You don’t have to look up into the sky this summer in St. John’s to see your favourite superhero

By Jason Sheppard

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Imagine being able to spend a Friday night seeing the latest Thor blockbuster from Marvel Studios on a big screen with the hammer-wielding, golden-haired adonis himself, sitting right there in the theatre.  

On June 22nd, you (and of course your Marvel-obsessed youngster) can experience that very thing. 

The Johnson GEO centre will be holding a special event that night: Marvel Movie Night: Thor: Ragnarok. This event will begin at 6 pm with kids activities, followed at 7:15 by a character meet-and-greet and at 8 pm, a screening of last year’s Thor sequel.  

The film will be shown in the atrium of the GEO centre where viewers can bring their own pillows and blankets.

For this event, the GEO centre staff approached two individuals who knew a thing or two about superheroes and dressing up as them;  Sci-Fi on the Rock Vendor coordinator Mae Dalton-Summers and David Pynn, who is the outside events coordinator. 

Dalton-Summers admits this event is something different for them. “We’ve done a couple events with the GEO centre in the past where mostly it’s been Star Wars and space-themed related, just as part of Sci-Fi On the Rock’s community outreach that we do,” she said. “This one is more Marvel-based.”

For this event, the GEO Centre contacted them. “It’s good that we’re now getting approached by people themselves and organizations.” 

Dalton-Summers says that the organizations who approach her and her team usually want some well-known characters to show up and entertain the kids. Dalton-Summers, who also manages a local cosplay initiative and is an avid cosplayer herself, says her approach to reaching out to the public is to assure them they’re events are welcoming to kids of all ages. “We tell people ‘hey come hang out – the superheroes are here.'” 

Dalton-Summers says there are about 40 cosplayers on the committee and even though they they can’t attend every event, she says whenever they can show up someplace to display the costumes they all put so much time into and worked so hard on, it’s always a joy to do so. 

MUN Botanical gardens reached out to Dalton-Summers to participate in their annual Family Bloom Days weekend, which is held June 23rd – 24th. This year the gardens wanted to showcase a fantasy element to their event which will incorporate fairies and elves roaming about the garden. 

This event marks a bit of a departure for the team who have done mostly space-themed events until now.

“For this one we get to stretch our fantasy/literature aspects so that’s a whole new thing for us.”

Dalton-Summers promises princesses and Tinkerbells on hand that weekend to enchant young visitors. She says there may even be a troll or two lurking behind the bushes. “The little dudes really get a kick out of those.”