Six Flags Magic Mountain

A first-of-its-kind vertical roller coaster debuting June 30 at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom will take riders through a pair of twists, a towering heart-line roll and a non-inverting loop. Dubbed Superman Ultimate Flight, the custom Premier Rides launched coaster at the Northern California park combines a unique blend of elements from other coasters, including Cedar Point's Wicked Twister, Universal Orlando's Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit and Green Lantern: First Flight at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Cedar Point theme park in Ohio plans to add a $25-million record-setting winged roller coaster in 2013, according to local media reports. Photos: Winged roller coaster at Cedar Point The Swiss-based Bolliger & Mabillard Wing Rider, dubbed "CP Alt.Winged," would be the world's fastest and longest winged coaster with a taller initial drop than any similar ride, according to a memo obtained by the  Sandusky Register newspaper....

In the battle to lure summer tourists, the major Southern California theme parks are each offering something new, including a road trip with animated cars, a front-row seat for an epic battle of alien robots and a world-record plunge from a 400-foot tower. New attractions are key to bolstering attendance, analysts say, and can each cost tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Although local theme parks declined to disclose construction costs for this year's attractions, industry experts said the investment they made could be the most in about a decade.

Six Flags Magic Mountain will reclaim sole ownership of the Roller Coaster Capital of the World title with the announcement that arch-rival Cedar Point will remove one of its 17 coasters before the start of the summer season. PHOTOS: Cedar Point vs. Magic Mountain Citing declining ridership and increased maintenance costs, Ohio's Cedar Point said it will remove and demolish the 1979 Wildcat coaster to make room for the upcoming $6-million Luminosity nighttime spectacular, which is set to debut on June 8. PHOTOS: Luminosity nighttime spectacular at Cedar Point "Cedar Point remains committed to being the roller coaster capital of the world," the park said in a statement.

Environmental groups are accusing Six Flags Magic Mountain of polluting the Santa Clara River with huge volumes of contaminated water and allowing trash with its logos to spill into the Southern California waterway and toward the ocean. The allegations were made in a letter sent to the Valencia theme park last week by a coalition of environmental groups, whose investigators say they found alarming levels of pollutants in water sloshing out of the facility's storm water outfalls into the nearby waterway during rainstorms.

Imagine chowing down on pizza and washing it down with a Slurpee, followed by a deep-fried Snickers and some funnel cake covered in crispy bacon and maple cream. Now imagine finishing up the day by jumping on more than a dozen high-speed roller coasters. For teenagers, this may sound like the makings of a great day. For most adults, it's a recipe for extreme nausea. Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia is launching into this year's peak spring and summer seasons with several new menu items for guests, including Slurpees, the blended ice drinks that -- until now -- were sold exclusively at 7-Eleven convenient stores.

The latest expansion of Disney's California Adventure, the new Cars Land attraction, is set to open June 15, Disney officials said Friday, as the park offered a peek at one of the biggest attractions featured in the $1-billion expansion. The 12-acre Cars Land, featuring the characters from the Disney-Pixar film "Cars," will open with several new restaurants and three rides, including Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi's Flying Tires and Radiator Springs Racers. The most elaborate and anticipated attraction is Radiator Springs Racers, in which small, convertible cars carry passengers around realistic-looking buttes and canyons.

Six Flags Magic Mountain is expected to add a terrain hugging launched roller coaster in 2013 featuring the world's tallest loop, according to an employee who wasn't authorized to speak on behalf of the amusement park. A Magic Mountain mechanic inadvertently revealed closely guarded facts about the record-setting 2013 attraction while casually talking with a group of coaster enthusiasts during the recent West Coast Bash event at the Valencia amusement park. Details of the conversation quickly appeared on the Theme Park Review website and rapidly spread through the online coaster community.

While all eyes will be on Disney California Adventure in 2012, plenty of other theme parks in California will be adding new rides and attractions in time for the summer crowds. Our Top 10 for 2012 is dominated by new rides coming to DCA's 12-acre Cars Land expansion , the grand finale in the $1 billion extreme makeover the Anaheim theme park has undertaken during the past five years. DCA's transformation is so massive that even Disneyland is taking the year off as far as new attractions go, letting the spotlight shine on its younger neighbor.