UPDATED, 7:02 PM with video: After the debut episode of The Defenders was played at Comic-Con, Marvel TV boss Jeph Loeb and the cast came out and showed a new trailer for the full series, which is being called “the war for New York.”

PREVIOUSLY, 6:12 PM: Set in the huge Hall H, the San Diego Comic-Con debut of Marvel’s The Defenders was always going to be a big deal, but the upcoming Netflix series’ panel went massive with a new Punisher clip, an Iron Fist renewal and the whole first episode of the August 18 launching show.

The dark Defenders episode opened with a fight scene in a wet tunnel as Iron First and Jessica Jones try to save an injured Punisher from the villianous Hand — and that’s all before the opening credits. Needless to say, the crowd loved it from the beginning.

There certainly is a underdog quality to The Defenders that may work to the eight-episode series’ advantage.“Let’s face it — we have a guy who was in a bad Ben Affleck movie, a character no one had ever heard of who drinks a lot, the first black superhero and a guy with a glowing first,” pointed out Marvel TV head honcho and Defenders EP Jeph Loeb of the sum of the show’s parts today earlier in the panel.

With a tormented Danny Rand on his private jet, the trippy and inventively shot Season 1 opener from director S.J. Clarkson also saw each of the other major characters introduced picking up from their respective season finales. Weaving the set-up together, there was a hungover Jessica Jones; a just-out-of-prison Luke Cage, who had a very well received carnal reunion scene with Rosario Dawson’s Claire; and Matt Murdock, who seems to have given up being Daredevil. We also saw that Sigourney Weaver’s antagonist Alexandra is suffering from a fatal disease that is causing her organs to collapse at a rapid rate — a condition that leads the wealthy character to speed up her allegiance with The Hand. And, because this is a superhero-filled New York City of the Marvel Universe, something like an earthquake rocks the metropolis and we see Alexandra telling Elodie Yung’s resurrected Elektra, “it’s just a city.”

Daredevil‘s Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing) and Luke Cage‘s Simone Missick (Harlem NYPD Detective Misty Knight) also made appearances in The Defenders’ first episode.

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Even before stars Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter and Finn Jones and others stepped onstage this evening, a new one-minute countdown teaser was played for the team-up series. After we heard Scott Glenn’s Stick say “the war for New York is here” and other audio, Loeb came out to cheers from the multitudes.

Calling Defenders “the culmination of a dream,” Loeb teased “sticking around to the end,” surprise guests and more, similar to what he did for the sister panel that was held at New York Comic-Con when Weaver was announced as joining the series. Like at NYCC, Punisher star and The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal came onstage, but this time to introduce a a new clip from his series.

“The most interesting thing about The Defenders to me is the relationship between the people,” Colter told the crowd, fresh from filming Season 2 of Luke Cage in NYC.