When people hear the phrase “comic book convention,” they tend to think of milling crowds of over-stimulated fanboys in superhero T-shirts – if not entire costumes – laden with bags of promotional goodies, action figures, video games, DVDs, toys, posters and, yes, the latest comics.

Make no mistake, they are all here, at least 125,000 of them over the next three days of the biggest convention of its kind, the annual San Diego Comic-Con International.

They are not alone. For one thing, close to half of them are actually fangirls, a most welcome phenomenon here among the fannish faithful, as the medium has expanded to embrace both sexes, creating an actual sexual dynamic among those who traditionally would rarely even date.

You need only look around the convention floor to see the generational result: entire families of costumed comics consumers, father and son Batmen and Robins, with Catwoman moms cradling baby Jokers …

But here’s the thing: It isn’t really about them, not exclusively, not any more. The contemporary comic book has become more than anything else a means to an end, a creative wellspring and endlessly renewable resource for pop culture in all its various forms, from movies and television to their digital descendants, computer games and online entertainment.

The major media players who now flock here en masse are only marginally interested in the genre enthusiast, essentially the geek equivalent of preaching to the choir. They are after bigger, more mainstream game.

This year that trend is stronger than ever, as some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry converge on this sleepy little stretch of coastal California.

You can’t spit without splattering a genre giant: Tim Burton, flogging his new Johnny Depp Alice in Wonderland and the animated “steam-punk” fantasy 9; Kong and Rings king Peter Jackson, back in the game with District 9; ditto James Cameron, with images of his 3-D Avatar hanging from every lamppost in town; Robert Zemeckis, also working in an added dimension with his Jim Carrey-starring Christmas Carol; Terry Gilliam, putting a positive spin on his problem-plagued Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus; Comic-Con staple Kevin Smith, flying in from the New York set of his in-production Bruce Willis comedy, A Couple of Dicks …

Director Jon Favreau, keenly aware that the out-of-the-box success of Iron Man was largely predicated on an ecstatic preview here almost a year in advance, is doing the same with the still-in-production Iron Man 2, bringing along his star, Robert Downey Jr., who is doing double duty promoting the December release of his own Sherlock Holmes remake. It’s not just Iron Man 2 that fans are looking forward to. It was also announced that there will be an iron man animated series for fans to watch.