Avengers Arena 4: Chase Narrates

[wake_the_dragon]

Comments

[chrisdv]

Chase, don't ever change.

Oh, and try not to die.

[wake_the_dragon]

I love Chase and Nico.

Runaways is one of my favorite books and I'm kind of pissed that two of the characters from it are being put in a death match.

[filthysize]

GUYS, WHAT IF THEY'RE THE TWO THAT ARE LEFT AND THEY ARE FORCED TO KILL EACH OTHER? ISN'T THAT SUPER ANGSTY?

[coldfury]

I think I read that in a book, once.

[arilou_skiff]

I'm fairly certain Chase's insistence on "It won't come to that." Was because he's secretly thinking "Because I'll kill myself before you have to."

[kaileighblue]

Chases tiny pinch face through this whole thing. I can't.

[coldfury]

I'm confused...

This is the entire preview up on CBR (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=15175) , I thought we didn't generally post the entire preview in cases like this.

But, then I looked in the rules and couldn't find anything, so maybe I made it up in my head.

[salinea]

It's not a rule, it's a courtesy thing.

[wake_the_dragon]

Oh, I'm sorry. Should I take some of the pages out?

It'll have to wait though, I'm not near a computer right now.

[salinea]

flint_marko did a good job of explaining the why & how. Since it's on release date rather than the preview as such, it's a pretty ambiguous case anyway. *shrugs* I dunno, I don't particularly care myself; it's better to ask other readers of the series who might want to post more of it.

[flint_marko]

I don't think there's any rules against it, but pages from the previews still count for the page limit so usually people only post one page from the previews and just link to the rest, so the pages that weren't already released can actually be posted.

And posting pages from the previews on the day the issue came out, like this one did, just kind of defeats the point anyway.

[crinos]

Are those... do they have life bars? Did Arcade give them life bars?

[flint_marko]

It's basically a storytelling device to show the characters' names and for when they get injured or killed.

[aravis]

So, this is officially the worst comic ever, is what you're saying?

[crinos]

I was not aware that fact was in question.

Well, no, Cry for Justice is still pretty bad, but this hasn't finished yet, so it has room to get dumber.

[arrogantcur.livejournal.com]

After reading the summary...

DUMB THING #1: Arcade actually thinks that these people might kill one another to get out of Murderworld instead of trying to defeat him again. I don't know all of the characters, but it would be wildly out of character for the ones I do know to stoop that low;

DUMB THING #2: Some of them actually have actually proven him right by fighting one another, because...they were handed idiot balls, I guess;

The only deaths so far (and hopefully it'll stay this way) have happened because Arcade either personally killed one of the contestants or let somebody be killed by one of his traps.

Seems to me that this could have been written as another "throw the heroes in Murderworld and see if they survive" story, and not necessarily a bad one either, just by taking away Arcade's idiotic ultimatum.

[darkknightjrk]

With the dumb things--the first issue does address that. When Arcade appears, almost everyone tries to fight him but he's able to fight them all back.

[aravis]

...would that mean that they'd stop trying, and do as he'd say and start fighting each other...? Aren't these kids supposed to be superheroes?

[darkknightjrk]

Well, they were literally unable to actually touch him, at all. Because of that, many people, including myself, are thinking that the twist that will come when this story ends is that it's all been a VR simulation that they're hooked up too.

As for them being superheroes...well, the Runaways, from what I've read, kinda skirted or borderline that hero thing. Many of the Avengers Academy kids were once possible super-villains. X-23 can turn into a mindless killer if Arcade releases the trigger scent into the atmosphere. The Braddock Academy kids are just students with super-powers...so yeah, if pushed hard enough, I does kinda make sense, but YMMV.

[aravis]

And the twist to the twist that it was all a VR simulation will, no doubt, be that the ones who died in the simulation also died for real. This being Marvel.

[cyberghostface]

So just wondering, is anyone in the MU concerned that all of these teen heroes have gone missing at once?

[silverhammerman]

Well oddly enough a gag class schedule type thing at the back of the most recent issue of Wolverine and the X-Men had Logan making a note that the Braddock Academy wasn't available for an inter-school competition due to several of their students going missing. So I guess they realize these characters are missing but are somehow not concerned? Which is especially odd given that one of the kids is X-23, who is literally Logan's only biological child left alive right now.

[icon_uk]

Given that reasons that Logan's school could have used under similar circumstances would have beePenned by Avengers" and "Sentinel Invasion" I think a little laxity about such things is pretty much the norm.

[akodo_rokku]

Y'know I've never gotten the impression that Wolverine things of Laura as his kid. *A* kid, and maybe more of a little sister, but not a daughter. That seems to really be a Scans_Daily Invention.

[ablackraptor]

Well, Logan did legally adopt her, so technically she is his kid in the eyes of the law. Plus, she shares only a portion of his DNA, and a portion taken from the doctor lady who's name currently escapes me that made her, acted as a surrogate for her, and raised her. So, technically, in a way, she's his illegitimate kid via genetic donating, rather than a full on clone of him.

Either way though, him seeing her as his daughter may or may not be canon, but its certainly a lot of people's headcanon. I've read many, MANY fanfics where they're depicted as a father/daughter unit, including some which outright have her call him dad. In fact, I think I've only read one fic where she's featured and doesn't act like he's her father (though I haven't read the fic in a while, so that might have changed).

[zechs80]

Logan = bad parent. Alas you know it's true.

[darkknightjrk]

I guess you could say that he figures she went off the grid to be on her own for a while. Logan definitely knows a thing or two about that, and that was what Liu basically had her do in her on-going.

[dragontail]

I love Chase.

I love Darkhawk.

Having read this issue in the store today, I don't like this series.

[theflames]

hahaha, I'm actually really enjoying this comic... probably because I feel there's a nice sense of danger that feels real. It helps that people really don't want any of these characters to die. I also love the character interactions... it's all pretty good.

I think I'd only hate it, if I was so in love with any of these characters that I didn't want them to ever die.

That's not the case. I'm reading this like I watched Battle Royale, I may love you, and really want you to win, but if there can only be won, and there's a chance you might die, I'm not gonna hate the story for it. Here's hoping the Braddock Academy kid's make it, I love them!

[viridian5]

I see somebody read the second book in the Hunger Games series.

[darkknightjrk]

Arcade did name-drop the Hunger Games as his inspiration for this scheme in the first issue.

[viridian5]

As much as that already annoys me, I'd be annoyed less by inspiration as an overall thing instead of this very specific piece.

[long_silence]

This is a really interesting character piece for Chase, a lot of survivor's guilt

And for like the first time since volume 2 he's getting a storyline that isn't "I'm going to to Time Travel/make a deal with Elder Gods to resurrect my dead girlfriend"

[darkknightjrk]

I haven't finished my Runaways reading, but I have to ask--he does this more than once? :|

[long_silence]

He only tried to make a deal with the Elder Gods the one time. But he's considered using Time travel to bring back Gert at least twice. Maybe three times.

[naebler]

I still am thinking this is going to end up being a "Dallas" kind of situation. I don't know, I just don't see all these chars being offed like this.

[maxisanacorn]

The whole videogame stats and things seem to suggest that it might be virtual reality - the name Arcade, Murderworld. I would really like this to not be actual reality and he just kidnapped all those heroes and hooked them up to machines.

[darkblade]

Which only raises the question "Why?"

[donnblake]

Literally the only reason Arcade does anything- he's bored. And potentially being paid, but given that he was filthy rich to start off with, and that sort of thing doesn't tend to run out in comics (except occasionally as part of a villain's plot to ruin a rich hero's life), that always seemed like more of a bonus.

[icon_uk]

But if he's bored, he'd kill them for real, not a VR scenarion HE knew as fake. He's a sadistic psychopath, not a fantasist.

[mrstatham]

Yawn. These two (to say nothing of all the other characters) are now so distanced from Vaughan's characterisation that I think Marvel have successfully gotten me to not give a fuck anymore.