Percy Jackson & The Olympians’ creator Rick Riordan surprised New York Comic Con attendees with a preview of the upcoming Disney+ show’s first episode, Deadline reported.

The author, with his wife Becky, told the crowd, “Let’s go to Camp Half-Blood and play capture the flag.” Capture the Flag is one of the most iconic scenes in Riordan’s best-selling series. 

Fans were treated to the first seven minutes of the pilot episode, where we see Percy (Walker Scobell) in second grade, then on to an intense chase of his mother Sally (Virginia Kull) and satyr friend Grover (Aryan Simhadri). The three were trying to outrun a minotaur.

Showrunner/writers Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz, director of the two-episode premiere James Bobin, production designer Dan Hannah, costume designer Tish Monaghan, and visual effects supervisor Erik Henry and Jeff White were on the panel. 

Steinberg promptly credited Riordan’s close involvement in the project, saying, “It would be extraordinarily difficult to try to do it justice, to do it right, without the person who dreamed it, and I think without the person who really did the work to sell it, and to find this audience and this fan base.“

Riordan famously slammed the series’ movie versions. He posted on X (formerly Twitter), “I still have not seen the movies, and I don’t plan on ever doing so. I judge them from having read the scripts, because I care most about the story. I certainly have nothing against the very talented actors.” The author's bio on X states that he's no longer on the social media platform.

The movies were 2010's Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief and 2013’s Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. They went on to gross a combined $430 million worldwide. He once recounted his issues with the original production as his “life’s work going through a meat grinder when I plead with them not to do it,” according to Variety.

However, Riordan seems optimistic about the Disney+ version of his work. He told Entertainment Weekly, “I feel comfortable telling fans of the books who have been waiting — in some cases, decades — for this kind of faithful adaptation, that this is the one you've been waiting for. We are involved and I think you're gonna love it.”

The series was launched in 2005. Its latest and sixth installment, The Chalice of the Gods, was released just recently on Sept. 26. The book series have sold more than 30 million copies in the U.S. alone, translated into 42 languages, along with graphic novels, short story collections and a Broadway musical.

The series’ first season will focus on the first book, The Lightning Thief, and the titular Percy, a self-described troubled kid who struggles with dyslexia. The audience will meet a much younger Percy than the movie version played by Logan Lerman. 

The Disney+ show’s star-studded cast includes Lin Manuel Miranda as Hermes and Megan Mullaly as Alecto. The late Lance Reddick, in one of his last performances, played Zeus.

They will be supporting the young leads led by Scobell, Simhadri and Leah Jeffries as Annabeth. 

Percy Jackson & The Olympians will premiere on Disney+ on December 20.