So, this past weekend, my family and some friends decided to finally get downtown and check out the big superhero exhibit at the Los Angeles Science Center. Featuring a huge contingent of Marvel superheroes, the exhibit is based around the concept of explaining super powers with real life science. It’s very family friendly, with interactive booths and displays spread all over the place providing tons of hands-on experiences for kids and adults alike. The science exhibit is capped off at the end by a historical look back on Marvel, as well as some of their more influential creators. There’s also a somewhat odd personal collection dedicated to Doctor Strange that’s on loan to the museum, which includes various odd collectibles including some handmade lenticulars. While the lenticulars were very cool, they drew laughs from various people as they noticed that the guy made them so that Valkyrie’s boobs followed you a la Jesus’ eyes. Very odd.

The show runs until sometime in September, and is an especially cool way to spend the afternoon if you have kids. We went on a sunday, and it wasn’t crowded at all, allowing us plenty of time to relax and take in not only the superhero exhibit, but the rest of the museum as well.

For photos, just follow the jump. There’s quite a few, so it may take a minute or two to load!

The Spider-Man rock climb looked like fun, but I always feel like it’s a rip to pay extra to do something when you’ve already paid to get into the exhibit. This was technically outside the exhibit, I suppose, but still…

A smaller wall to crawl, but free. The kids seemed to be enjoying it a lot.

Every character with a booth had a nice little bio to go with it. It was nice to see that whoever put the displays together actually chose nice art from the comics to go with them rather than some crappy stock art.

Parents were enjoying this one as well - a Danger Room booth where you yelled as loudly as you could in order to destroy the sentinel.

An animatronic Doc Ock greeted you as you walked over the bridge to enter the exhibit room.

Yep - real ice on Iceman’s oversized mitts. The kids were amazed by this one.

Showing people how comics go from pencils to finished art - this was a HUGE mural.

Step into Hulk’s brain and poke at it with a laser in order to piss him off. Very loud, very cool.

Interactive sound effects display. Oddly enough, it didn’t make any noise.

I just thought it was cool that they chose to highlight Beta Ray Bill with the Walt Simonson display.

The Marvel history timeline was really nicely put together, encapsulating each decade rather nicely. I got a big kick out of Christopher Reeve’s name being mentioned on the “Your Hero” section, since it was right next to the John Byrne bio and art.

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