Rangers Assemble: Redwood Suits Up for Marvel Spirit Week

This year’s homecoming theme, Marvel, brings students together with funny dress-up days and an exciting hero/villain mania on campus.

By: Akira Elliott

Calling all superheroes! Spirit week is officially here. The fun started on Monday and runs through Friday, October 2nd. This year’s homecoming theme, Marvel, allows students to join the excitement through dressing up.

Spirit week, or Dress Up Week, has been around for a long time.

Originally, it started as “Friendship Week” to welcome students back to school in a fun way, including skits, dressing up, and fun games.

As time changed from the 1960s to the 1990s, Friendship Week slowly evolved and gained popularity.

Over 75% of American schools began to follow the tradition of Friendship Week, changing the name to Spirit Week.

Marvel, this year’s homecoming theme, can bring back some nostalgia. 

Marvel has been around for 87 years, ranging back from comics in 1939 all the way to Marvel movies featuring this year in 2026. 

Marvel has over 5,000-80,000 characters, depending on how you count them and whether you count characters from alternate universes. 

Spider-Man has recently become a popular character among all ages and has been mentioned as a favorite among students.

Galvin Valdez, ‘30, says, “I’m most excited to see the Spider-Man dress-up day because I know everyone really loves Spider-Man, so I want to see everyone rocking their favorite Spider-Man outfit.”

Spirit week allows students to bring a creative side to themselves, which helps build a vibrant school community and can help break some of the stress from daily school routines. 

Jaylen Gridiron, ‘30, said, “It can help people get more involved in the school’s activities, like their dress-up days, and just being more involved in our school’s environment.”

Being involved in the school community is important for building connections with others, and Dress Up Week is able to do so.

When asked about the theme, Adelaide Hanson, ’30, says, “I like it, I think it’s pretty cool.” She adds, “I like Loki because he can shape-shift into different people and stuff.”

Now here’s the real question: would you rather be as smart as Bruce Banner or as strong as the Hulk?

Valdez says, “I pick Hulk, because I think being super strong would be awesome. And he’s also really fast.”

Chelsea Kim, ’30, says, “I would choose Hulk, because if somebody is trying to hurt me, I could just hit them and they’ll be injured.”

Although Bruce Banner’s intelligence has good pros, it’s best to say that Hulk is the winner.

Homecoming Dress Up Week has successfully given students the ability to have fun with friends and to be able to enjoy wacky dress-up days. In a place where times can get hard in school, a nice refresher is sometimes needed.

Kim says, “I like the theme. It’s really interesting, and I’m seeing a lot of people dress up.”

Tags: art and entertainment, arts & entertainment, dress up week, homecoming 2026, marvel, ranger, rangers, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, rhs, spirit, spirit week, visalia ca