Disneyland's Avengers Campus puts Marvel fans in action with Spider-Man, Wakanda warriors

• Avengers Campus opens June at Disney California Adventure Park, part of Disneyland Resort.
• The new land was built on 6 acres and more than 70 years of Marvel history.
• Guests can see superheroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Black Widow and train to be heroes too.

Sling a web like Spider-Man and help the superhero defeat replicating spider bots attempting to take over Avengers Campus. Train to be a member of the Warriors of Wakanda, or help Dr. Strange as he tries to protect a gold ring from villains.

These are just a few of the things guests of Disney California Adventure Park will be able to do when they enter Avengers Campus, which opens in Anaheim on Friday.

The experiential land offers guests the chance to not just meet their superheroes but to be superheroes.

Avengers Campus was built on 70-plus years of Marvel superhero characters and stories and 23 movies and was a collaboration among many disciplines within Walt Disney Imagineering.

“This has been a global storytelling effort,” said Scot Drake, portfolio executive director for Walt Disney Imagineering.

“We are telling these stories at a scale we’ve never been able to do before,” Drake said Wednesday morning during a media preview of Avengers Campus.

In designing the new land, it was a question of “what is the best way to get our guests right in the middle of those stories, right in the middle of that action,” Drake said.

The 6-acre land, situated between the Hyperion Theatre and Cars Land, is where California Adventure guests will find all their superheroes, including Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Spider-Man and others.

Avengers, Spider-Man, other Disneyland attractions

At the center of it all is “WEB Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure,” where Imagineers used new technology to allow guests to sling webs.

Guests board the ride through campus headquarters where they find Peter Parker amid an experiment gone wrong as spider bots replicate all around him.

“All you need to wear as a guest is 3D glasses, and then we have an onboard interface that is able to track your hand motions. So all you need to do to sling a web is sling your arm forward, and in real time, we’re able to create a virtual web coming straight out of your hand … just like Spider-Man,” said Walt Disney Imagineer Brent Strong, executive creative director for development of Avengers Campus.

The interactive ride takes guests on a mission with Spider-Man to save Avengers Campus from one of the WEB (Worldwide Engineering Brigade) experiments gone wrong.

The campus offers a variety of other opportunities to join superhero teams. The Warriors of Wakanda are on special assignment to find recruits to protect the king, Black Panther. Recruits must have honor, strength, courage and compassion to join the warriors.

Nearby, Dr. Strange is at the Ancient Sanctum looking for people with magical abilities to join his team. 

A Quin Jet, seen for the first time in the end credits of “Avengers End Game,” is parked atop the Avengers Headquarters where, throughout the day, guests will find some of their superheroes battling villains.

The Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout thrill ride is also part of Avengers Campus.

“This is a massive assemblage of heroes,” said Dan Field with Disney Live Entertainment.

Disneyland Avengers Campus food

The Disney culinary team brought stories into the food served in Avengers Campus, at Pym Test Kitchen and Shawarma Palace, said Michele Gendreau, director of food and beverage for Disneyland.

Pym Test Kitchen is based on Ant-Man and the Wasp. The culinary team created a menu that will make guests think that everything on their plate has been either supersized or shrunk.

“We have had much success with how we relate the food and beverage experience with the story,” Gendreau said.

As an example, there’s a huge “impossible meatball,” served on top of very small pasta served with a tiny fork inside a giant spoon.

Guests don’t need to have seen any of the “Avengers” movies to enjoy the new land.

“We designed this with everybody in mind,” Strong, who grew up in the Coachella Valley, told The Desert Sun, part of the USA TODAY Network, in an interview. “So if this is your first time encountering these characters, this is a great introduction and hopefully it inspires you to want to learn more about them.”

For die-hard fans, lots of Easter eggs have been hidden throughout Avengers Campus that only they can find and appreciate, he said.

“There’s really something for everybody,” Strong said.

When does Avengers land open?

Avengers Campus opens Friday, though Disneyland is currently limited to in-state residents. Disneyland Resort will reopen to out-of-state guests June 15. 

Because of the pandemic, tickets and reservations must be secured in advance to attend California Adventure or Disneyland and can be purchased online at Disneyland.com.