Uuuuuh WTF?

So! Here we are back to our regular schedule. Except... I am getting sick. So I'm not really sure I'm up to this. Lets see if I can ramble coherently long enough to make this work. Also, let's see if I can go long enough without being interrupted to get anything done. Seems like everyone I know is coming in to Starbucks this morning. Anyway, enough commentary, time to get started.

I had this whole post half written on the new Marvel NOW! titles spinning out of AvX, but I got bored, so here's attempt number two. I'm thinking maybe Ke$ha isn't the best music to be listening to for creative inspiration. Oh well. So what do I feel like talking about then?

Avengers Arena! This week a brand new comic launched, and I've been a little bit wary of this one. The whole idea of it is basically the Hunger Games with 16 of the Marvel universe's teenage superheroes. Classic X-Men villain Arcade has kidnapped a whole bunch of Marvel kids and trapped them in Murder World, where he is basically a god, even against some extremely powerful super kids.

The characters are about half and half new and old. There's Nico and Chase from Runaways, Mettle, Hazmat, Reptil, and X-23 from the recently ended Avengers Academy, plus Darkhawk and maybe some others from random places, and then a bunch of new characters apparently from the Braddock Academy, the British version of Avengers Academy or the Jean Grey School. There are no young X-Men characters, which is mentioned in the story as Arcade says "Wolverine's school has better security" or something along those lines.

The first issue is mostly setup, Arcade explaining who he is, what's going to happen, letting them know only one will survive, and all the usual exposition to let the reader in on what's going on. And then the issue ends with a total WTF moment. Arcade tells the kids he'll start the killing, but they have to pick one of them to die. No one says anything, but Hazmat goes ballistic attacking him, so he picks her, but at the last minute Mettle says he's the weakest so it should be him so Arcade points at him... and he EXPLODES! Blood everywhere, all over his girlfriend, Hazmat. Dubya. Tee. Eff. Just messed up. I HATE when the kid characters die, 'cause they are my favourites, but I am entirely hooked on this book. Ugh!

Anyway, work time! Hopefully this was acceptable. If not... too bad. I'm sick.