20th Century Fox Stole Some of Marvel's Swagger for Comic-Con

Towards the end of Comic-Con International's massive run of blockbuster Hall H panels on Saturday night, a large group of superheroes—or at least the actors who play them—lined up on stage for a massive group photo. The X-Men were there, as were the Fantastic Four, and even Deadpool stood and grinned. Stan Lee surprised everyone by walking on stage to be in the photo too.

It was a monstrous collection of Marvel stars, but this wasn't the Marvel Studios panel—it was the 20th Century Fox one.

A lot of fans lamented that Marvel wasn't coming to Comic-Con this year. But, whether consciously or not, Fox stepped up to fill the void by doling out a lot of big surprises.

First off, the cast of Fantastic Four and director Josh Trank showed up. They extolled the modern "family" values of their movie and played a trailer far more promising than anything we've seen from the film thus far.

But after that things really heated up. Next, moderator Chris Hardwick called out the entire cast of the much-anticipated Deadpool, who cracked wise, cursed like sailors, and unveiled a trailer so good the audience gave it a standing ovation. Deadpool himself, Ryan Reynolds, promised the movie would be the "most faithful adaptation" of the comics fans could ask for, and based on the reaction in the room, he was right.

Then—then—Hugh Jackman came out to talk about his long, wonderful history with Wolverine and say that even though it'll be the "last time [I'm] putting on the claws" he was very much looking forward to the last Wolverine movie, which he'll be making for a 2017 release.

After his heartfelt good-bye, Jackman called up director Bryan Singer, who then proceeded to bring out the entire cast of X-Men: Apocalypse and show off a teaser for the film, which is slated for 2016. The clip, which focuses on both a kinder and gentler Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and the arrival of the ancient being Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) also had fans on their feet and cheering for it to be played twice. (It was.)

To cap it all off, Stan Lee came out to take the massive superhero photo and was joined by none other than Magic Mike—aka Channing Tatum aka the new Gambit. Tatum didn’t say anything but it wouldn't have mattered if he did—the cheers were too loud to hear anything anyway.

Well played, Fox. Well played.