This past week saw my semi-annual family outing to Disneyland, in honor of my oldest boy’s seventeenth birthday.

(If your seventeen-year-old consents to going to Disneyland with you, the only response is “yes.” This may well be the last time I enjoy Disneyland with my boy).

We had the usual time — it was a good day — and it was relaxed enough that we visited some out-of-the-way corners of the park, including the Marvel attractions that have been shoehorned in to the “Innoventions” pavilion … a kind of spare-parts collection on the rump side of Tomorrowland, occupying a building that hasn’t quite had a purpose since America Sings packed it in back in 1988. Now it’s full of Microsoft stuff and … of interest to me … artifacts from Marvel’s recent movies.

Front and center was the Iron Man Hall of Armor.

(photo by Collider)

I’d seen these suits when they made the tour at San Diego Comic-Con, but it was nice to get close to them in the sparsely-attended exhibit. There was a motion-capture gimmick where you could stand in line and seem to “suit up” in the armor on a large view screen. My boy started listing the obscene gestures he’d make were he to get on camera, so rather than have security tackle him, I contented myself with snapping an illicit photo of The Flash inside Tony Stark’s holy of holies and hustled everyone onto the next display …

… which was the Treasures of Asgard throne room.

From the outside, it looked like a short line-up to view various props from the movies. I remembered the big Asgard throne from Comic-Con a couple years ago, so I figured it was worth checking it out for my family, who liked the film.

Turns out that behind the doors were more prop exhibits and a little show. The voice of Anthony Hopkins gave us a potted history of Asgard and Midgard* (*Midgard = Earth), then a mole fogger and some disco light whisked us away to the Realm Eternal.

Yes … at the end of our Rainbow Bridge was one of those awkward autograph encounters with a Disney princess, but in this case the princess was a kid in a Thor suit (who did a fine job, but still — awkward). We snuck out while he was signing autographs for a couple kids who seemed convinced that they’d really gone to Asgard.

(Collider, again)

Overall, Marvel has little presence at Disneyland. It feels a bit like the characters are sleeping on the couch. But from little things do mighty exhibits grow, and Disney has a tradition of repurposing film props as attractions (in fact, one of the original “rides” when Disneyland opened in 1955 was a walk-through of sets from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea). In time I expect we’ll be able to experience Marvel rides at Disneyland, just as you can presently adventure along with Indiana Jones and Star Wars/Star Tours. My preference would be for Disneyland to level the nostalgic-but-underutilized Tom Sawyer’s Island and replace it with Marvel’s Manhattan.

In the meantime, Flash got to photobomb Odin’s throne room.

Good times.