At the 2026 D23 Expo, Marvel and Imagineering combined to give an update about the Marvel expansion coming to California Adventure. That includes attraction stories, a favorite path reopening, actor voices and more. In this post, we’ll share the news before adding our commentary. Let’s get to it!

John Stamos took the stage and was joined by Walt Disney Imagineer Brent Strong and President of Marvel Studios and Chief Creative Officer of Marvel, Kevin Feige, to discuss upcoming Marvel attractions around the world. They spent the most time on updates on the California Adventure expansion.

Right now, Avengers Campus at the Disneyland Resort is in the midst of a major expansion that will double the size of the land, with construction in progress for two new attractions announced at D23 2024: Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab. Tonight, we shared that the land will soon reconnect with Cars Land.

It was also announced that both of the new attractions will open in 2028.

Avengers Infinity Defense at Disney California Adventure

New details on the storyline, ride experience and featured heroes were announced for Avengers Infinity Defense. 

When the new attraction officially debuts at California Adventure, you’ll be welcomed to Avengers Infinity Defense as new recruits, where your journey begins with a pre-mission briefing from Ms. Marvel, played by Iman Vellani. 

Here, you’ll get your key mission: reassemble the Avengers to battle King Thanos, preventing the mad titan from wreaking havoc everywhere. 

Some of your favorite on-screen heroes are reprising their roles for this attraction, including: 

On-Screen Heroes Reprising Their Roles in Avengers Infinity Defense 

• Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye 
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America 
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor 
• Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man 

Once on board, you will be surrounded by massive physical sets blending seamlessly with huge media scenes, putting you into the middle of the action as you feel like you’re hurtling across many worlds. You’ll travel to iconic locations like Asgard, Wakanda, and New York City, next to heroes you’ve come to know and love, while (spoiler alert!) coming face to face with King Thanos himself.

Stark Flight Lab at Disney California Adventure

On-Screen Heroes Reprising Their Roles in Stark Flight Lab

• Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man 
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America 
• Brie Larson as Captain Marvel 

As previously shared at SXSW 2025: On this new attraction inside Avengers Campus, you’ll sit in two-person “gyro-kinetic pods” and roll along a track before stopping in front of a giant robot arm, essentially feeling what it’s like to train like a flying Avenger. Making several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and more, you’ll be deployed to a test station, whirling around in a simulated flight that will have you eager to take a spin again and again.

Commentary

My overall feeling of the 2026 D23 Expo is a warm one. That’s especially true when talking about all of the news and updates announced as well as the Imagineering Pavilion on the show floor. If there’s one aspect that was underwhelming to me, it was California Adventure’s Avengers Campus updates. Between the model in the pavilion and these ride announcements, I just didn’t get any jolts of excitement.

To be fair, some of that lack of excitement might be my current allergy to Marvel movies. I liked the majority of them up until Avengers Endgame but haven’t enjoyed many of them since. I’m also lukewarm, at best, on Avengers Campus in California Adventure. Technically, an expansion should make it better but this appears to be less about improving the setting and aesthetic and more about adding two rides.

The highlight of this news is that the real actors are reprising their roles for Avengers Campus. That doesn’t always work out (shoutout to Chris Pratt in Epcot’s Cosmic Rewind) but it is usually a good thing. Having big stars associated with theme parks can have a lasting impact.

My concern is over the actual ride details. Avengers Infinity Defense should be great, the rumored ride system (also used in Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure in Tokyo DisneySea) is promising and the news goes out of its way to share that physical sets will be interspersed with screens. We like that!

What it also mentions is that the ride will go to New York, Asgard and Wakanada. In one ride?? How long is this attraction? The anti-Marvel bias might be creeping in here as I’m sure some fans are very excited about visiting those places. But knowing fans will board this attraction in California (both literally and thematically) and then get to those 3 locations in the span of about 5 minutes feels like overkill to me.

I’m also confused about King Thanos but that seems out of my realm to try and figure out where in the timeline this is. Don’t want to embarrass myself with bad questions! All of that aside, I think Infinity Defense will be a strong attraction once on the actual ride.

Stark Flight Lab has me far more worried. Getting flung around by a robotic arm while sitting in what look like roller coaster seats doesn’t strike me as interesting. There are ways to spice this up, including a rumored Iron Man animatronic but nothing about this announcement (outside of the actors) made me more excited for it.

Releasing some details to question is hardly a problem though. What was more concerning to me was the model shown in the Horizons Imagineering Pavilion. This showcased all of Avengers Campus in the model, including all of the current building. Then a spotlight was put on the two new attraction that will make up the 2028 expansion.

The problem was that the spotlight was on a couple of trees and two large box buildings. There was an unremarkable entrance to both rides and then an assembly line of the Stark Flight Lab robotic arms. That’s it. I guess setting expectations is a healthy practice but this model just was not impressive. Compared to the Piston Peak model, or even the Hong Kong Marvel model, this just did not move the needle.

Not to point out the obvious but this is definitely not the artist’s fault who made the model. It’s an Avengers Campus issue that dates back to the birth of the land. The space has just never felt congruent and adding a few box buildings to it won’t help. What we hope is that the content inside of the rides saves the area.

The best news involved with the Avengers Campus announcement, at least for me, was that the pathway from Cars Land to this land will be back open soon! California Adventure is so much easier to navigate with that path open. I’m crossing my fingers that it’s open in a day or two but it will probably be a little longer than that.

Finally, they did break some news that this expansion will open in 2028. I was holding out hope for a late 2027 opening but that was an aggressive timeline. Construction has been moving at a fast clip and I think early summer of 2028 is a very safe bet for these two new rides to open. It could be even sooner than that!

Despite my disappointment in these updates, it will still be good to have two more attractions in California Adventure. More attractions form a capacity standpoint is needed and Infinity Defense should especially have a strong capacity. We may be skeptical but we’re looking forward to this opening!

Are you excited for the Avengers Campus expansion at California Adventure? Let us know, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below. Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out our Planning Guide here. Looking for discount tickets? Check out this site! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!