Captain Marvel marketing throws it back hard to the '90s with Magic Eye illusions

The marketing for Captain Marvel (out next week) took things to another level when the film's official Twitter account posted five Magic Eye illusions, which underscore the story's '90s-era setting.

Remember Magic Eye? They were kid-friendly books filled with fuzzy and seemingly meaningless swatches of color (also known as autostereograms) that, when looked at in the right way, would reveal secret images hidden within. All you had to do was squint, cross your eyes, maybe stand on your head, and stare. If you prayed really hard to the powers that be, the picture might've showed itself before your eyes melted into a gelatinous paste.

We've included all five Captain Marvel Magic Eye illusions below; see if you can make sense of them, because we sure can't. If our eyeballs didn't feel like they were about to fall out of their sockets, we'd try and decode these all day.

In any case, we're fairly sure it shows the outline of the character included at the top of each one—at least that's our working theory. Excuse us, we're gonna go lie down for a bit ...

First launched in the '90s, Magic Eye became a cultural phenomenon, selling 20 million books in almost 30 languages. Indeed, different iterations of the series remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over 70 combined weeks. Over the years, Magic Eye Inc. has fabricated custom illusions for Disney, Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, and Marvel Comics.

Since the tweets above were most likely created by the original company, we reached out to them for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

A prequel to the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it, Captain Marvel finds Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) working alongside Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop a shapeshifting Skrull invasion of Earth. In addition, Carol, once an ace Air Force pilot, strives to discover more about her mysterious past before she was given new life by the Kree and made a member of Starforce.

Jude Law (Yon-Rogg), Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau), Lee Pace (Ronan the Accuser), Annette Bening (Supreme Intelligence), Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Djimon Hounsou (Korath), Ben Mendelsohn (Talos), and Gemma Chan (Minn-Erva) all co-star in the intergalactic romp. Oh, and don't forget the real star of the film, Goose the cat!

Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel opens in theaters next Friday, March 8.

Were your adult peepers able to make out the hidden images in the illusions above? If so, tell us what you see!