When you think of getting scared at Halloween, you probably don’t think of Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure theme park, or how the Marvel Universe could get scary. However, several years before Disney bought Marvel and later incorporated it into their theme parks’ Halloween celebrations, Universal Studios spooked up the House of Ideas, with some terrifying results.
“Halloween Horror Nights” is a well known seasonal attraction to theme park fans. Starting in 1991 at Universal Studios Orlando (then in Universal Studios Hollywood six years later and the rest of Universal’s worldwide theme parks over the next few years), the seasonal ticketed event is a much scarier and more mature counterpoint to Disney’s “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party” or the “Oogie-Boogie Bash.” A portion of the parks become haunted (or scare zones), while scare mazes — the theme park equivalent to a spook alley or haunted house — are peppered throughout the park. It’s a remarkably popular event, especially for those looking for something a little more intense than Disney’s family friendly offerings.
Thanks to a TikTok posted by Disney content creators Duchesses of Disney, I learned there was one such “Halloween Horror Night” of particular interest to Marvel Comics fans. As always when talking about Marvel and theme parks, history gets complicated. Yes, Disney owns Marvel, and they own five theme parks (while licensing one other) around the world. However, in a similar deal struck during Marvel’s bankruptcy years as the one which separated Marvel’s film rights across multiple studios, Universal Studios purchased the theme park rights to Marvel characters… but only a certain group of characters and only in the Eastern United States (this is why Spider-Man and the X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four live in Universal’s Islands of Adventure, while the Guardians of the Galaxy are free to hang their amusement park-shingle at Disney’s Epcot.)
In 2002, Universal expanded “Halloween Horror Nights” into the Islands of Adventure theme park for the first time, transforming the Seuss Landing, Jurassic Park, Toon Lagoon and Marvel Super Hero Island “lands” (as well as others) into “Boo-Ville,” “JP Extinction,” “Treeks and Foons,” and “Island Under Siege”, respectively. The concept of “Island Under Siege” might sound familiar to most comic fans — the villains have won, Marvel’s heroes are missing or dead, and the Island is in chaos. While most of the scare actors are generic henchmen and monsters, the Island is ruled by Carnage, as well as Scream, Dr. Albert Caine (the event’s overarching villain), and…the Punisher.
The surviving footage of the event looks like a very familiar story that shares a lot of similarities to this event: Old Man Logan, which came six years later. Villains are running amok, taking advantage of the missing and defeated heroes. Various relics of the heroes’ defeat litter the area — Cap’s bloodied shield, a broken Mjolnir, and Spider-Man’s webs. Reportedly, villains such as Electro, Xorn, Toad, Vermin and Mephisto were also seen, though you have to squint a little for most of them.
The surviving pictures and videos are absolutely creepy. And Carnage is a perfect horror villain for a haunted house. But apparently, Marvel execs were horrified by the decisions made. Though the sources I read differed in the exact reasons why, it was clear they hated it. It may have been the implication that the heroes were dead (including unconfirmed and conflicting rumors of the bodies of Cap, Wolverine and Spidey being seen in the maze). It may have been just the extreme scare factor present in “Island Under Siege.” But what’s clear is that Marvel hated it so much that another scare zone was never allowed again in the Marvel Superhero Island.
Despite the suits’ objections, it looks like some scary fun, even if it was only around for a few weeks twenty years ago. If nothing else, it showed you definitely don’t want to mess with Carnage…
(Images via HHNcast.com)
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
