Dubai Comic Con: From Stan Lee to Captain Kirk’s real chair

The Middle East Film and Comic Con  kicked off Thursday in Dubai, marking the fifth year for the largest pop culture and entertainment festival in the region.

From the stunning celebrity guests to the exclusive previews, the workshops and the cosplay, this year's MEFCC is shaping up to be the best one yet. These are some of the biggest highlights from the fifth edition, which wraps up Saturday night.

Stan Lee, the comic book mastermind behind Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor and X-Men to name a few, spoke to fans at MEFCC from his California home via Skype. The convention held a Q&A panel with Lee, in which the Marvel legend explained the reasoning behind some characteristics of his world-famous characters and talked to the audience about his passion for writing stories.

The convention set up a photo booth where Star Trek fans can sit in the chair from the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise, which was used by Chris Pine as Captain Kirk during Star Trek Beyond's 2015 shoot in Dubai. The set, which was provided by the Dubai Film and TV Commission, also included Spock ears for visitors to use.

Game of Thrones fans had the chance to meet Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Ros in the hit series, while WWE fans had the chance to meet 12-time world champion Randy Orton . Waldau and Orton both had booths at the fifth MEFCC of the convention, where they met fans and signed autographs.

Comic book writer Fabian Nicieza, who co-created Deadpool and contributed to dozens of global franchises for Marvel, DC and Disney, met fans and talked to them about his new hit movie and the process of creating it. Sculptor Brian Muir, who created the original Darth Vader costume, was also at the convention, meeting fans and signing Darth Vader helmets.

Hip hop pioneer and comic book publisher Darryl DMC McDaniels, who founded legendary hip hop group Run-DMC and comic book publishing house DMC, was at the convention. The musician and comic book publisher met fans and spoke at MEFCC's press conference about his work, along with the other stars.

The Hub Zero stand in the MEFCC gaming zone offered convention-goers the chance to try out state-of-the-art virtual reality gaming, in which the gamer is immersed into a virtual world of interactive entertainment.

As with each of its editions, MEFCC made the region's cosplay dreams come true. Not only did the convention hold its annual cosplay competition in the categories of best movie character, best animations character, best comics character, best video game character and best group, the cosplay at this year's convention was the most diverse it has ever been.