Baltimore Comic-Con 2023 kicked off Friday afternoon at the Baltimore Convention Center. The convention, in its 24th year, brings together people from all sorts of fandoms. Whether you’re into Marvel superheroes, vintage comic collections, anime, action figures, local art or anything in between — there’s something for pretty much everybody to enjoy.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott got in on the fun, too, showing up Friday dressed as the Marvel hero Vision. He was joined by his partner, Hana Pugh, as the Scarlet Witch, and her son, Ceron, as Dr. Strange.

“The folks at Comic-Con were very excited,” Scott said. “They said the mayor always comes to Comic-Con every year. And probably the only other mayor that did some dressing up would probably be [William Donald] Schaefer. ... So they were very excited to have that,” Scott said.

(Schaefer, who was mayor from 1971 to 1987, did memorably dress up in an old-timey swimsuit at the National Aquarium seal pool in 1981. We don’t know if he ever donned a superhero costume, though, and Baltimore Comic-Con didn’t start until well after his tenure as mayor.)

When it came to picking the characters and costumes, young Ceron was the driving force, Scott said.

“All that was picked by the little one. Ceron picked all of that,” he said. “It absolutely was not my idea.”

Scott said dressing up was fun, but it came with one significant downside: “It took me about 40 minutes to get all that paint off my face.”

The convention runs through Sunday. More information about the event can be found on its website.

Baltimore Banner reporter Pamela Wood contributed to this article.

ulysses.munoz@thebaltimorebanner.com