THE NEW AVENGERS

 Disney delight is perfect for some hero worship, says Amy Packer

- Amy Packer

As surreal moments of motherhood go, jumping out of the queue for a Manhattan street food stall to sprint down a sidewalk in hot pursuit of the superhero Thor is not something I could ever have envisioned. Particularly as I'm someone who won't run for buses.

But neither would I have predicted what would happen once I had caught up with the man mountain and looked him squarely in the... pecs.

Because my six-year-old, Freddie - who had been planning this moment ever since learning he was headed for the brand new Avengers Campus at Disneyland Paris - had a fit of the collywobbles and refused to come within 20 paces of his hero.

A whole week would pass before he explained why he had become camera shy.

"He was with Loki - and he's scary!" he finally blurted out during dinner one evening.

You can't argue with that. While Fred may be too young for the current crop of Marvel movies, last year's lockdown was spent binge watching the Lego cartoon versions of the stories, so we are very familiar with the good, the bad and the terrifying of the Avengers universe.

Luckily, after a day training in the newest outpost of Tony Stark's superverse, we were feeling a lot braver than when we arrived, having notched up a few heroic moves of our own.

Back to school

The Avenger Campus, which opened in June inside the Walt Disney Studios Park, is a world away from the princess parades and fairy dust of the parks next door.

The origin story goes that the super-slick chrome and glass campus has been created by Stark, aka Iron Man, a founding member of the Avengers, to train new recruits.