One of the most talked about and photographed images from San Diego Comic-Con this year just got a whole lot more expensive. Marvel Studios has reportedly been fined $160,000 for an Avengers: Doomsday installation it put up on San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter arch during the event. The ad covered the very recognizable landmark for the duration of the convention.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, which broke the story, the ad was created by a Los Angeles-based company called Elevue Outdoor, which informed San Diego city officials about it over a week before installation. The company was then told not to move ahead with it “because of concerns about safety and fears it could disrupt the flow of people during the year’s biggest event.” It put it up anyway.
“The contractor knowingly created a safety risk and refused to address it, and was cited and fined accordingly,” San Diego spokesperson Richard Berg told the Union Tribune. io9 has reached out to Marvel Studios for comment on the news but has yet to hear back as of publication. We’ll update the story if or when we hear back.
What’s almost the wildest thing about this isn’t that Marvel was fined. It’s that San Diego issues these fines every year. Apparently, San Diego has banned outdoor advertising in the area for decades, so whenever you see hotel wraps and things during Comic-Con, all of those companies are paying fines. But most of the fines aren’t particularly expensive and are treated as the cost of doing business. In fact, according to the Union Tribune, San Diego issued $48,500 in advertising fines during Comic-Con this year, which is more than double 2025.
The fine for the Doomsday ad, however, is so excessive because it’s a whole slew of fines rolled into one. According to the paper, city officials gave Marvel and Elevue Outdoor multiple chances not to put up, or remove, the ad. This started with a $10,000 fine on Tuesday before Comic-Con, then $10,000 on Wednesday, $20,000 on Thursday, $30,000 on Friday, $40,000 on Saturday, and finally $50,000 on Sunday, $160,000 total. It probably didn’t help that it was hanging over people’s heads and covering up one of the most recognizable pieces of iconography in the area, either.
But it worked. We’re still talking about it. Maybe Marvel and Elevue factored this potential cost into planning beforehand. Maybe it’ll just get wrapped up into another line on the film’s sure-to-be massive marketing budget. But it is fascinating either way that Marvel basically broke the law to get the word out about the movie. Doctor Doom would be proud.
Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18. No one was fined in the writing of this article. At least not yet.
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