San Diego Comic-Con: The best costumes this year, from Deadpool to Mystique

Cosplayers pull out all the stops to transform into their favourite characters at annual entertainment convention

Throughout the year, Comic-Cons take place across the world in celebration of comic book culture and the most popular characters to have emerged from their pages.

One of the biggest and most highly-anticipated of all the conventions is San Diego Comic-Con, which is being held at the San Diego Convention Centre from Thursday 18 July until Monday 22 July.

Plenty of those in attendance go all out to demonstrate their dedication to their various fandoms, with guests cosplaying as their favourite characters from Marvel comics, Game of Thrones, anime and beyond in intricately-designed costumes.

Numerous favourite characters have already been spotted at this year's event, including the "Merc with the Mouth" Deadpool in his signature red suit, Captain Marvel in her red and blue costume and the Joker, complete with radioactive green hair and menacing smile tattoos.

Click through the gallery above to see the best and most creative costumes at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

One of the most impressive costumes to have been seen so far at San Diego Comic-Con is that of Mystique, the shape-shifting mutant from Marvel Comics.

Cosplayer Evy Thomas demonstrated the character's shape-shifting abilities by having half of her body designed to show Mystique's true, blue mutant form, and the other half designed to show the character in disguise as a US army soldier.

Another cosplayer, Nicholas Young from Kansas City, took inspiration from the latest series of Netflix's Stranger Things.

The Sci Fi fan dressed as character Steve Harrington in his Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlour sailor-esque uniform, complete with a striped neckerchief and white mariner's hat.

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