(image courtesy marvel.com)
Disney’s purchase of Marvel’s licensing has led to a creative powerhouse that has produced blockbuster movies, fantastic merchandising, amazing novels, and yet surprisingly very little for it’s theme parks. The reasoning is simple – Universal Studios still owns some of the license rights to display things in theme parks. The juxtaposition is rather interesting. Universal has costumed meet and greets with the X-men, Captain America, AND spider man – so featuring spider man in a Disney Park is a pretty big deal. The addition of a new character can represent the end of years of debate between companies as well as cultural milestones. A good example? When Disneyland’s California Adventure added Oswald the lucky rabbit it meant the end of 70 years of talks between universal studios and Disney. Now Disney has added a brand new character to the roster, Spider Man!
In Disneyland’s renamed Tomorrowland Expo You’ll be able to cross the bifrost and meet Thor, shake hands with Captain America in his museum, and play games in the game center UPSTAIRS in Tomorrowland Expo’s superhero HQ. Downstairs you can chose your path in the Star Wars Launch Bay and meet either Darth Vader (a personal fan favorite and the top selling character in Disney’s Tomorrowland Stores) or Chewbacca – the famous millennium falcon copilot flying in for an extended tour to talk about The Force Awakens!
A few tips and tricks. Wait time usually varies between thirty to forty minutes, but expect longer wait times for spiderman as this is his introduction. Have fun and listen to the SHIELD agents (all Avengers are escorted by SHIELD agents naturally). If you’re on the hunt for more Avengers (are you secretly HYDRA? If so we should talk.) Check out The Marvel Report’s soon-to-be coming coverage of the Avengers Half Marathon which traditionally features Disneyland’s special events team of Hawkeye and Black Widow. Last year they even had Coulson DJing the event!