 screen the premiere of the Friday the 13th prequel Crystal Lake on Thursday night, Universal shows new footage of Violent Night 2 on Friday, and 20th Century Studios brings Brian Duffield's Whalefall, which opens October 16. Paramount+ marks Star Trek's 60th anniversary with a franchise panel on Saturday afternoon. There is no Marvel Studios film panel and no Lucasfilm panel, even with Hayden Christensen and Ian McDiarmid in the building for signings.
Back to the Page
None of this means New York Comic Con is shrinking. It means the center of gravity is moving. Over the past decade the big studios have moved their biggest reveals to their own events and their own release calendars, and conventions have stopped being the place where a blockbuster's first trailer has to land. What fills the space is the material those blockbusters came from: comics, manga, anime and the people who write and draw them.
For a convention celebrating twenty years in Manhattan, that is a fitting return. The most important room this weekend may not be the Main Stage at all. It may be Room 405 at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, where Marvel has promised to turn Spider-Man's world upside down, and where fans will find out whether that is a figure of speech. The full schedule is on the official New York Comic Con site, and the show's history is on Wikipedia.
