Marvel show packs Hulk-sized 'sense of wonder'

HOW DO you impress people - really, truly wow 'em - in the age of iPhones and instant everything?

The answer is both simple and daunting: Show them something they've never seen before.

That's what Rick Licht and Doug Schaer have set out to do with "The Marvel Experience," a one-of-a-kind, super-powered traveling attraction that's set to take over Lincoln Financial Field today through July 5. (The dates were pushed back a week so that the crew could work out some technical kinks.)

Unless you've spent the last seven or eight years in a sensory-deprivation tank, you know that Marvel's army of heroes and villains have become a pop-culture juggernaut, churning out a seemingly endless stream of hit movies and TV shows.

The Marvel brand is so popular right now, you could probably slap little so popular right now, you could probably slap little Captain America shields on cartons of melted ice cream and find a buyer on eBay.

But Licht and Schaer, the CEO and COO, respectively, of the Los Angeles-based live-entertainment company Hero Ventures, didn't pop up overnight to make a quick buck off your kid's love of Iron Man.

They've spent years trying to create an environment where Marvel fans can become a part of the larger-than-life adventures that their favorite heroes have lived on screen and in comic books.

The result is an attraction that will transform the Linc's field into a temporary outpost for S.H.I.E.L.D., the quasi-governmental agency lurking in the background of most of the Marvel films.

Attendees become S.H.I.E.L.D. trainees, moving from one immersive exercise to another.

"It's not like a theme park, where you wait in line for an hour, see a story that might be five minutes long and then get nauseous from the ride," Schaer said.

"We're trying to drop you in the middle of a feature-film-length narrative, alongside iconic Marvel characters."

The attractions serve as plot points, pulling you deeper into the story. But fans are also free to choose what they do and don't experience.

Schaer's kids, ages 5 and 8, were drawn to a Spider-Man climbing wall at one of the show's previous stops.

"You climb up, like at a gym fun zone, but when you look up at the monitor overhead, you see that you're actually crawling up a skyscraper, chasing Venom next to Spider-Man," he said.

His kids also flipped for an augmented-reality wall. "You strike a pose and summon your favorite hero," Schaer said. "They appear on screen next to you, and you can take a selfie with them."

But that's just the tip of the Hulk-sized iceberg.

Licht said that he and Schaer had to travel to a military-grade testing facility in Utah to find the technology that brings to life (deep breath here) a 360-degree, 3-D stereoscopic full-dome projection theater.

Heroes and villains, including one voiced by uber comic-book fan Kevin Smith, duke it out in holographic form, far above the heads of slack-jawed fans.

"You have 150 people, all of whom are not facing the same way," Licht said. "You can be watching Wolverine on your left, and I can be watching Black Widow and Hawkeye on the right. We all experience the show differently."

Some fans can choose to gingerly make their way through a laser maze (think Catherine Zeta-Jones in the movie "Entrapment"), while others can hole up inside a 3-D interactive shooting gallery that calls for blasting away at pumpkin bombs tossed by the Green Goblin, Spider-Man's longtime archenemy.

"We want to leave you with a sense of wonder," Schaer said. "Everybody comes out of this saying, 'God, that was something I've never seen before.' "

And that's not including a state-of-the-art 4-D motion ride.

The superhero spectacular began life as a rough sketch inside Licht's mind two decades ago - in Pittsburgh, of all places.

The longtime sports agent was there with his then-client Seattle Mariners slugger Ken Griffey Jr., for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

They were sitting in the back of a cab, stuck in traffic, when Licht noticed a crowd of giddy baseball fans lining up outside the local convention center.

Turns out the crowd was about to enter the first FanFest, a Comic Con equivalent that annually sets up shop in whichever city is hosting the All-Star Game.

"I said, 'We gotta go in.' Ken said, 'No, it'll be too crazy. Let's just go back to the hotel,' " Licht said. "I jumped out of the cab."

Licht was struck by the loopy grins that were plastered on fans' faces as they ambled around the convention center.

But after about 30 minutes, he couldn't help but think: Is that all there is? A bunch of vendors hawking old baseball cards and possibly questionable autographs?

So, Licht and fellow sports agent Schaer pitched MLB on the idea of creating a traveling exhibit that would bring seldom-seen relics from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., out to the masses.

Along the way, they were introduced to higher-ups at Marvel, who suggested that the comic-book and movie company's diverse, tech-savvy audience would be a better fit for the kind of show that Licht and Schaer had in mind.

It was an easy sell. But Licht, Schaer and their company had to find solutions for enormous technical and engineering problems - moving a theme park-quality show around the country isn't easy - and make sure they were doing right by Marvel's beloved characters.

The connection people have to Marvel runs deep. Doesn't matter if you're a 10-year-old who loves Robert Downey Jr.'s smart-ass performances as Iron Man, a 65-year-old who collected the comics when Stan Lee was still dreaming them up or a middle-aged professional like Licht, who grew up with a Spider-Man poster over his bed.

But, Licht said, "The Marvel Experience" isn't aimed only at hardcore fans.

"My nieces are 13 and 16," he said. "They've never seen a Marvel movie and don't know anything about the characters.

"They went to [the attraction] in Dallas, and within 20 minutes, they were Snapchatting and Instagramming everything," he continued. "And the response they got from their friends was, 'Oh my God, that looks like the coolest thing ever!' Now they're huge Marvel fans."