How a Five Year Old Met the Avengers

I sat down on my lunch break this afternoon ready to tear Michael Bay a new one for the continued crimes he continues to commit against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was mad, geek-raging even, but then in the midst of reading up on the subject I received an instant message from our co-founder, Kill-tacular-tron.

<the tmnt news is lame>
<and this is awesome>

He shot me over a link to g33kwatch.com called ‘Story of a Five Year Old Avenger, Meeting the Avengers’. I clicked over to the site and immediately recognized an image that has been circulating the internet for at least several days now – of a young boy on Tom Hiddleston’s (Loki) shoulders, holding on to his Captain America shield (left). Of course having seen the photo before, I had been curious about who this lucky kid was, assuming it had to be a son of someone involved with filming The Avengers. Turns out the story of just who this kid is and how he got his picture taken sitting on Loki’s shoulders is far more heart-warming than that.

From g33kwatch.com:

The boy on Loki’s shoulders is none other than Edison, son of our good friend Erin who directs the web series CASTERS. The story of how Edison got his picture taken with Tom Hiddleston is a great case of “Right place, right time” that Erin was kind enough to write about for us.

What I read is a great story of a five-year old kid out shopping for school supplies with his mom who was directed to be in the right place at the right time by his geek dad. With the help of some very kind security folks, and Chris Evans’ mom, got waved at by Thor, a picture take atop Loki’s shoulders, walked along side Hawkeye and Black Widow, was smiled at by Iron Man, had photos snapped with his hero, Captain America, briefly met Joss Whedon, and became an adorable internet sensation by simply being the boy who got to meet his heroes. After I finished reading this story, I cleared my geek-ranting post on Bay’s “Adult Alien Not-Ninja Turtles” and opted to bring attention to this instead – which I feel is a thousand-times more interesting, and frankly, just a better story for your afternoon reading pleasure.

Hat’s off to you, young Edison, and your awesome story. You are the envy of every young geek – both in age and spirit – out there right now.

I encourage all of you to take ten minutes out of your day to read this compelling story behind “The Boy With the Shield”. I assure you you won’t regret it.

Evans crouches down next to Edison, who extends his hand and shakes the hand of The First Avenger. “Can I see your shield?” Evans asks and Edison hands his battered toy shield over. “Wow, you’re getting a lot of use out of this. You fighting a lot of bad guys with this?” he asks. Chris Evans and Edison proceed to have a conversation about the finer points of shields and fighting the enemy.