Take the world’s greatest geekathon, police it with Stormtroopers and chuck in guest appearances from movie and gaming heroes and you’ve got Comic-Con 2012, a maelstrom of cinematic treats. But amid the fanboy fervour it’s easy to forget that this is also the place studios come to show their wares and unveil the artwork they’ve created to leave us all slavering for upcoming films. Luckily, we were in San Diego hunting down the coolest posters and promos from this year’s ‘Con, so here are the finest we found…
While Edgar Wright was officially in Comic-Con to announce Ant-Man to the Con faithful, he also found time to reveal via Twitter the first poster to The World's End. The long-awaited final lick of the Cornetto trilogy is off to a tasty start with this teaser poster that reels off the itinerary for Pegg and Frost’s pre-apocalyptic pub crawl. Will they make it to the twelfth watering hole before the sky falls in? And, more importantly, can any of these boozers match The Winchester’s range of tasty bar snacks?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Not really, it’s the Man Of Steel looking like he’s in need of a super-hug in the new posterfor Zack Snyder’s DC-boot of the comic-book giant. Henry Cavill offers a moody counterpoint to Superman Returns’ all-action posters. The suit looks nice too.
Only four more sleeps until The Dark Knight Rises finally hits our screens, but still time enough for award-winning comic-book artist Jock and Mondo to sneak out a cool new poster for the third and final part of Christopher Nolan’s Bat-trilogy. Empire pal Olly Moss also chipped in with a DKR poster, this one for Mondo.
This moody poster by artist Martin Ansin debuted at the ‘Con, capturing Game Of Thrones’ incipient threat of more flesh-tearing strife in Westeros. If HBO’s megaseries hasn’t captured your attention yet, this monochrome beauty may not make immediate sense – symbolism ahoy! – but take it from us, there are dragons involved.
AMC’s successful zombie drama is back for third season of southern-fried shuffling. It had a new poster flaunting the katana skills of Michonne (Danai Gurira) in a lurid, erm, slice of undead-slaying badassery. Someone needs to invent zombie armour – and quick.
Delightfully riffing matinee-era screamfests, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie had a special Comic-Con trailer and this, a ‘30s B-movie homage that made our eyeballs want to high-five each other. Burton always gives ace poster and Frankenweenie ain’t bucking that trend.
Not, alas, tagged ‘More Expendabler than ever’, Sly’s latest Expendables 2 poster still had many things to recommend it. This was a one-sheet that had lots of guns to start with, but then sold all its stars’ first names to buy more guns. If you had to reload all the weapons on this poster it would take four days.
You’ve got to feel for the poor Pacific Ocean. No sooner had it cleared itself of Battleship’s fish-frying chaos than Guillermo del Toro turns up with a whole new array of tech mayhem and monster madness. The movie’s new Comic-Con poster gives a hint of the seaside smackdown that’s coming.
Things this new Total Recall poster has: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, guns, futuristic sky-buildings, tight trousers. Things this new Total Recall poster doesn’t have: three-boobed ladies. A qualified success, then.
One of the biggest – and best – Comic-Con surprises was the appearance of Gareth Edwards with Godzilla in tow (not in person sadly) for a sneak peak at some footage and this Toho-styled poster. The footage showed a bit of scaly thigh, the poster less so, but our excitement levels still cranked several notches.
This new Saul Bass-like treatment lent the Bourne Legacy bandwagon a retro feel. The globe / target symbolism is so clear that even an amnesiac secret agent could figure out what’s afoot here. Yup, Jeremy Renner’s spook is joining Panorama.
A new poster for part one of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien two-fer brought a slice of bucolia to Hall H, with Gandalf looking all wizardly in a lush Bag End. Special marks for anyone who can spot the hobbity viaduct.
Putting the ‘tease’ into ‘teaser’, this poster for Marvel’s mysterious one-shot picks up where Avengers Assemble left off with one abandoned Chitauri gun and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent charged with tracking it down. Find out where in the Big Apple it ends up in the short film that’ll be on the Blu-ray. We’re off to help clear up.
OK, not technically posters – i.e. not *actually *posters – but worth sharing all the same, these new logos were launched at Comic-Con by Marvel for their new properties (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man) and the new instalments of existing franchises (Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Warning: these may fry the circuits of the Olympics brand police.