Looking Back at Comic-Con 2004: Lost's Debut, Episode III's Title Reveal and Hall H's First Impression

Memories and photos from an important Comic-Con celebrating its 20th anniversary, as the most notable room at the convention entered the mix in a big way.

Even if you’ve never been to San Diego Comic-Con, you’ve almost certainly heard about it. The annual summer event has become absolutely massive, and since 2010, has been filling up the San Diego Convention Center to capacity across its four days – five days if you count Preview Night – with over 130,000 attendees in total. 

I’ve been going to Comic-Con since the mid-90s and for as long as I can remember, it felt like a big deal. But not like it has become. In the early days I attended, there would be a small handful of panels for TV shows and movies and sometimes there might be something pretty notable, like nearly the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer showing up (minus Sarah Michelle Gellar, which comes into play below) at the peak of its popularity. But more often than not, if a Hollywood title of note went, you’d get a panel for Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow where the only person sent to promote it was Casper Van Dien. And no disrespect to the star of my beloved Starship Troopers, but if you don’t remember Van Dien is even in Sleepy Hollow, well, exactly. 

But things began to change rapidly as the 90s came to a close, with more and more studio titles going to Comic-Con and increasingly big moments occurring there, such as when we got to see a rather amazing looking sizzle reel for X2 just a couple of weeks into production. Soon, Sam Raimi was showing off the first-ever footage from Spider-Man and Comic-Con was getting a bigger spotlight in the media, requiring more space as the crowds continued to grow.

As we go into San Diego Comic-Con 2024 this week, I was thinking back on Comic-Con 2004. This was a major year for the convention, with one very obvious sign of its growth demonstrated by the addition of Hall H, a cavernous space that could hold up to 6500 people, depending on how many seats were crammed in there. In the midst of this SDCC, one of the most iconic TV series of the century would debut, a crucial film in the most popular film franchise imaginable (pre-MCU at least) would get a title, and much more would occur… even though as busy and crowded as that Comic-Con was, it still would get even busier and more crowded in the years to come! 

But those flashbacks are for another day. For now, let’s take a stroll down memory lane to San Diego Comic-Con 2004, via both my memories recounted below and photos I took there.