Marvel Universe Live! Is Silly and Fascinating

Vulture: Marvel Universe Live! — a new “action-packed arena extravaganza” from Feld Entertainment, the company behind Disney on Ice, the Ringling Bros., and Barnum & Bailey Circus — is a disorienting, thought-provoking, deeply postmodern entertainment experience, even though it aims to be none of those things. With its skull-numbingly juvenile dialogue, flat characterization, and flimsy plot, the event is designed to excite preteens and distract their parents. It is, by any measure, silly. And yet, in spite of itself, this glorious mess, which kicks off a two-year worldwide tour tonight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, is also an unintentional thesis statement about what Marvel is in 2014.