Avengers Arena #10

[cyberghostface]

Ugh.

Comments

[auggie18]

Boo.

Boo!


BOOOO!


BOOOOOOOOO!

[thezmage]

I really should care, I suppose. I love Runaways and Mico, but I just can't muster up the ability to care.

[insolent_one]

Most likely because so few people actually want to care about Avengers Arena.

[cyberghostface]

What bothers me about this besides the obvious factors of killing off a character like Nico is that original new characters with any staying power are harder and harder to come by since people just stick with the well-known ones. This is just a huge waste from a storytelling perspective.

If Marvel operated under this shock mentality back in the 60s a lot of the classic X-Men probably wouldn't be here today.

[protogarrett]

Agreed. So few new characters have real staying power. Emma Frost got bumped from D-List to A-List rather quickly. I suppose X-23 did rather well.

It just seems most characters past the mid-80s sort of just became pet projects that get abandoned when the next writer comes aboard because everyone wants to create an original Avenger/X-Man. In fact, we get them churned out at us at a dizzying rate. Especially with the prevalence of hero school / young hero teams books. Most of Hope's new team? Long forgotten. New X-Men? Background except for Pixie who has become a staple character, it seems (which isn't bad for someone created as background).

[mrstatham]

If I said the things I'd said about this book on my Tumblr here, I'd get banned several times over. But this is just a very said, very pathetic mess of a book that just reads like the author acting out because he didn't get the book to write that he originally wanted to do.

Pathetic.

[blunderbuss]

If it's not too rude to ask ... can you link to those posts? Because now I'm curious.

[drexer]

So, number 10?

This is ending on 12, right?

Because now it's just sad. Not the story itself. But the fact they pretend this is anything near a proper story.

[long_silence]

Season One ends at 18, so yeah still a ways to go

Re: Because my Google-Fu is weak

[cyberghostface]

From Tumblr



http://majingojira.tumblr.com/post/52132365838/this-is-a-sales-chart-for-individual-issues-i

[timefire]

Okay, I have not read Runaways. So I guess I'm speaking as part of Avenger Arena's target audience here (the kind of people who wouldn't be outraged by so-and-so character's death).

And I can say that I definitely don't like this scene.

It's so... lackluster, so painted-by-number. It feels like the writer is just sticking on new names on some stock death-speech they have in archive.

[majingojira]

That's my problem with it. Mechanically, the parts are there to make it dramatic and heart wrencthing. But the craft, the soul of the work is just not there. It's a hollow, wretched thing.

And the utter explosion online only confirms this. CBR posted an article trying to defend it, but did so with such a shallow reasoning that it became laughable.

[protogarrett]

See profile icon.

I am mixed. This series has had highlights. The Arcade backstory? Amazing. Some of the character highlights? Well done. This however feels like killing a big character to build up this robot controlling girl.

And, honestly, I am getting tired of this cliche for robot/cyborgs/etc. "Let's have someone take over their systems!" It's happened to Vision, Jocasta a few times, Omega Sentinel a few times, Danger, Deathlok on countless occasions, now Chase... It's just tired. Christ, why some of these tech characters don't just have all the Big Brains of the MU go and update their malware is beyond me.

[blunderbuss]

And, honestly, I am getting tired of this cliche for robot/cyborgs/etc. "Let's have someone take over their systems!"

And it makes even less sense for someone organic manage to do it with just their mind (which I think this girl is doing, I'm not sure), considering that a robotic mind would function very differently than an organic one.

Not to mention that it just re-enforces the old 'machines are essentially soulless' mindset that still exists even in a world like the Marvelverse where free-willed robotic people exist. Sure, organic people have been mind-controlled, but not to the same 'you're technology therefore you are my minion' degree that you get with machines.

Magic Reset

[kuratowa]

Well, everyone will be alive by issue 12. She just used magic to ask for help. MAGIC REBOOT. If it's good enough for Peter Parker's entire life, it's good enough for a few weeks in MurderWorld.

Aren't Darkhawk's energy blasts energy based? Wouldn't the wound cauterize?

[horselover107]

I was really pissed about this when I found about it this morning, but in all honesty, I've cooled down some. I'm honestly waiting for someone at Marvel to say "screw it" and declare this non-canon Spider-Man: Chapter One style. In the meantime, that's what I mentally consider this.

[spidermanwashere]

I could certainly go for some deus ex machina after this

[ninjapeps]

Chase? that isn't Chris Powell?

[long_silence]

No, something tore the Darkhawk amulet out of Chris Powell and Chase Stein found it and it bonded with him

Chris Powell is presumably still alive somewhere on Murder World, we just haven't seen him in a while

[turtlefu]

Guys, Runaways got me into comics. I love it, my hardcover has been read so many times I had to buy another one.
But, I have hated everything about them not written by BKV, and I have now accepted that BKV will never return to them. So I honestly don't really care what happens.
It's weird to think a year ago I was crying because Renee Montoya was put into DC Limbo.

[goggle_kid]

When Juston died last month I was sad and depressed. Nico's makes me feel empty. Like never want to read a comic again empty.

Anyway posted this on Tumblr in response.
http://paulsebert.tumblr.com/post/52244902588/in-many-ways-the-kill-heavy-stories-that-became-in

[lieut_kettch]

Amen. For me it was:

Mettle-- rage

Juston-- depression

Nico-- apathy.

[randyripoff]

Given that Marvel tends to jettison their continuity whenever they deem it appropriate, I'm less affected by this. If need be, any and all of these characters could be resurrected quite easily.

[blunderbuss]

GODDAMMIT.

And here I was hoping that since her powers grow the more pain she experiences (which is how she 'leveled-up' back in Dead End Kids) I would have thought that the fact that she was near-death would have given her godlike power to restore herself and kick ass.

But noooooooooo. How stupid of me to root for a teenage girl to live.

[md84]

So the technopath can't find a way off the island surrounded by nanites that doesn't require killing everyone else? Issue #7 established that everything weird about the island and Arcade's god-mode powers are due to nanomachines (which seems even more contrived than the way Metal Gear Solid 4 used them to explain away everything). So Apex's technopath powers, which Arcade in theory shouldn't have known about since she hid them from everyone including her supposed teammates, don't work on the nanites. She can't even sense them? My other (many) problems with this series aside, that is just one big plothole among many.

As for Nico's demise, I'm honestly kind of numbed to it. The Runaways series hasn't been the series I loved for a long time, so I'm not as affected by her death as I was Gert's death. And it's not like this wasn't already foreshadowed in the very first issue with no one around but Mettle and X-23. If there really is only going to be one surviving kid it's probably going to be X-23 since she's the most successful (in terms of selling power) character of the lot.

I'm dreading the inevitable demises of Cammi, Death-locket, and Cullen Bloodstone, given their relative youth compared to the other contestants. I just hope one of them manages to take down Apex in the process. If anyone needs to go, it's Apex.

[long_silence]

We haven't really seen Apex "sense" machines before. She can control machines and tell them what to do, but being a technopath doesn't necessarily mean she can tell that there's tech around her. If Apex herself isn't aware that the Island is full of tech, then she isn't trying to control it.

It's like elementals if you don't even know the water is there how are you suppose to move it?

[silverhammerman]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little intrigued to see what Nico's potential last spell will do, but damn this series is off putting.

Seriously, a teenage girl having her arm pretty graphically cut off in a title that isn't even marked as for mature readers? Really pretty gross to be frank. It's not even the death that bothers me, it's just that the way it's handled feels genuinely unpleasant.

[capnduckman]

This, is bullshit! Just... just GAH! Niko? No, fuck this!

[espanolbot]

Nico! Boo!

[northstarfan]

Considering that I just read Runaways again as a bit of RPG research, this really should have affected me more. There's something about the whole scene that's wobbling between absurd and perfunctory, and that's just not fertile ground for an emotional reaction.

So this should be wrapping in about four months, then?

[mrstatham]

Eight more issues of shit until the 'first season' ends. Frankly, I'm imagining that Marvel will kill it for a while or rejig it as a lead-in for something else, and pretend that was the way it was meant to be all along.

[lieut_kettch]

...

*sputter*

ummm...


Y'know what, fuck this. I'm just gonna pretend this series never existed.

[espanolbot]

I choose to believe that Magic Boots Melanie (she's like a heroic British Bullseye who is an expert at kicking things at people instead of throwing them) comes to her rescue.

Because MBM deserves to be in more comics than just one AU issue of Avengers Assemble.

[shadowpsykie]

and with this death, i don't believe anything in this story. Nico is not just fan favorite, but a cult favorite.

and the fact that she reached the staff before she "died" aslo makes me feel like something is up.

so no i am not quite angry at this... because now i know there is something more to this... but i am not happy.... this doesn't even seem like a decent death..... this is not a death worthy of Nico. also... isn't this TWO asian american characters down?

[salinea]

Mettle was Hawai'ien (and half Jewish), which I dunno if it counts as Asian American?

a last hope

[psylynce]

Long time lurker, first time poster ( I had to say something when Nico died, just HAD to!)

Has the Staff of One ever cast a resurrection spell? If not, I think it would work beautifully here and then I could forgive the writer for this travesty.

And just to echo the first comment: Boooooo!

Re: a last hope

[mrstatham]

Nico said back in the second volume of Runaways (after Future!Gert had arrived and died) that she'd already tried a resurrection spell after Alex had been disintegrated. Judging by the end of Volume 2, it very much failed.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

For fucks sake... guys I just ran out of rage and vomit, may I borrow someone elses so I can properly enunciate how much this bullshit needs to go to all the hell there is?

I mean, sure its going to be retconned in some idiotic way once its over, but the sheer fact this drek even exists is a veritable monument to all the stupid in comics at the moment

[angelophile]

I really hate that Brian K. Vaughan gave Marvel such a fantastic gift when he left Marvel and this is the end result. It's the final chapter in years of terrible creative decisions and mismanagement that rendered Runaways from one of the best things to come out of the publisher in the last decade to one of the biggest creative voids. No one outside of BKV knew what to do with the kids and they turned critical success into this. I know even bkv's run wasn't a big seller for Marvel, but I just find it sad all that critical acclaim and amazing characters never became as iconic as they deserved to be.

[mrstatham]

For me, the worst part is that Marvel basically kicked Immonen in the teeth with her run and cut it horribly short before it had a chance to really get going. There were some flubs in there - the idea of sending one of the boys Karolina's way to help her get over Xavin maybe counts as that, but then given the complicated gender mechanics behind Xavin and the fact that they're basically just kids had me giving that one a free pass - but I thought that Immonen was maybe the only one who had real potential.