Augmenting Geekology: August 2019

For quite a few months now I have been wanting to make a side trip from New York City to Philadelphia to go to the Marvel Exhibit that the Franklin Institute was hosting. Once the wheels were motion, it was the perfect side stop on our way to the Big Apple for more Marvel goodness.

The Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes exhibit brought all the MCU awesomness to the public, but also brought along comic book history, images of original comics, photo ops with your favorite hero statues, and more. I was excitedly overwhelmed by what was presented to me and it made my heart swell with nerdy goodness! The Netflix series were part of the exhibit as well as the MCU, but so were past images, like the old Spider-Man cartoon and the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies! Forget all the financial and studio drama... this was pure fan goodness.

Let me rephrase... studio drama as it relates to Spider-Man. The Fantastic Four were greatly under represented, except for a photo op model of Grim and the X-Men were naire to be seen, except for a few comic images here and there. Additionally, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't really represented either. I know you can't get in everything all the time, but there were some holes. Like Grim, Hulk only had a few comic books and then a giant version of him for photo ops.

Some things had a truly unique portrayal, such as the Ant-Man exhibit, where you actually watch a little digital Ant-Man run around an area and share facts (see images down below). Into the Spider-Verse had images being displayed on a wall, which was interesting. The Grim photo op had different characters in the window behind him. There weren't voice overs or other things like that. It was a walk through with some interactive qualities.

We didn't go during the day, so it was cheaper, because we didn't have the whole museum pass tacked on, but that didn't stop there from being lots of people. They send you in via groups, though, so as not to over-pack the exhibit. Attendees were polite enough. I only say this, because you never know what types of nerds are going to show up. There were clusters, but for the most part it was a nicely organized and spacious exhibit (except for the gift shop).

This was a great start to our road trip. We even found un-metered parking in downtown Philadelphia. So we sure did start out with a win! It was totally worth the $40+ in tolls we took getting to Philly in the first place.