DCA Then and Now - Part 9: Not So Marvelous.
The latest addition to Disney California Adventure is Avengers Campus which opened on June 4, 2021. This is Disney’s first major placement of Marvel characters and stories in their parks on the West Coast after their 2009 acquisition of the company. And it’s the only place in the United States they can, at least as far as The Avengers are concerned. The Universal Studios Orlando parks have attractions based on The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four. Per the new acquisition agreement, a Marvel attraction can’t be built by Disney east of the Mississippi based on those existing themes.
The original Tower of Terror standing tall over a bug's land, 2012.
Avengers Campus replaces a bug’s land which was actually the park’s first major expansion. It opened on October 7, 2002 and was themed to the Disney•Pixar film A Bug's Life (1998). a bug’s land was an area for very small children, and everything was oversized to give the impression that guests had shrunk to the size of insects.
Fan reaction to Avengers Campus was mixed to negative. I think some of the design elements are strong, but my overall impression of the land is that it’s something of a miss. There are a handful of cool ideas here and there, but they just don’t seem to come together right.
Avengers Campus, satellite view. Click for link. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.
The land consists of two major attractions, a flagship restaurant, and (frankly) not much else. Apparently the Imagineering vision was initially more expansive but the project was subject to budget cuts in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Subtle Yet Stark
I have not seen any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films all the way through. I started watching the first Iron Man (2008) with my nephew once, but I lost interest. They’re just not my kind of movies. Yet successful thematic design means providing immersion and interest without presuming guests are familiar with the underlying intellectual property.
According to the Iron Man backstory, Tony Stark’s father Howard Stark founded Stark Industries in 1939. This map of the Avengers Campus is thus appropriately Art Deco, and it introduces the backstory that the area grew out of a complex of Stark defense plants and research labs. Creator Stan Lee has said he based Howard Stark on Howard Hughes.
The first thing I noticed as I walked through Avengers Campus were scores of ghost graphics. Their purpose is to provide a faux historicity to a themed space. Just like with the actual built environment, layers accumulate over time. Ghost graphics, particularly larger ones, can create the impression that a space is older than it is.
There’s a nice short video, part of Disney’s Imagineering in a Box series at Khan Academy, which explains how they are used in thematic design.
This “STRATEGIC SCIENTIFIC RESERVE” eagle graphic is a thus a reference to Stark Industries being a major defense contractor during World War II.
Sometimes the designers provide a literal moment for their backstory, like you’d find on the back of a restaurant menu about its founders.
This sign is a reference to Edwin Jarvis, loyal household butler to the Stark family. He’s sort of the Iron Man equivalent of Alfred Pennyworth in the world of Batman. Again, I had to look this up since I’m not familiar with the Marvel comics or movies. But it’s an Easter Egg that fans will get right away.
Here’s another one I had to look up. “Lucky the Pizza Dog” is Kate Bishop's adopted golden retriever from the Hawkeye (2021) television series.
Spiderman Midway Mania
The major new attraction which debuted with Avengers Campus is WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure. It’s a mixed reality dark ride with 3D augmentation and a shooting gallery aspect, making it an update to the park’s Toy Story Midway Mania! I don’t really care for gamified experiences, so I skipped riding it.
Web Slingers show building, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.
The footprint of its show building takes up more space than any other structure in the land. It’s stylized as a headquarters for a project called WEB, with which Tony Stark is looking to recruit young engineers to develop innovative technologies.
One thing the designers did rather well in my opinion was to create a credible corporate identity for this “Big Tech” venture. The mark appears to be an abstraction of a spider and is featured on signage throughout.
Part of the backstory of the attraction is that Tony Stark is holding an open house event at WEB, so many of the supporting graphics have a very trade show look and feel.
There are small details all around the show building structure which contribute to the overall immersion. All the typographic is organized and systematic.
As within all Disney theme park lands, even the trash and recycle cans are appropriately branded.
The primary façade is very slick and corporate. All sheen red metal. But as you walk around the corner there is a secondary area which houses the land’s restrooms. It’s more industrial and run-down. I wonder if there is a subtle commentary here, that behind the shiny corporate image of innovation and technological wonder is the the costs—environmental devastation and pollution in the form of pipes, smokestacks, and rusted shed metal.
This “Spider-Bot” is part of the WEB SLINGERS attraction storyline. They are helpers which run amok and begin self-replicating out of control. This one appears to have been shot with one of Spider-Mans webs and is disabled.
I found this split between slick corporate trade show and industrial machinery to be the most interesting design element of the land.
Stranger Things
One of the mistakes the Imagineers made, however, was to try and cram a bunch of different aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into this small themed area. To the right across the way from WEB SLINGERS is the Ancient Sanctum.
A version of the Disney Magic cruise ship stage show Doctor Strange: Journey into the Mystic Arts is performed here by a costumed cast member portraying the titular character from Doctor Strange (2016).
According to the official Imagineering backstory,
For as long as anyone can remember, rumors of unexplained events and energies have emanated from a remote location in the hills outside Los Angeles. In the late 1940s, a Stark Industries complex was built on the location. Decades later, Tony Stark invited Doctor Strange to the Avengers Campus to enlighten recruits about the mystic arts. Doctor Strange suspended the area’s cloaking spells and revealed the Ancient Sanctum to the world.
Okay. It’s pretty cool looking, but all it’s used for is a glorified character meet-n-greet. And its inclusion within the campus feels pretty forced.
The theming is pretty cool, but the whole thing comes off as both a missed opportunity and a franchise checkbox. There’s no narrative reason for Doctor Strange to be hanging out at the Avengers Campus. Given a more robust backstory or even an attraction, maybe. This is just a courtyard for character photo ops.
And one novelty photo. Off to one side is an optical illusion rendered on a tiled floor. Custom made for Instagram for sure. It just feels cheap, hokey.
Avengers Assemble (Eventually)
Like a bug’s land before it, Avengers Campus connects to Cars Land via a secondary entrance to the south. I do want to commend the designers here for their sense of transition. There’s a concrete wall that appears to have been broken through.
The wall with fencing is a perfect break from the theme guests are arriving from, forming a natural threshold and gateway to Avengers Campus.
It feels like a contemporary military bunker installation as opposed to the main entrance to the campus which focuses on the complex’s World War II roots.
The sitting vehicle as oversized prop, however, scans as lazy design. It’s a car with a logo and a paint job. This is a Universal Studios move and should be beneath the Imagineers.
Turning to the right from the Cars Land entrance, we find the Avengers Headquarters.
Is this an attraction? A restaurant? A themed shop?
None of the above. It’s an empty building where “You may encounter brave Super Heroes such as Iron Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Thor, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and The Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Back of house for future expansion, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.
Originally this was to be another banner attraction, an elaborate 4D dark ride or roller coaster to be built on a parcel of land used for cast parking and back of house facilities. It’s been put on hold, perhaps permanently.
The entry doors sit closed shut and unused.
Guardians of the ToT
Walking through Avengers Campus from its primary entrance, the first attraction to be Marvelized at California Adventure is actually the final one you encounter. Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! opened on May 27, 2017 as a re-theming of the park’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It’s based on characters from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).
Tower of Terror as seen from Condor Flats, 2008.
Tower of Terror was added to California Adventure in 2004 as a clone of the original attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Before the Carthay Circle Restaurant was built, you would see it from all sorts of vantages at the front side of the park.
I didn’t go on Mission Breakout! so I can’t speak to the interiors. The outside has basically been re-skinned in a kind of Art Deco-retro science fiction-steampunk (I’m not sure, as I haven’t seen the Guardians of the Galaxy movies). Some of the details like these new streetlights are well done.
Tiny Bites
Our last stop is at the land’s signature themed eatery, based on Ant-Man (2015) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). Once again, I had to look all this stuff up. Dr. Henry Jonathan "Hank" Pym is a scientist who invents a substance which can change size, and becomes Ant-Man.
Here at Avengers Campus, his Pym Test Kitchen resembles a scientific laboratory. Hank has been using his “Pym particles” to shrink and enlarge various foods.
There are some clever visual effects all around the space, like this factory assembly line of pretzels overhead.
Typical store-bought pretzels enter some kind of Pym particle device with glowing energy rays, and emerge on the other size enlarged (like the ones sold in the restaurant).
There is also some wit here, and a wink and a nod to the prior a bug’s land area. Ordinary condiment bottles are oversized. Have we been shrunk? Or did Dr. Pym make them larger?
Same with the self-serve soft drink counter. All the fluids appear to be supplied by massive cola cans mounted above. The graphics are all accurate and convincing.
The outside bar, Pym Tasting Lab, continues the theme, with a single massive beer can behind the taps.
Even the “drink responsibly” and “please recycle” labeling is replicated along with the bar code SKU.
One final touch. It’s a Disney Imagineering tradition that whenever an attraction or land is replaced or re-themed, some small elements of the prior design are kept as a reminder of the past. Here outside Pym Test Kitchen you can find what appear to be enlarged Christmas-style twinkle lights. They were originally installed in a bug’s land and have been retained.
I really wanted to like Avengers Campus. I like it when the designers succeed. But if I’m being honest the entire area was underwhelming. Nice little bits here and there, but great thematic design produces a gestalt effect—it should feel greater than the sum of its parts. I just don’t see a reason to return. And I don’t think this is due to my lack of familiarity with the Marvel movies and characters. I’ve enjoyed themed spaces and attractions all over the world where I didn’t have a deep love for the source material. The bottom line is good storytelling is good storytelling and superior design is superior design.
This concludes my nine part tour of all the changes made to Disney California Adventure, 2007–2021. Next up is everything new across the way at Disneyland Park and other parts of the resort.