Marvel’s Theme Park Origin Story: Comics, Contracts, and Coasters


Marvel’s Theme Park Origin Story: Comics, Contracts, and Coasters

 

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Hello and welcome to the Where In The Park Podcast! This is Kevin, and on this episode, I will be going over the history of Marvel Comics and the Universal Studios theme park additions featuring their characters, such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Doom, and more.

Before I get started, you should know that every episode of this podcast is brought to you by WhereInThePark.com, where you can purchase unofficial seek-and-find games for your favorite theme parks. We offer both physical and digital games, and among all of the parks we create games for, we have Universal Islands of Adventure, Disney California Adventure, and EPCOT, which are the three theme parks in the U.S.A. where you can find Marvel properties in the parks today. Get ready to know a theme park in a way you never imagined on your next visit when you play a Where In The Park game on your own schedule.

Okay, just in case you fast forwarded through my brief plug of WhereInThePark.com, I'll repeat that the three theme parks in the United States where you can find Marvel properties today are Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, and EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Florida, and they showed up in the parks in that order. In this episode, I will be covering the Universal Studios parks, with details about the Disney parks coming up in a future episode.

So, how did we end up with Marvel comic book theming at our theme parks? Of course, this is the Where In The Park podcast, and I like to start at the beginning, so... Let's do this.

The Very Beginning

In our episode that covered the history of Ferris Wheels from a few weeks ago, I started with the invention of the wheel, so this episode clearly needs to start with cave paintings found in Spain from 64,000 years ago, and don't even get me started on Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Codices of ancient Mesoamerican cultures.

Okay, I'm just messing around... let's skip ahead. 

The story of how Marvel would eventually come to exist more accurately starts with the creation of comic strips, back in 1895, followed by what some people call the first comic book in 1897. That comic strip turned book was Richard Felton Outcault's The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats, and it was published as a compilation of newspaper comic strips, but in book form. Many sources like to reference that the back cover of this book includes the words "Comic Book." We finally found an auction listing with photos of that book, which is much larger than what we would consider a standard comic book today, at 196 pages, but that back cover is actually an advertisement for other comedic books published by the G. W. Dillingham Company of New York: those books being Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, and Verdant Green. None of those books are what we would consider "comic books."

There was a monthly comic magazine, named Comic Monthly, which ran throughout the year in 1922, but it was also just a reprint of newspaper comic strips.

Some say that the first modern comic book was Funnies on Parade, which came out in 1933, as it was the first comic publication to be printed in the 6 5/8 x 10 1/4 inch format, which is the standard size used today. Others say that it didn't count, because it was a promotional giveaway, and therefore 1934's Famous Funnies, which was sold in newsstands, is also acknowledged as the original true comic book. Both Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies were created by the same guy, a man named Maxwell Charles Gaines.

Either way, in 1934 a former military man who went by Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson decided to get into publishing comics after seeing the success of Famous Funnies. He founded National Allied Publications, and in February of 1935 he released New Fun #1, which was the first "comic magazine" to consist of 100% original material. It wasn't comic book-sized though, it was a larger tabloid-size, similar to the newspapers that comic strips were running in. This "New Fun" series only ran for 6 issues, but that issue #6, which would be released in October of 1935, included the work of two newly hired employees, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, they created two sections in the book, one about a character named "Henri Duval" and the other, "Doctor Occult." 

In 1936, National Allied Publications started printing a series that went by the name "New Comics," which ditched the tabloid size of the "New Fun" series for the "Funnies on Parade" size, which again is still the standard size for a comic book. 

In March of 1937, Allied Publications would rebrand after the Major ran out of money and took on new business partners: Harry Donnenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. That's when they formed a new company named Detective Comics, Inc., which corresponded with a new comic series of the same name that they started publishing. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster produced the story "Spy" that appeared in Detective Comics #1.

In the book Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangers, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones, the author explains that it was some time in early 1938 when Donenfeld removed the Major from Detective Comics by pushing the company into bankruptcy after sending the Major and his wife on a cruise to Cuba. Apparently Harry was friends with a judge, and it sounds like the coup to overtake the Major's companies didn't take too much work. In the end, Liebowitz would buy the assets and become the sole owner of both National Allied Publications and Detective Comics, but both he and Harry were now in charge of those companies.

Liebowitz would come up with the title for the next series of comic books, and with the recommendations of editor Vin Sullivan and artist Sheldon Mayer, he selected Siegel and Shuster to create what would become their most famous comic book character. That character would appear on the cover of the first issue of that new series, Action Comics, when it came out in April of 1938. If you haven't put it together yet, they created Superman. 

Now, Superman wasn't technically the first comic hero with super-human powers, but he was the first to become a global phenomenon, and, really, we likely wouldn't still be using the term "super hero" without Jerry and Joe having created him.

The following year, in May of 1939, writer Bill Finger and illustrator Bob Kane would introduce another famous comic book character in Detective Comics #27, and yeah, that was Batman.

Now, I know what you're thinking... Kevin, we're here to learn about Marvel, but it sounds like we're just covering the history of DC Comics instead...

Things Get Timely

Okay, you caught me... But, you're in luck, because the year that Batman was introduced to the world, again that's 1939, was the same year that a man named Martin Goodman transitioned from writing his own pulp stories, to creating his comic book company, Timely Publications. It was October of 1939 when he released his first comic book: Marvel Comics #1. That first book introduced versions of the characters The Human Torch, who at the time was an android that could control fire, credited to Carl Burgos, and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, credited to Bill Everett.

I should also point out that a sixteen-year-old guy named Stanley Lieber was an early hire at Timely. He was a cousin of Martin Goodman's wife, and he was brought in as a general office assistant, not too long after he had graduated from high school in 1939. 

In December of 1940, writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby released a new series for Timely Comics named Captain America, the cover is dated March 1941. The cover of that issue introduced the character Captain America to the world, showing him punching Adolph Hitler in the face. Keep in mind, this came out several months before the December attack at Pearl Harbor that resulted in the United States entering World War II.

After the success of that first issue of Captain America, Stanley Lieber was assigned as Simon and Kirby's editorial assistant. He would go on to write some text filler in Captain America issue #3, published May 1941, it was titled "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge," and that's where he introduced the pen name that we all know him by: Stan Lee. Apparently, he was worried if he used his real name, he would never be able to get real work as a writer.

It was also around this time that Joe Simon, the writer for Captain America, who was also the lead editor for Timely, left the company. After he left, Goodman assigned Stan Lee the job of interim editor.

Also, in 1944, starting with issue #55 of Marvel Mystery Comics, a shell company publishing Timely Comics was named Marvel Comics. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Timely also published books with the words "A Marvel Magazine" on the cover. And, in 1948, they began to identify the comic division of Timely as Marvel Comic Group, but the name wasn't changed legally.

And, well, at the beginning of the 1940s, superhero comics were very popular, but by the time World War II ended, popular opinion of comic book superheroes dipped. In the early 1950s, Timely began creating comic books based on war-related themes, often tying in with the Korean War.

From Timely to Atlas

In 1951, Goodman stopped exclusively using the comic distributor he had been working with, Kable News, and began using a distribution company named Atlas News Company, which he apparently owned. Comic books starting in November 1951 had their publisher name changed from Timely to... Atlas Comics. They would branch out to romance, horror, Westerns, and whatever else seemed like it might be popular, but the new books just weren't selling as well as they had been.

There was an attempt to bring back superhero comic books from late 1953 to mid-1954, with dedicated comic books released for the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. They only lasted a few issues, because well...

There are a few books out there, like Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe, that go into detail about the drama at Timely and Atlas, and about the trouble that the comic book businesses faced in the 1940s and 50s. I'll skip some of the internal company drama, but you should know that during the 1940s, there was a moral panic that started in the United States that focused on comic books as the cause of juvenile delinquency. This led to comic book burnings around the country, and comic books being blamed for any kind of bad behavior or crime committed by children and teens. 

In the book, there's a story about a comic book artist who tried to donate a box of signed comic books to his child's school for a fundraiser, but the box was returned, and he was recommended to burn them instead. The paranoia was real and widespread.

In 1954, again, the same year Atlas tried to revive super hero comics, a psychiatrist named Frederic Wertham published a book named Seduction of the Innocent. On page one, the publisher's note lays out that Wertham's book was the result of "seven years of scientific investigation," and that it was thoroughly documented by facts and cases to lead to the author's "opinion on the effects that comic books have on the minds and behavior of children who come in contact with them." He was specifically talking about comic books that depict crime, whether the setting is "urban, Western, science-fiction, jungle, adventure or the realm of the supermen, 'horror' or supernatural beings."

I believe it's Sean Howe's book that talks about the absurdity of the conclusions made in Wertham's book, where at the time, comic books were so popular that trying to link the behavior of a few delinquents to their having read comic books could have just as easily been associated with their having chewed bubble gum. But public opinion didn't care about the fact that correlation doesn't imply causation.

So, later that year, still 1954, the Comic Magazine Association of America, which Goodman and other comic publishers were members of, would reveal the Comics Code Authority (CCA). This was in response to the possibility of government regulation, where, instead, a group was created that would regulate comic book content, but it was strict. It regulated the types of stories that could be told, and the words that couldn't be used in the titles of comic books. Some of those words include: Crime, Horror, Terror, and though it wasn't in the official code, according to a former comic book creator, even the word Weird wasn't allowed.

Some say that the rules were so bad, it was like every comic book needed to only have content acceptable to be read by children under twelve, with no exceptions. It wasn't like comic books had devised a grading system, like how movies and later video games would eventually have, they only had a seal of approval from the CCA. And, comic books without that seal likely wouldn't receive advertisers, nor space on shelves to be sold in the first place.

In this environment, the comic book industry was able survive, with fewer book burnings, but it was also kind of starting to fall apart.

Atlas, specifically, would lay off many of its staff, artists, and writers. There are stories of Stan Lee, who was chief editor by this time, having to routinely let people go, because the comic book division just wasn't making the money that it used to. Oh yeah, I don't think I've mentioned it, but by this point, Atlas Comics was actually a smaller division of a company named Magazine Management Co., Inc. They mostly printed risqué men's magazines, but they kept making the lower-revenue-generating comic books as well.

To make matters worse, in 1957, Goodman shut down his distribution company and moved distribution to the American News Company, which promptly went out of business. In a panic, a not-so-great deal was made with a company named Independent News, which allowed Atlas to only publish eight titles per month. Independent was actually owned by National Periodical Publications, which owned and published DC comics.

Marvel Era Begins

Moving on, I don't recall finding a good reason for the change, other than to compete with the circle and DC letters found on their competitor's comic books, but in June of 1961, Journey into Mystery #69 and Patsy Walker #95 were both released with a small box on the top-right section of their covers under the date and issue number. In that box were the letters "MC," printed with the letter M above the C, to identify them as Marvel Comics. Really, it was a very subtle change.

There is a story I read about how Goodman, again that's the guy who started Timely and now owned Magazine Management Co. and its newly renamed Marvel Comics, well he had a conversation while golfing with Jack Liebowitz, the guy who owned DC, or National Periodical Publications as it was called at the time, and Jack shared how successful their new Justice League of America comics had been. If you aren't familiar with DC's Justice League, it's a comic book series with several of the main superheroes that DC had been known for, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and so on. And, well, Martin went to Stan Lee and told him their company needed to create a new comic series around a group of superheroes.

It was at this time though, when Stan Lee was one of the few people working in the office, with artists and writers working from home and stopping by once or twice a week to drop off their work, and Stan had mostly decided to quit. The story is that his wife, Joan, had talked him into creating the new group-based comic book, and that Stan should do it his own way... Because what's the worst that Goodman could do to him? Fire him?

So, as the story goes, Stan got a hold of Jack Kirby, you know, the artist who designed Captain America, and they discussed the idea for a group of superheroes... And together, they assembled... The Fantastic Four. November 1961's Fantastic Four #1 is considered the beginning of the Silver Age of comics for Marvel, with everything before this comic book being considered the Golden Age. It was not a traditional super hero comic book for its time, at all. If you're familiar with the brand, they just had a new movie that came out last summer, I'm recording this in April of 2026, well then you already know the personalities and behaviors of the characters, where they're kinda moody, and don't always love having powers. 

Also, they weren't even drawn in costumes until issue #3, and that was only in response to letters from fans asking why they weren't in costumes and/or the marketing department wanting a unique look to sell.

I should point out that Marvel comics where made with what Stan Lee referred to as the "Marvel Method." The way they would make comic books during the Stan Lee days was he, or sometimes other writers, would discuss an outline for what they wanted for to the plot of the comic book to be, and then the artists would lay out the panels and scenes based on their understanding of the plot, and fill in any story gaps from their own imaginations. Then, the writer, often Stan Lee, would add text to the speech bubbles with whatever they thought the dialogue should be after the art was made.

Okay, so after the success of the Fantastic Four, Stan Lee, along with Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Gene Colan, Don Heck, Don Rico, and more would spend the 1960s creating some enduring heroes.

This includes The Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Ant-Man and Iron Man in 1962. Then there was Nick Fury, Wasp, Doctor Strange, The X-Men, and The Avengers in 1963. Followed by The Scarlet Witch, Daredevil, Black Widow, and Hawkeye in 1964, The Inhumans in 1965, The Silver Surfer and Black Panther in 1966, and Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel (pronounced Mar-Vell) in 1967.

Also in 1967, Marvel would branch out beyond comic books by licensing novel rights to Bantam Books. They first published The Avengers Battle the Earth Wrecker by Otto Binder that year.

Another thing that happened in 1967, Spider-Man, an animated series, premiered. It would run for three seasons.

In 1968, Martin Goodman finally revised the not-so-great distribution arrangement they had with Independent News, and then sold Marvel Comics and its parent company (Magazine Management) to Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation, but Goodman stayed on with the company for a few more years. 

In 1969, the deal with Independent was terminated, and future Marvel comics were distributed by Curtis Circulation Company, a company that had just been purchased by Perfect Film.

In 1972, Goodman retired, with his son Chip taking over the role, and Stan Lee became the Director of Marvel Comics. That same year, Marvel was more successful than DC Comics for the first time.

Let's Talk About DC

Talking about DC, let's have a quick update here on the state of DC comics around that period. They'll come up again in a moment, and it's worth knowing these details. Back in 1966 a conglomerate named Kinney National Company was formed when two seemingly unrelated companies merged, those were Kinney Parking Company and National Cleaning Contractors. The following year they acquired National Periodical Publications, which, as we have already covered, was the company that was publishing DC comics. 

Two years later, in 1969, Kinney purchased a film company that was on the brink of bankruptcy, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. In 1972, there was a price fixing scandal that came to light about Kinney's parking operations, so they spun off the parking division as National Kinney Corporation, and rebranded the entertainment division as Warner Communications Inc. So, this is how we ended up with a Warner company that owned the rights to not only the Looney Tunes cartoon characters, but also every DC comic book character. 

So yeah, Warner Bros. didn't actually acquire DC Comics directly, a parking company and a cleaning company merged and then bought the company that owned DC, and then bought the company that owned Warner, and then smushed them together... Crazy.

How Did Marvel Expand Beyond Comics

Continuing on with Marvel, in 1973, that Perfect Film & Chemical company was renamed to Cadence Industries, and Magazine Management was officially renamed Marvel Comics Group. I assume the risqué men's magazines were no longer part of the company.

In 1977, both The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk tv shows premiered on CBS. The Incredible Hulk would run for five seasons, ending in 1982, while Spider-Man was canceled after its second season.

By 1986, Cadence Industries was liquidated, and Marvel Entertainment Group was sold to New World Pictures.

Also in 1986, George Lucas and Universal released what is considered Marvel's first feature film, a live-action movie based on Marvel's character Howard the Duck, but it did not do well. Apparently, Howard the Duck was a very popular character for Marvel at the time, and Lucas had originally intended for the character to be the star of an animated film, but Universal wanted a live-action film from Lucas, so they went for it. From what I've read, neither George Lucas nor Universal had actually bought the licensing rights from Marvel, instead they partnered with them on this movie. After it bombed, they never tried to get the rights to Howard the Duck, so Marvel still owns those.

And one more for 1986, Marvel sold the film rights to the Fantastic Four to a German production company named Constantin Film for an estimated $250,000. More about that in a second.

In 1988, a follow-up to the Hulk tv series, a made-for-tv movie titled The Incredible Hulk Returns, aired on NBC.

In 1989, New World released a low-budget film they shot in Australia based on the character Punisher, starring Dolph Lundgren as that title character. It didn't do great in the theaters. Later in 1989, New World sold Marvel to Andrews Group, which was a division of an investment group named MacAndrews and Forbes, which was owned by a man named Ronald Perelman. New World would eventually be acquired by News Corporation in 1997, the parent company of 20th Century Fox.

 

In 1990, Marvel would team up with trading card maker Skybox International, who were going by the name Impel at the time, to create their first set of trading cards: Marvel Universe Cards. And, honestly, when I was growing up, other than a hand-me-down oversized toy of Fantastic Four's The Thing I had as a five-year-old, and a general awareness of Spider-Man being a thing, these trading cards were my introduction to Marvel comics. 

I still remember pulling my first Stan Lee "Mr. Marvel" card from a pack, and not understanding what I was looking at. The front of the card shows a mustached man with a smile, but his face is decorated with what looks like part of Spider-Man's mask, Captain America's helmet, Silver Surfer's face, and he's wearing a tiny cowboy hat on one side of his head, and what looks like a small devil horn on the other. Luckily, the back of the card explains that this is an actual human, with a photo of his face without all of the extra ornamentation. It puts it pretty simply, that along with some of the most talented artists in the comics biz, Stan Lee created virtually the entire Marvel Universe. It also mentions that his first appearance in a Marvel comic was Fantastic Four #10.

But anyway, where was I...

Oh yes, in 1991, Ronald Perelman took Marvel public, meaning it was now its own separate company, publicly traded on the stock exchange.

The following year, X-Men: The Animated Series premiered on Fox Kids, it was a huge hit and introduced the X-Men, and Marvel in general, to a whole new generation.

Universal Wants a Comic Book Land

Okay, now for the moment you've all been waiting for... It was in 1994 that Marvel signed a deal with Universal Studios for exclusive rights to the majority of their characters and stories to be used in their theme parks.

There was a show named Marvel Super Heroes Showdown that was performed in the streets of the New York area of Universal Studios Florida from 1993 to 1995, with the majority of the show taking place over where the Jimmy Fallon Race to New York attraction is today. 

But, as for the bigger plan for Marvel at Universal Orlando, let's take a quick step back. We have covered in past podcast episodes about how Universal Studios got into the theme park business in California in 1964, and later expanded to Orlando with a studios theme park that opened in 1990. It was around a year later when Jay Stein, the guy in charge of the Universal Parks back then, held a meeting about building a second park in Orlando. As time went on, this project became known inside the company as Cartoon World, or maybe Tooniversal, it depends on who you ask. Either way, we touched on this concept a little in our episode about Grinchmas, because this original idea eventually evolved into what we now know as the Universal Islands of Adventure theme park.

But, early concepts for that park included not just lands based on the characters of Dr. Seuss, and Dudley-Do-Right, and Popeye. No, they also had lands in their designs based on Warner Bros. characters, including separate lands for Looney Tunes and DC Comics.

For the topic of today's episode, the Super Hero Land was going to be split between the worlds of Superman and Batman. Now, I didn't cover it here, but Superman had a series of four movies starring Cristopher Reeve that had come out between 1978 and 1987, and yes, the fourth movie wasn't a smash hit, but everyone in the world knew who Superman was. And then, in 1989, Tim Burton's Batman, starring Michael Keaton, was a huge box office hit. There had also been Superman and Batman tv shows over the past 40 years by this point. In the early 90s, the film Batman Returns, and the tv shows Batman: The Animated Series, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman had likely started production around the time these decisions were being made.

The Batman section of the land had designs for a Bat Wing-themed roller coaster, a 4-D live action film attraction, and a Batman & Robin Action Adventure Spectacular stunt show, as well as themed restaurants and shops. While the Superman side would include a simulator ride, Lex Luther's Villains Club, which was supposed to be a fine-dining restaurant, and more shops.

There would also be a Super Hero Stadium, which from the description seems like an area full of midway-style games based on characters from the Justice League.

And well, as the story goes, everything fell apart between Universal and Warner because of a disagreement on the royalty for character merchandise. Now, this story has been told many times, but I believe it first appeared in Sam Gennaway's book Universal vs. Disney, which was published in 2014. The idea is that Warner went into the negotiations wanting a 10% royalty, while Universal informed them that royalty would be 6%. Warner, countered with 8%, to meet both parties in the middle. But, the executives at MCA-Universal at the time, specifically COO Sidney Sheinberg, decided that he was insulted by that response, and declared that Universal didn't need Warner's characters. And, then they were out. Also, though, in 1991, Warner Bros. purchased Six Flags, and by 1992 they had opened Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Great America, which is located just north of Chicago. As far as I know, they would go on to add DC character linked rides to every Six Flags park.

Either way, Universal changed the focus of the new park from Cartoon World, adding a new Port of Entry, a Lost Continent section, a Jurassic Park land, and well, they began talks with another comic book company...

If you hear most people talk about the contract that Marvel signed with Universal, it's pretty unanimous that Marvel didn't do a great job in the negotiations. Now, I want to preface this by pointing out that I'm not a lawyer, and I'm just reporting what others are saying. For example, over at the website for Northern Kentucky Law Review, there is a post about this contract. They explain that it grants Universal exclusive and perpetual use of the Marvel characters as long as Universal opened the Marvel-theme land within a required time period, which they did, and the agreement should continue as long as that land remains open. After the land opened in 1999, Universal then had exclusive right to create new attractions and lands based on Marvel characters at its other theme parks for two years.

Interesting side note, Universal Studios Hollywood actually had a Marvel-themed restaurant named Marvel Mania, we mentioned it in our episode about Jack Pierce's tribute in the park, because the shop where that is located is roughly where that restaurant had been located. That restaurant, though, was only open from February of 1998 to September of 1999, meaning that it was only in the park for less than four months after Islands of Adventure opened on May 28th, 1999. While that restaurant was running, Hollywood had costumed Marvel characters in the park, and they would actually stick around until the end of 2007.

But yeah, there was a stipulation that after those two years, if Universal didn't have Marvel characters in their other parks, which when the contract was written only included Universal Studios in Hollywood, the exclusivity rights in the United States would only count toward locations east of the Mississippi River. 

I have read that the Marvel restaurant closed because of issues with Planet Hollywood, which was involved with creating and running the restaurant, and it didn't close due to a lack of popularity. It is strange, though, that Universal didn't try to put Marvel somewhere else in the park to be able to keep the rights. I have read that part of the issue was also the management changes that had occurred from when the deal was signed, to the new park opening, and those two years being up. Specifically, that includes the 1995 purchase of Universal from the beverage company Seagrams, followed by the merger with a French media conglomerate named Canal+ in 2000 to form Vivendi Universal. This, allegedly, resulted in some questionable internal decisions, including simply not paying Marvel to keep the rights west of the Mississippi.

But either way, that's where the rights for Marvel characters at theme parks in the United States still stand today.

It should be noted though, that which characters specifically Universal has exclusive rights to is a little complicated. You see, the characters that are to be exclusively "used by Universal" include characters, or members of the same family of characters, that are used as major characters in an attraction, show up as a costumed character, or are featured as more than just trivial theming on a retail or food location. Any members of superhero teams, or villains associated with a hero, are considered part of a "family" of characters.

This means that Universal owns the theme park rights to characters currently in Islands of Adventure's Marvel Super Hero Island, but Marvel owns the theme park rights to characters outside of those families. The problem, of course, is that the Marvel Universe is so intertwined, it can sometimes be hard to tell where each family starts and ends.

What we do know is that Marvel Super Hero Island officially opened with Islands of Adventure on May 28th, 1999. At that time, the land included the attractions The Incredible Hulk Coaster,  Doctor Doom's Fearfall, and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. They would add Storm Force Accelatron exactly one year later. There have been some updates to those attractions over there years, including a change to the storyline on the Incredible Hulk Coaster, and an update to the visuals on Spider-Man, but for the most part, the land has been set in the comic book world of the late 1990s for coming up on twenty-seven years.

As we're recording, I believe Universal can legally include Marvel characters from those "super hero families" in any of their Universal Orlando parks, but I'm pretty sure Marvel would have to agree to whatever additions they would want to make. These days, that would likely be very difficult... Because, spoiler alert, in 2009, the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel for $4 billion dollars in cash and stock.

We'll save the rest of that story for a future episode.

What You'll Find at Marvel Super Hero Island

As for Marvel Super Hero Island at the Universal Orlando resort, several characters from different "families" of super heroes exist there, and Universal will continue to own those rights for as long as the land exists, unless Disney can either convince Universal to transfer those rights (probably with a large sum of money), or if they can convince a judge that the representations in that park tarnish the Marvel brand, which I don't see Universal letting happen. For example, they updated the Spider-Man ride in 2012, after the Disney purchase, with 4K high-definition video, along with new animations, and some new touches, and they definitely keep up on the paint on the buildings and the operation of the rides.

As for what you'll find in the park, I should point out that pretty much all of the comic book companies that I have talked about have been headquartered in New York City. Also, what set Marvel apart from DC back in the day was that they set their stories in the real world, instead of made up cities like Metropolis and Gotham, and the majority of their stories took place in the city where the writers and artists lived, New York. This is why Marvel Super Hero Island is designed to look like you are walking into a comic book-stylized version of New York, with cartoony-looking skyscrapers everywhere. 

Also, according to the official Universal Orlando website, a fun fact about this land is that the buildings are covered in a special paint that changes color as sunlight hits them from different angles.

Among those sky scrapers are larger than life artwork cutouts of famous super heroes and villains. All of the characters were drawn by comic book artist Adam Kubert. He had begun his career in 1977 at DC Comics, but eventually found his way over to Marvel in 1993.

Many of the characters at Islands of Adventure has his first name, Adam, hidden somewhere on the character. Examples of where you can find one on the arm of Captain America, another on the cape and foot of Magneto, the base of Professor X's wheelchair, and on a foot of Wolverine. He also snuck his son's name, Max, onto the foot of Iceman. Can you find them all?

Iceman, by the way, is found in front of the ice cream shop near the end of the land, if you had started from the Port of Entry, and the design of the building is based on the Guggenheim Museum.

There was another flat piece of art based on that building that used to be over at the Universal Studios side, over in the corner where Rip Ride Rockit used to make its turn back toward to the park after going through the old Ghostbusters building. I believe it was removed while they were dismantling Rip Ride Rockit, and it's still down while they're working on the new Fast and Furious Hollywood Drift. We'll have to wait and see if it comes back.

And well, I don't know New York well enough to pin point any of the other buildings. So, please join our free private Facebook group, Where In The Park Explorers, if you know what any of the other buildings are inspired by.

Moving on, there is a section across the street from the entrance to the Spider-Man ride that has large yellow spires coming out of the ground with artwork of several different Marvel characters on them. We have seen multiple people describe this area as the location where a meteor landed and formed Marvel Super Hero Island. 

But yeah, there are fun nods included on signs throughout the island. There is one for Stark Industries from Iron Man, and another for Osborn Industries from Spider-Man. Daredevil has a few easter eggs, including a large sign for Nelson Murdock Attorneys at Law, Fogwell's Gym which is where Daredevil trained in the comics, Gladiator Costume Shop, which is a reference to the character The Gladiator, who was a costume designer in the Daredevil comics.

There is also a building for Blaze and Ketch Mechanics, which is a reference to Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch, which are two of the alter egos for the character Ghost Rider.

Walking around the island, you'll find CrimeLine, Ultranet and Doomnet devices, where you can listen in on super hero and villain conversations. We have heard that there used to be more of them than there are today, but there are some still there, hopefully they're still working on your next visit. Also, apparently there are some speakers in the drains, I don't know if they're always running though.

 

There is also an interesting hidden easter egg that you can only see from a walkway over by the Popeye-themed Me Ship the Olive. There is a building with steps leading into the water of the central lagoon of the park, with the name "MacKenzie" along the top of a doorway. That is a reference to Namor, the Sub-Mariner, whose full name in the comics is Namor McKenzie, with his father being a human named Leonard McKenzie.

Beyond the easter eggs, there are said to be at least fifty different Marvel characters represented in one way or another in the land.

We have heard that you can ask for a free villains tour... But only if they have enough staff to give tour. We have never attempted this, so we can neither confirm nor deny that it's real. If you have ever gone on this villains' tour, let us know.

Also, we should mention in 2002, when Universal held their Halloween Horror nights at Islands of Adventure, they had a haunted house based on Carnage, the villain from the Spider-Man comics, named Maximum Carnage. While the land itself was a scare zone: Island Under Siege, where the super heroes had been defeated and the super villain, still Carnage, but also his minions, were now in charge.

The following years, they still turned the hero island into a scare zone, but with generic themes instead of Marvel themes.

Also, when the park first opened, Marvel and Universal published a single issue of a comic book named Marvel Super Hero Island. It included an introduction from Stan Lee, where he expressed his opinion that the most exciting part of "Universal Studios Islands of Adventure" is Marvel Super Hero Island. Which makes sense. It also included a quick introduction to three main Marvel characters that would have their own attractions in the park: Dr. Doom, Incredible Hulk, and Spider-Man. There were some special edition collector's pack sets that sold this otherwise free comic book with a set of trading cards and pin, those cards also included Dr. Doom, Incredible Hulk, and Spider-Man, but added The Thing and Captain America. Each card included a small photo of the cover of the comic book that each character first appeared in, along with stats about that character, and a brief description. 

 

As for the stories in the comic book, the first story was named "Scream," and it starred Dr. Doom and his Doombots versus the Fantastic Four. It ends with a cliffhanger, where Dr. Doom has revealed that his plan is to convert fear into pure energy using his Doctor Doom Fearfall towers...

The next story, "Monsters among us!," is about the Incredible Hulk battling a gamma-transformed General William Rigby. It starts with the two of them fighting, then has a flash-back to twenty minutes earlier, when the General tries to rush Bruce Banner in creating some kind of gamma ray device. The General hits his hand on a console, and everyone gets infected with gamma, and soon after the fight begins just as Bruce has almost gotten everyone into a decontamination chamber. Obviously, Bruce transforms into the Hulk, and eventually he gets the gamma-infected General into the chamber, and successfully decontaminates everyone before leaping away to the desert. The last panel shows him walking off to the horizon, with an image in the bottom-right corner that reads "Never The End!" 

The final story is "Shocked by Doc Ock!", which is all about Spider-Man versus the Sinister Syndicate. It starts with Hobgoblin, Scream, Electro, and Hydro-man stealing a vault from a bank. As expected, all of these characters appear in the Spider-Man ride. The story takes us to the Daily Bugle; unfortunately, the building in the comic does not match the building in the park, but we do get the traditional storyline about how J. Jonah Jameson does not like Spider-Man, and Peter Parker works for him. The story continues with a new reporter for the Daily Bugle checking out what's going on at Powertek's Long Island Research Facility, where we see Doctor Octopus, or Doc Ock, attacking an employee there. Spider-Man comes in to fight off the villain, but he gets away with fusion cells and a levitation ray. Meanwhile, the reporter learns that Spider-Man is actually a hero, despite what Jameson has said about him. That's where that story ends, and like all of these short stories, the ride, continues the story.

As for the attractions themselves, other than the Spider-Man ride, they are only loosely themed. The Incredible Hulk Coaster has some videos, like we mentioned earlier, and references to Thadeus Ross, aka Thunderbolt Ross. It also features music by Patrick Stump from Fallout Boy. The coaster itself, was manufactured by a company known as B&M, though the inclined tire launch was designed by Universal Creative and MTS Systems Corporation.

And Dr. Doom's Fearfall has some fun animated effects in the queue, along with some chatty Doombots, but it's just an off the shelf pneumatic "Space Shot" drop ride by S&S Worldwide. It's 185 feet tall, and shoots you upwards at 40 miles per hour. When you exit the ride, it takes you into Kingpin's Arcade, where you will pass a plush chair in a cage. We found a Reddit post where the discussion over there mentioned that it is supposed to be Dr. Doom's thrown, and that there was a time when a costumed Dr. Doom character would sit in the seat and wave to people as they walked off his ride. One commenter mentioned that the chair had actually belonged to Stan Lee, and was given to Universal by his wife Joan, because she thought it was ugly. I don't know if that's true, but I like it.

And also, the courtyard in front of the attraction has some fun Easter eggs, including some of those signs we already mentioned, plus super hero splat marks on the ground of what appear to have silhouettes of the Fantastic Four.

The Storm Accelatron was added a year after the park opened, and it is based on the X-Men character Storm. It has some wind and light effects, but is mostly just a teacup-style spinner ride by a company named Mack Rides.

That Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, though, is a hybrid of a motion simulator and a ride vehicle-based attraction, which also uses videos on huge screens to tell the majority of the story. The vehicles are similar in concept to the EMV, enhanced motion vehicles, that were created by MTS Systems for Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure, but these were actually designed by a company named Oceaneering International. If you haven't been to Islands of Adventure, but have been to one of the studios parks, the technology was used again in the Transformers attractions at those parks on both coasts.

As for this ride experience, you enter the Daily Bugle building, which is where Spider-Man's secret identity Peter Parker works as a photographer in the comic books. The design is supposed to make you feel like you are in a comic book, with many of the props painted grey, not meaning to look like real life. When you get to the ride itself, you enter a "scoop" vehicle, and go through New York as villains cause havoc, and Spider-Man saves the day. 

Stan Lee actually makes a few cameo appearances in the ride. We have read that there are four times he shows up, be we have only been able to catch three of them. Near the beginning of the ride, Lee appears as garbage truck driver that you're about to have a head-on collision with, so he's easy not to miss. His next appearance is on a date heading into a movie theater while Doc Ock attacks, that theater is named Excelsior, which was one of Stan Lee's catchphrases. And the last one we can find is right after Spider-Man saves you with his webs as you're falling from a skyscraper, Lee is right in front of you seeming only a little concerned for your safety. If you have a photo of that fourth appearance, please share it with us!

Also, his voice can be heard telling you to exit the vehicle at the end of the ride.

Check out this 4K ride-through from Jeneric Adventures on YouTube!

The ride itself was designed by a team lead by Scott Trowbridge, who would go on to design the Revenge of the Mummy and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey for Universal Studios. In 2007 he moved over to Walt Disney Imagineering, as Senior Creative Executive, where one of his biggest projects was Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

We should also point out that January 23rd, 2004, the same Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride opened at Universal Studios Japan, a few years after that park opened in 2001. It is believed that the attraction was licensed under its own separate contract, and that it was set to expire 20 years after the ride opened. The ride closed January 22nd, 2024, which seems to have confirmed this, and the truth is that we don't know which side, Universal or Disney, chose not to extend the contract. But, this could eventually open the doors to Tokyo Disneyland Resort getting Marvel-themed attractions in the near future, we'll have to wait and see.

And well, as far as we know, that covers everything about Marvel at Universal Studios. If there is anything we missed, please send us a DM on our social media, you can find us @WhereInThePark on Facebook and Instagram, or join our free private Facebook group, Where In The Park Explorers.

If you had a good time, and/or learned something new from this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to let others know about the fun we're having over here at the Where In The Park Podcast.

And well, this has been Kevin from Where In The Park, until next time, we'll see you somewhere in the park.

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