The 12th Annual Musical Anatomy of a Superhero and Other Heroes panel continued the fan-favorite tradition at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 of assembling some of earth’s mightiest musical talents for discussions of the music that make these epic films soar. Of course, moderator Michael Giacchino had a few surprises up his sleeve, too.

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Here’s a look at what we got to see during the Musical Anatomy of a Superhero and Other Heroes panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2026.

The panel was moderated by the infinitely iconic Michael Giacchino (Spider-Man: Brand New Day, The Incredibles, Zootopia) and featured an accomplished assemblance of musically-minded panelists that included his own son Mick Giacchino (VisionQuest, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), Kris Bowers (Spider-Noir, Secret Invasion, Haunted Mansion), Michael Dean Parsons (Spider-Noir, Obi-Wan Kenobi), and Claudia Sarne (Supergirl).

The 12th Annual Musical Anatomy of a Superhero and Other Heroes panel continued the tradition of showcasing unreleased music and videoclips from upcoming and recently released projects by the assembled panelists. Plus, Michael Giacchino shared a never-before-seen clip and music cue from Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Below are some of the highlights from the panel.

Michael Giacchino previewed his work on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, explaining that he stripped away extra notes from Spider-Man’s main theme to reflect Peter Parker’s isolation and loss.
- Michael noted that this is the first time he has ever composed the score for a fourth installment in a franchise. To reflect Peter Parker’s isolation after losing key elements of his life, Giacchino intentionally stripped away all the extraneous notes from Spider-Man’s theme to reduce it down to its bare, sad roots. He recorded the score at Abbey Road Studios.
- He also shared that a long, detailed cue he wrote for 2009’s Star Trek explaining Spock’s backstory was cut from the film because director J.J. Abrams felt the scene was already packed with heavy dialogue.
Michael Dean Parsons remarked that the score for Spider-Noir combines classic noir themes and Theremin with synths, orchestral arrangements, and 1990s punk rock guitar textures inspired by New York City.
- Parsons shared that showrunner Oren Uziel for Spider Noir didn’t like the score for episode 6 and told him to get weirder and ended up being his favorite episode with a weirder unconventional tone.
- He had to learn to intentionally play instruments incorrectly to achieve the chaotic, intentionally weird tone the scene required.
Kris Bowers feels working with Parsons is a seamless co-composition process that involves passing themes back and forth and refining cues late into the night.
- To prepare for Spider-Noir, the duo listened to a 250-track playlist of classic noir and superhero scores for two weeks to internalize the genre’s DNA before setting it aside to craft their own original, collaborative cues late into the night.
Mick Giacchino wrote the score for Marvel’s eight-episode series VisionQuest (releasing October 14), which includes the end-credits main theme, a dedicated theme for Ultron (played by James Spader), and recurring themes for Vision (played by Paul Bettany).
- Mick detailed how he crafted distinct themes for Vision (Paul Bettany) and Ultron (James Spader), blending simple harp melodies with building orchestration to capture the contrast between synthetic creation and human emotion.
- He said of his process that he often just deletes his cues if he doesn’t like them. He doesn’t usually repurpose it.
Claudia Sarne discussed scoring Supergirl, focusing on conveying Kara Zor-El’s deep sense of grief, loneliness, and emotional weight alongside her heroic action sequences.
- Sarne noted that director Craig Gillespie encouraged her to give the score a rebellious quality and emotional weight rather than a purely traditional superhero sound.
- She also remarked that she once redid a score almost 82 times because of one not from the director that still didn’t make the score better
Like father like son…. they discussed hiding personal Easter eggs in vocal scores
- Mick Giacchino noted that for his choir cues in VisionQuest, he wrote the lyrics using the names of his cats, dogs, cousins, and other family members. The choir singers actively tried to figure out who names like “Walter” or “Cleo” belonged to before realizing they were pets.
- Michael Giacchino said in his score for Speed Racer, that he had the choir explicitly shout out his children’s names—”Mick, Grace, and Griffy”—in a prominent moment during the film. He later joked in the theater that it might have been a bit too obvious since the music was mixed above the sound effects in that scene.
The panelists revealed their favorite childhood toys: Parsons had a double-bladed Darth Maul lightsaber, Bowers owned a Wolverine action figure projector, Mick made stop-motion movies with Legos, Sarne favored her skateboard and recorders, and Michael played with vintage 3.75-inch Star Wars action figures.