So, is Alex Wilder alive again?

[history79]

One page from Avengers Undercover #10.
Is he the guy in the left corner of the third panel?

Comments

[silicondream]

Oh, Sabretooth. Will you ever overcome your gnawing envy of Her Majesty?

[draganoche]

Yeah he made some kind of devil contract (with hellstorm i think) so that he could escape purgatory.

[crimsonmoonmist]

Seeing Sabretooth whack someone with a scepter while wearing a decorated crown is one of the greatest things ever!

[cainofdreaming]

Who are those flaming skull, Spidey shirt, fish and metallic mask guys in the SHIELD academy panel? I recognize the Wrecking Crew, Amora and Alex, but I'm drawing a blank on those people.

[tugrul]

That's not Amora the Enchantress, it's Sylvie Lushton, part of the Young Masters who posed as the Young Avengers. I think she got her powers from pre-Siege evil Loki.

[ablackraptor]

Metal mask guy is the current Whiplash, Anton Vanko. They made him to tie in with the second Iron Man film, now he fills crowds.

[cainofdreaming]

Huh. He really doesn't look like he did in Infinity: Heist.

[zachbeacon]

I think the first three are Egghead (flaming skull), Melter (spidey shirt), and Mako (fish) from the Young Masters. Not sure about "metallic mask" (Executioner from the Young Masters? A new Whiplash?). Man, this is some crappy art.

[yvonmukluk]

Avengers Undercover continues to be godawful, I see.

Somebody cancel it already.

[shieldhill]

This issue (#10) is the last issue. It was selling under 20k by #4, so no surprise.

[yvonmukluk]

Yayyyyyyyyy. Now can they promise to never let him write comics again?

Although I noticed in one of the wordless previews that there was a mention of a file called 'MW_Godmode'. Is Hopeless actually going for the 'Mojoworld/IT WAS COMPUTERS ALL ALONG' retcon? Because I'm not sure how to feel about that.

[northstarfan]

If it means Mettle, Justin, and Reptil weren't killed off for shock value, I'm down with it.

[majingojira]

Arena/Undercover really was a shortsighted mess of a run. We "Gained" three extremely flat and bland characters, lost 4 and probably buried over half a dozen franchises for the next 2-5 years (AT BEST) because of just how poorly these series were received.

A massive net loss. Short term 'gain' for long term loss.

So I too would be very happy if the next writer to use these characters cherry picked around EVERYTHING Dennis Hopeless did with them, if only to spite Dennis Hopeless own self-admitted cherry picking ways.

As an aside, Cherry Picking only works with characters that have more than 100 appearances.

[northstarfan]

Even speaking as someone who hates Arena from the concept on down, I don't think it's quite fair to say it was poorly received. For a story about a bunch of newb and D-list character taking on a C-list villain, it had decent sales. Yes, hype and double-shipping probably had a lot to do with it, but it still didn't outright tank the way Undercover has.

The problem is, I think the lesson Marvel is going to take away from this is "Increased body count = $", because the implication from the numbers is that people weren't buying it for the story.

[majingojira]

The thing is, while the initial sales were good, it had the poorest sales retention this side of Gugenheim's Young X-men. It never leveled off and continued spiraling down for its entire run. Dennis Hopeless himself points out that with Undercover, no one new joined on and the arc of sales graphed out basically demonstrates that. There's a blip from "New series! Extra Covers!" mark, but by #3 of Undercover, there was only a 1K difference between it and the last issue of Arena. The ONLY Uptick in sales came after Christos Gage penned an issue and it had an alt cover. Other than that it's a steady downward spiral.

I doubt Marvel got the "body count sells!" message. If anything, they got "Death Doesn't Matter" as even the outcry of Nico's death didn't get a sales blip (though they did cover their asses pretty well with that one).

At the rate Undercover's falling, I bet the last issue will be selling 15K or so. Which, ironically, is about what the last issue of Sentinel's first run sold. Arena may have made money in the short term, but long term? It and Undercover buried about 7 franchises.

[majingojira]

No. He's totally gonna go with giving Cammi Arcade's storebought godpower. Ya know, because that was a plot point worth revisiting.

[crinos]

Roxxon Oil Refinery: Currently on fire.

Ah, it must be Tuesday then.

[thanekos]

Why the Z armband, Zemo? It's superfluous.

[his_spiffynesss]

Kind of going back to his Nazi roots?

[kaileighblue]

I've been ignoring that this exists. I hope future writers do as well.

[arrogantcur]

Much as I liked Alex Wilder while he was alive and will not complain about having him back, he should not be a gun-toting goon; he should be the guy giving orders to gun-toting goons.

[majingojira]

Oh, you think that's bad? When he first properly appeared, he was a total creeper in speech style. He didn't sound like Alex Wilder. He sounded like a 30 year old perving on a teenager.

Then there was the image last issue of him in a wifebeater, holding a bottle of Not!Gin in a ghetto-ass apartment with orange tinted lighting while Nico was in very little.

The shot screamed one thing to me: "STELLAAAA!!"

[arrogantcur]

Ah shit.

[shanonigans]

Baaaah, why are they bringing back Alex but not Gert? She was my favorite.

[night4345]

Still don't know why this and Arena got greenlit. Does someone higher up just hate younger heroes or what?