Vintage 1999 Hydroman Marvel Postcard 💧 — NOS Foil Universal Studios Villain Art

Who Was Hydro-Man? 💧 Vintage 1999 Marvel Foil Postcard, Universal Studios, NOS

Size: 6" x 4" ~ Little to no wear.

💧 An original 1999 Hydro-Man Marvel postcard from Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, made for Marvel Super Hero Island the year the park opened. Hydro-Man rears up out of a column of water, fists like two big splashes, against a shiny copper foil wall of HYDROMAN • HYDROMAN lettering, with a tiny © Marvel line in the corner (the year's last digit is too small to read) and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure™ across the bottom. New Old Stock, never written on or mailed.

The back sets the scene: "Hydroman. An explosive comic book city caught up in the battle between good and evil which sets the stage for the first-ever interactive experience with three 21st century thrill rides." There's the Islands of Adventure compass logo, the barcode, and the fine print California Scenes and ©Motion Media, Metal-Tex™ Patent Pending, the patented metallic printing that gives the front its shine.

🕷️ Why Hydro-Man is on a park postcard

Islands of Adventure opened on May 28, 1999, and the big draw on Marvel Super Hero Island was The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. In that ride five villains, the Sinister Syndicate of Doctor Octopus, Scream, Electro, the Hobgoblin and Hydro-Man, steal the Statue of Liberty with an anti-gravity cannon, and you ride through New York in a 3-D motion car to help Spider-Man get it back. It mixed a track-moving motion base with thirteen 30-foot screens, and it won the Golden Ticket Award for best dark ride twelve years running, 1999 through 2010.

Hydro-Man himself is Morris "Morrie" Bench, a merchant sailor Spider-Man accidentally knocked overboard just as an experimental generator was being tested in the ocean. He came up as living water. Dennis O'Neil and John Romita Jr. created him in The Amazing Spider-Man #212 in January 1981, and he even got a nod in the 2019 movie Spider-Man: Far From Home, where the water monster is traced to "a sailor named Morris Bench."

A great piece of late‑1990s Marvel theme park memorabilia from the opening year of Islands of Adventure. Once these last ones are gone they'll be very difficult to acquire. Like everything I sell, they're kept in the dark at a steady 72°F and under 40% humidity.