Super heroes in Cirque du Soleil's Viva Elvis!

I went to Las Vegas last weekend for the first time in several years, and caught the new Cirque du Soleil show, Viva Elvis!, at the new Aria Hotel and Casino in the CityCenter complex.

The show was, as usual for Cirque du Soleil, impressive and fun. The show is a celebration of the life and music of Elvis Presley, and as such features more straight musical numbers and fewer circus elements than most of the troupe's shows.

But the best acrobatic sequence by far was based on a line Elvis once uttered about loving super hero comics when he was a kid — which opened the door for Cirque to do a full on trampoline act with performers dressed in generic superhero costumes. Using a set that featured multiple trampolines, about a half-dozen superheroes bounced off the ground, ran up walls and leaped over each other and various obstacles. It was many people's favorite segment in the show and a good example of how you could do some superheroics on a live stage. It makes me more optimistic that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark could be more than just another musical.

It also opens up some interesting possibilities. Wouldn't a Marvel Cirque show be incredible? I'm not sure how into the idea Disney would be, especially in Las Vegas, but they do have those theme parks and resorts that are dying for Marvel content and need live entertainment in addition to just rides.