Marvel Studios won’t be bringing the big guns to Comic-Con this year

Marvel Studios typically has a big presence at the San Diego Comic-Con, but this year Kevin Feige and company will be skipping Hall H amid the ongoing writers’ strike and a general dip in excitement over its properties. Several Marvel productions are currently on hiatus as the WGA negotiates fairer terms for its writers, including the films Blade and Thunderbolts, as well as the Disney Plus series Daredevil: Born Again and Wonder Man.

Per The Wrap, Marvel will still have a presence on the convention floor. But that’s not the same thing as announcing the next few Marvel projects on the slate, so that better be some booth.

Truthfully, Feige and his executives have a fair amount to figure out, so perhaps they’re treating the current writers’ strike as a chance to shore up their projects after recently committing to making fewer films and TV shows to avoid oversaturating the market. Plus, they need to navigate the ongoing Jonathan Majors drama, as he’s still technically playing big bad Kang — who doesn’t seem to be on his way out of the narrative until eight (eight!) movies and who knows how many shows from now.

Marvel also needs to boost their quality control, which has taken a dip since 2019’s Endgame. Films like Black Widow, Immortals, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania have failed to earn the love of fans and critics as Marvel films in previous phases did. And similar lukewarm reactions have greeted a host of Marvel shows on Disney Plus, including early episodes of the all-new Secret Invasion.

Lastly, Marvel should get its post-production house in order, namely the quality of its CG effects. Quantumania‘s eyesores prompted many fans to stampede Twitter and air their grievances, but perhaps committing to fewer projects will help ease the special-effects burden.

Of course, none of this has been cited outright for why Marvel is skipping Hall H — it’s just context that’s weighing the studio down at present. The Wrap reports that sources are saying Universal and HBO are possibly skipping this year’s Comic-Con as well, so maybe everyone should take the year off and focus on the quality of their slates instead of the quantity therein.