Marvel Blasts Us Back to the 90s with ‘Captain Marvel’ Site

The internet has come a long way since we started logging on in the 90s. Websites used to be cluttered with text, brightly colored words/GIFs, and took what felt like a lifetime to load. If you don’t remember this era, or you need to revisit these ancient web designs for a nostalgic look into the past, this website can take you there. These pages were actually made in the 90s, but Marvel recently resurrected the retro designs to create a website promoting their new movie, Captain Marvel.

The movie is set in the 90s, so it made sense to create a website with a throwback look and feel. While scrolling through, you’ll find the site covered in GIFs, colorful word art, and interactive media. A few highlights include a game asking you to “spot the Skrull” (Skrulls are the shapeshifting villains from the movie), and a guestbook where people left comments filled with 90s lingo. Unfortunately, you can’t sign into the guestbook to leave your own comment—but Marvel stays in control of the overall feeling and conversation this way.

Visiting the website on a phone or tablet might take away the sense of nostalgia, but it does bring the aged designs into the 21st century. These days people are on their phones more than anything, so it’s crucial to make websites useful across all devices. Its vertical design makes the Captain Marvel site easy to navigate on a phone or tablet (unlike most of the actual pages that still exist from the 1990s).

Anyone, even if they don’t follow Marvel, can appreciate this blast from the past. If you do visit the Captain Marvel website, be sure to punch out the undercover Skrull popping up every few seconds, and try to find the hidden GIF at the bottom of the page. Nostalgia marketing is bangin’ right now, and Marvel totally created a higher, further, faster website that’s really all that and a bag of chips.