Back when the Disney and Marvel deal was struck, some Disney Parks fans gleefully imagined how Disney would quickly undo Marvel's decades-old agreement with Universal, pull the blockbuster heroes into their own parks, and force Universal Orlando's comic book metropolis to be replaced.

A decade later... Well... Piecing together the full story (and puzzling through the full Agreement signed back in 1994), we can come to the same conclusion that Universal and Disney seemingly have – that when it comes to Orlando, heroes like Spider-Man, Hulk, and Captain America have just one home: Universal's Islands of Adventure. 

In other words, initial fears (or for Disney fans, fantasties) from 2009 of the heroes being dragged out of Universal Orlando by their capes turned out to be unfounded. The simple (and for Disney fans, unsatisfying) answer is that Universal Orlando can keep Spider-Man for as long as they like... And that seems likely to be a while. 

Still, scenarios dreamed up in fear back in 2009 aren't entirely unfounded. Luckily for us, we don't just have to wonder what an Islands of Adventure without Marvel might look like. We can see it for ourselves... just not in the U.S. These two Univesal parks "replaced" Marvel in ways we can learn from...

1) Universal Studios Singapore

Universal Studios Singapore opened in 2010. The first Universal park built post-Islands, the Singapore studios park established a new precedent for Universal parks going forward: fusing the "Universal Studios" model (including the name, "studio" arch entry, and movie-set-style lands dedicated to Hollywood and New York) with the "Islands" model (of IP-based lands situated around a central lagoon).

Despite mashing together a "Studio" and "Islands" concept, Singapore is quite different from any Universal park to come before... That's because the "islands" it features are not the timeless, evergreen, literary lands of Orlando's park, but overtly movie-based lands. In fact, a clockwise walk around the park carries guests through Madagascar, Far Far Away (from Shrek), The Lost World (from Jurassic Park), Ancient Egypt (from The Mummy), and Sci-Fi City. 

It's Sci-Fi City that's clearly Marvel's spiritual successor here, even combining a dueling, launched coaster that cobra rolls over the central lagoon (albeit, themed to Battlestar Galactica) with a dark ride using Spider-Man's iconic SCOOP-based ride system: the debut of TRANSFORMERS: The Ride (based on the high-earning Michael Bay action film series).

And by the way, given that Singapore's park opened in 2010 – just one year after Disney's purchase of Marvel – rumors suggested that a sort of secondary goal for TRANSFORMERS: The Ride was to have an attraction waiting in the wings in case Islands of Adventure's Spider-Man ended up needing replaced. Since the development of TRANSFORMERS: The Ride predates any rumblings of Marvel's change-of-hands, it's unlikely that's true. Even if it was true, the fact that Transformers opened at Universal Studios Florida in 2013 reinforces our belief that Spider-Man is here to stay.

2) Universal Studios Beijing

But Transformers did stick around as a natural stand-in for superheroes. See the recently-revealed Universal Studios Beijing, which will open with a similar mash-up of "Studio" and "Island" concepts, with an even more overt lean toward flavor-of-the-week properties: lands themed to Despicable Me, Harry Potter, Jurassic World, Kung-Fu Panda, and... Transformers.

In fact, the Chinese park's TRANSFORMERS: Metro Base land will literally feature TRANSFORMERS: The Ride (as a stand-in for Spider-Man) alongside an exact clone of the Incredible Hulk Coaster (painted metallic gray, of course), perhaps giving us our clearest picture yet of what might've happened to Marvel Super Hero Island had the heroes been axed. Turning the technicolor comic book cityscape into a dull, industrial downtown and swapping Spider-Man for Optimus Prime probably would've done the trick... even if it would've ruined the park's timeless, literary foundation.

Endgame

As it turns out, the "Custody War" between Disney and Universal isn't exactly a world-ending, cataclysmic battle. In fact, both entertainment giants are backed into a proverbial corner, with neither fully able to use the Marvel heroes in their theme parks the way they'd probably like...

Universal, it turns out, stumbled into its relationship with Marvel at just the right time – after its early '90s apex, but before its billion-dollar revitalization at the hands of Disney. The result is that Universal's Islands of Adventure gets to feature one of Disney's starring intellectual properties for as long as they don't mind paying an annual licensing fee and a cut of merchandising profits to their own competitors. Their evergreen park of literary IPs predating today's movie madness offers the timeless, technicolor, retro-nostalgic comic book versions of the heroes that permeate pop culture.

Disney, meanwhile, has figured out ways to incorporate their box office blockbusters in a new generation of attractions... even in Orlando! And as a result, Disney Parks offer the grounded, cinematic, pop culture phenomenon characters of today; the movie versions of heroes.

A not-so-uneasy stalemate positions both Disney and Universal to co-parent the superheroes we know and love. And at least for now, that seems to benefit guests of both...