Wasn't That Marvel-ous?

July 25, 2014

Yesterday was my birthday. And as parents so often do, I spent it with my kids doing kid things.

A few months ago I had come across an advertisement for a Live Marvel show coming to town. I toyed with the idea of surprising the boys with tickets but our activities need to stay on the cheaper side and the tickets just weren’t in the budget. I was glad I hadn’t told the boys about it.

Then a friend of mine offered me her free comped tickets this week! I was pumped. I told the boys about it yesterday morning. I said that we were going to a real live Marvel Universe show where we would see all of their favorite Marvel superheroes doing superhero-y stuff, in person! There wasn’t much on the web that showed exactly what the show would be about so they were kind of confused but still excited. Danger was the most excited, Little Lion was confused but he loves superheroes and if his brother was excited then so was he.

We got ready and the boys picked out their favorite Marvel t-shirts to wear. Everything was going so smoothly. We arrived on time, got rock star parking, picked up the tickets, and entered right where the food, bathroom and escalator to our seats were located. I was so proud of myself.

Of course they bombard you with all the gear that every kid just HAS to have. All of which I explained to my kids we couldn’t buy right now. I wasn’t about to spend $15 dollars on a bag of cotton candy that had a cheap plastic Captain America mask attached to it. I did spend money on the way overpriced food (next time I’m sneaking food in. Mommy fail.)

We get to our seats in the Mezzanine and we are 3rd row right in front of the “stage”, great view! Although the arena didn’t fill up there were still tons of families all waiting excitedly with a few middle aged “comic book” dudes sprinkled throughout. We had overheard from the man selling programs at the entrance that this show has 29 tractor trailers to hold all of the gear for the set, while a normal arena band travels with 8-10 trailers. And it showed, the stage was huge and amazing.

We  had only a few minutes to kill before the show started so I used it to explain some more to Little Lion about what was going to happen. There would be lights and loud bangs and maybe some fire and I kept it all very upbeat saying, “Isn’t this going to be awesome??”

Little Lion does not do well with loud noises. At the July 4th fireworks he spent the whole time on my mom's lap hiding his face while she covered his ears. He also REALLY doesn’t like when seemingly “good” things change into bad things. He hates the bad minions in Despicable Me 2 and although he likes Hulk if he sees Bruce Banner change into the Hulk he goes bat shit crazy.

I could tell he was nervous so I let him know he could sit on my lap but he told me he wanted to sit in his seat and then told me to not even touch him (jerk!).

The show started and I could feel the excitement buzzing out of Danger, he was in heaven.

Within the first 30 seconds a loud flash-bang type firework goes off and Little Lion practically flew out of his seat. Before I knew it he was on my lap trying to hide under my skin. He was screaming and crying and telling me he wanted to go home. Actually it was more like “I WANT TO GO HOME I WANT TO GO HOME LET’S LEAVE PLEASE LET’S LEAVE I’M GOING TO POOP I THINK I HAVE TO POOP I THINK I HAVE TO POOP PLEASE LET’S LEAVE THIS IS HORRIBLE!!!!”

I held him on my lap and covered his ears and spoke into his ear “We can’t leave, we aren’t allowed to leave, please stop screaming, I promise nothing will happen to you, it’s just noises, it’s just people dressed up in costumes, it’s not real, it’s just pretend, it’s going to be ok” and on and on.

The screaming and pleading went on for a few minutes but it felt like forever. He asked if we could just sneak out, since we “weren’t allowed” to leave. I contemplated leaving and imagined what that would mean for the very very happy 8 year old sitting next to me, so enamored with the show already that he barely noticed his brother's screams. Why didn’t I see this coming?? Why hadn’t I invested in the huge noise canceling headphones for kids?

Eventually he calmed down and I spent the next 2 hrs holding him like a baby while digging my fingers in his ears as he squeezed his eyes shut. For 2 hours. If I let up my fingers just a tiny bit he would yell at me. If I asked him to open his eyes just for one second and see the show he yelled at me. No matter how many times I told him how cool it was or that Thor was now fighting Rhino or that Captain America was doing tricks on a motorcycle he yelled at me and kept his eyes squeezed shut. I pray he fights off all peer pressure in his teen years as well as he fought off my pleas last night.

The show is definitely geared more towards kids than adults. Puns galore (like so so many…) and it had an almost Power Rangers feel to it because the actors are acting out the lines that are played on a soundtrack so they gesticulate more than anyone really would in normal life and I noticed far too many times where the action and special effects didn’t match up with the actors movements. But the kids would never care or probably even notice any of it because one, they are kids and two, there was so much going on all at once for them to notice smaller details like that. Although the Lizard costume was way ridiculous and cheesy. And I thought the Hulk costume was a bit silly but you should have heard the kids cheer when he made his entrance! The fight Wolverine had with some henchmen was on point and pretty cool, as were all the stunts that Captain America and Red Skull did on their motorbikes. But I digress.

During intermission when the lights came up and people milled about he would not let me remove my fingers from his ears or open his eyes. He reached an almost zen like meditative state where a few times I thought he might have fallen asleep but if I adjusted my body even the slightest bit he would remind me quite harshly to not move a muscle. I even spent way too much on a plastic sword (telling the boys they would have to share it….hahahaa!!) to bribe him into opening his eyes. It didn’t work.

Finally, during the last 2 minutes of the show when everyone is taking their bows and doing their last flips I got him to open his eyes. He couldn’t stop staring. Then it was all over. And he rebounds like no kid I’ve ever seen. As soon as he knew it was done he was fine. Laughing and telling me how much he liked it. WHAT?!?!

All in all we had a blast and I’m so glad we didn’t leave early. Even if the people around us probably weren’t feeling the same way.