Avengers Arena in: The Case of the Magic List

avengers arena 4Once upon a time, there was a diner in my neighborhood called the Parkmoor. The Parkmoor had been around since carhops were a thing, and people my dad’s age remembered it fondly as the place where you’d take your best gal for a malted after the sock hop. My friends and I remembered it as the place where the roach crawled out of Brian’s Monte Cristo that one time. Its decor looked like the Brady Bunch set designer had gone into pornography. People my age didn’t go there much, and people my dad’s age had moved to the exurbs a long time ago. And so it came to pass that the original owner’s kid decided to let them tear the place down and expand the neighboring Walgreens.

When this was announced, well, holy health inspectors Batman. People burst out of the woodwork like roaches from a sandwich to stop that lady from doing what she wanted with her own restaurant. Not by eating there, mind you; let’s not lose our heads. They just wanted a landmark to fondly remember as they were driving past it on the way to Applebee’s. They had a plan, though. They were going to make the world the way they wanted it to be. They were taking to the streets. They had a petition.

The Parkmoor closed maybe two weeks later. That Walgreens is friggin’ enormous. There’s an ionosphere in there.

I found myself thinking about all of this last week when I read that there was a petition up at Change.org demanding that Marvel Comics “cancel Avengers Arena and retcon the deaths that have happened.”

Online petitions to comic book companies have the power to do exactly one thing, and that is instantly make me tired. I read the headline about something like this, and my hand reflexively goes up to my forehead and rubs my temples and closed eyelids for a long, long time, because I am forced to confront the fact that adults are responsible for it and this is the world I have to live in forever.

Slacktivism drives me insane. The author of this particular petition announces “we will not sit idly by while they lump our beloved characters into the debris pile they have collected.” Sitting at your desk, typing your name into an online form, and leaving the site cloaked in righteousness is just about the exact definition of sitting idly by. There is about a twenty-second difference between you and someone who doesn’t even know any of this is happening. At least the Parkmoor people had to stand outside with clipboards and look into strangers’ eyes to tell them with a straight face what they were doing. (It was 1999; the internet had not yet taken all the work out of being angry.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Avengers Arena, it is a book about a variety of Marvel’s teenage heroes who have been cherry-picked by the villain Arcade and dropped into his Murderworld to compete in a Hunger Games ripoff for his amusement. “Ripoff” is not a critique; Arcade literally says in #1 that he got the idea by reading The Hunger Games, although in a show of restraint he does not then turn and wink at the reader. The petitioners are rising up (in a not-literally-rising-or-even-standing sort of way) to protest the wanton massacre of the few new characters Marvel has produced in the last several years, because logically the book can only end with everyone being killed.

One assumes. Without reading the book. Because barely three issues have come out.

What if the writer is fond of his characters, too? What if he has some tricks up his sleeve as a professional creative person? What if we give him ten minutes and find out either way before we start circulating our magic name list that makes business work differently?

For you see, all of these characters with their legions of diehard fans used to be in books where they were living long, productive lives. (Well, except maybe the Runaways; Avengers Arena has killed at least 200% fewer Runaways than Brian K. Vaughan. But that was his privilege; no petition necessary.) I know this, because I was one of the fans who bought all the books. Runaways, Sentinel, Avengers Academy, The Initiative… all good books, and all long gone because the numbers just weren’t there. All of the petitions in the world couldn’t keep them in print, because that’s not how the laws of physics work on planet Reality. The Powers That Be still saw potential in the characters anyway, and gave Avengers Arena a try as yet another chance to let that potential blossom. Marvel isn’t killing your characters, you name-typing freedom fighters; they’re keeping them alive and accessible. Or would you rather have all of them safe and sound in a locked drawer somewhere in Marvel’s basement again?

Look, I dreaded this book the day I heard about it for all the reasons the zealots are citing. The death in issue #1 pained me in a way that the Doc Ock/Spidey thing couldn’t touch, because given these characters’ positions on the totem pole these are deaths that are likely to stick. I actually do get it. As Doctor Voodoo will tell you, though, the world just doesn’t go your way all the time, and your petition is spit in the ocean. You will only get the book canceled by not buying it and hoping others do the same. Even if it only sells 20,000 copies, do you think you could muster 20,001 “signatures”?

petition

If you really want to save your Marvel Teens, petition up a video game or movie with them in it. They almost never kill the guys from the movies. Lock down whoever gets cast as Ant-Man while he’s still going cheap; it’s a win-win for everybody.

Oh! Also, the book is good, for whatever that’s worth. (You’d have to let it come out and then try it in order to know that, of course.) Dennis Hopeless is investing the characters with the kind of story you don’t get from cynical cannon fodder, and Kev Walker? Are you kidding me? How do you try to get a Kev Walker book canceled, you fiends? I will not sit idly by and allow this to happen. I am composing my magic signature list to make your petition disappear as we speak.


Jim Mroczkowski doesn’t want anything to happen to Juston the Sentinel Boy any more than you do. First his mom walks out on the family, and now Murderworld? It breaks your heart.

Comments

  1. People going bitch, let them bitch, like you said this petition will do nothing just like all the bitching from the pissed off spidey fans.

  2. I can’t say I even know who any more than 1 or 2 of the Avenger Arena cast of characters are – and one of the ones I know is Arcade.

    I say: let them die.

  3. It’s a video game. The kids aren’t really dying. Arcade is doing this for Mojo or someone else, who knows. The kids have health bars, there are invisible walls that prevent them from getting to places they aren’t supposed to, and Arcade was unharmed when attacked from behind by Hazmat, this is all an illusion. The drama will come into play when they all find out it was a farce and they have to live with the actions they took when they thought it was for real.

  4. While I agree with much of this article I’m not 100% sure I can agree if it’s assumed that the fans voices are not heard or that people shouldn’t voice there discontent. I too thought that this was the case though until recently with the whole Gail SImone being off then on again due to public outcry as the writer on Batgirl (although I’m sure there’s a lot going on there that the public hasn’t been privy to besides just some dissenting voices).

    With all that said, I’m really enjoying this title but I too was unfamiliar with any of the included characters but Dark Hawk and Arcade (who’s one of my favorite X-villians of all time).

    • I’m glad you mentioned Gail Simone because people always take that “you can’t change anything” stance it seems. I’ll tell you, my local Safeway was having quality issues which I noticed at several other stores. I brought it to their attention which got me in touch with corporate and they are changing their ENTIRE purchasing strategy based on my ideas. Same thing happened this week with Office Depot and an issue I had with their advertising and what it was promising based on my experiences with Windows 8. Again…I am meeting with corporate to talk about realistic expectations in advertising. We can change things. I don’t think the petition will make any difference but in comics the change is easy. If you don’t like it, you don’t but it and it goes away. I’m sure some people are like “aren’t you the guy who likes the changes in Spidey?” I do. I think they were well thought out. I don’t however like ANYONE who capitalizes on other IP to get a slight bump in sales. It is lazy. It will always be lazy. If Hopeless was a talented writer (which I know he is) he would have created new characters that were engaging and interesting, but instead chose to take characters that many of us have invested a lot of time and money into, and treat them as if they are disposable in order to cash in on the most recent YA craze. I love Marvel. I do. But this just makes me surprised they didn’t capitalize on Harry Potter to boost their “magic” universe or “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” to promote more women in comic roles. I can’t believe so many people aren’t at least a little “come on Marvel” about this. Guess that is why I’m reading more creator owned stuff than ever. At least it doesn’t insult my intelligence.

    • I hear what you’re saying, but in this case it would be like going to Safeway and demanding that they stop selling Coca-Cola because you liked Crystal Pepsi better. (Mind you, that is a petition I would sign.)

    • @HankChinaski Except He isn’t treating them as disposable, which you would now if you read the book and he did create new characters for the book too, so you are wrong on both counts.

  5. This petition doesn’t hold a candle to the WE DEMAND CAP A’s LIL WINGS petition. That is the gold signature petition all other petitions have to work up to.

    • It is certainly in the running, but I humbly nominate “We Demand Kenner Rerelease the Boba Fett Action Figure With Its Correct, Empire Strikes Back Paint Job” from a 1998 rec.arts.sf.starwars.collecting.misc post I saw on Usenet.

      (I am so terribly old.)

  6. Agree Jim, and I am enjoying this book as well. Hoping this series can go until its logical conclusion.

    I also am sad DC cancelled Frankenstein on me and i’m hoping to not lose sword and sorcery and i’vampire this year.

  7. Great post, Jim!

  8. I’m simply going to say this…for someone who did a story about how we need to be kinder and treat our creators with more respect, you seem to have missed it with this article. Respect is a two way street and while I don’t think the petition is the right way to go, I do feel this disrespect the opinions of people I think have a valid gripe. The same titles you listed above had a clear and defined purpose, and after reading the first issue of Avengers Arena (which I wish I could get my money back for) I feel cheated of ever reading Runaways, Initiative, and Academy.

    • In what way does this series take away whatever enjoyment you got from Runaways, Initiative and Academy?

    • But the people complaining don’t have a valid gripe and Avengers Arena has been enjoyable so far. I also don’t see how it takes away from the previous books either. Don’t be so dramatic.

  9. The idea that Marvel needs a petition to convince them to employ a retcon is a hilarious. Everything about this is hilarious.

    The book is pretty good!

  10. our culture is so weird. We get all “Storm the Bastille” over relatively meaningless stuff like this, but sit on our hands and stare at a wall when something truly important is happening.

    With the online petition fad right now, this is not surprising this happened at all. Small groups of fanboys will always bitch loudly online..that isn’t a concern. its the people in the target demographic who quietly ignore the sales pitch that Marvel has to really be worried about.

  11. Love or hate this comic, gotta admit the covers are really fun.

  12. What a sad, unproductive waste of time and energy. I read somewhere that the average working American writes a novel’s worth of emails (in terms of word count) in a given day. This is even sadder than that, occupying the same dark territory as the Piers Morgan petition.

    What blows my mind about this is that death in comics doesn’t matter. The last issue of “Avengers Arena” could literally have Dennis Hopeless himself team up with Deadpool and massacre all of the surviving characters and it wouldn’t matter because someone else would either retcon it or ignore it because, like death, continuity also really doesn’t matter anymore.

    Finally, comics is one industry where your dollar truly counts. You don’t like it, don’t buy it. If enough people don’t buy it, it gets cancelled, and it’s easier than you think, since not that many people read comics in the first place. Or if the outcome of “Avengers Arena” becomes the status quo and these characters stay dead, then why don’t you get to work on some truly epic collaborative fan-fiction featuring all of your favorite characters that died in “Avengers Arena” teaming up with all of the characters that died in “Buffy” and “Firefly”? No matter how bad that might end up being, it still would be less of a waste of everyone’s time than this petition.

    • seriously, anything can be undone with a dream-magic-cosmic-dimmensional shift-time travel whatever device. I guess its cool in that way, nothing is ever set in stone.

    • Unlike life, where everything has consequences and every story ends the same way.

      (takes a sip of tea, meditates on a falling leaf, sighs)

  13. Why is a petition with barely more than 100 supporters newsworthy? Way to give importance to a thing which has little.

    Regarding the early fan outcry: the early PR was awful and hurt fans of the characters involved. Marvel is to blame for that. And bitching about fans has become as tired as bitching about creators.

  14. Comic book fans just like the sound of their angry little fingers tapping on the keyboard. When these “dead” characters are brought back, most of the same fans will take to the interwebz to complain about the revolving door of death and how killing a character doesn’t mean anything these days.

  15. I gotta say, Jim, you’ve been on a roll lately. These are the kind of articles I love to read from you, and the last few have been some of my favorites. Sometimes it can be really depressing to think that I have anything at all in common with people like this, but your work helps me to realize how funny it all is. Good stuff.

    I can’t wait to see how many of these slacktivists emerge from the basement when the whole story’s revealed to be a simulation. I have a feeling we’ll only hear from the crickets. Hopeless must be laughing his ass off.

  16. If all of these teen Avengers have been abducted, have the Avengers even noticed yet?

    Shouldn’t they be out looking for them?

    I demand someone start an online petition demanding that all Avengers writers immediately begin storylines which tie into the Murderworld continuity, and further that Marvel make this the Big Summer Event! Slacktivism!

    /not really

  17. I’ll admit it.
    I’ve never read Runaways, Young Avengers, Avengers Academy or any of those comics that has the younger hero generation.
    I picked up Avengers Arena because I’m intrigued on how Marvel will handle this kind of book/idea.
    The only characters that I’m familiar with is Darkhawk, X-23, and Arcade.
    When I heard about the concept, I immediately thought that X-23 will win. How can she not? Doesn’t she have a healing factor as well? I’m interested to see how the writer will make her lose.
    So far, it has been a good book and I’ll continue to buy it as long as it stays good.

    • In the same boat. I’m only familiar with Nico, Chase, and (though limited) X-23. And I’m still loving this book and feeling a certain amount of genuine loss over the deaths of characters I’d never heard of before.

  18. If a petition to build a Death Star can’t get enough traction to make that happen, I don’t think Marvel will blanch at a few people upset over Avengers Arena.

  19. thank you for this article….so many great points, so well written….it’s nice to see a comics journo that isn’t jaded & affected by kneejerk reactions, instead using their positions to possibly change some immature fan’s minds….the reactions this book is getting is one of the most detrimental things to comics as a medium these days…god forbid anyone listen to these petition-writers (the overwhelmingly vast majority of who are not even reading the books), or we would have to put up w/ a string of stagnant stories in which nothing ever happens or harms our favorite characters…death is a fact of life, characters die, but in comics, creators have the potential to revive them at any point….the bottom line is that we don’t know what hopeless’ plans for the title even is at this point, although even if the deaths are permanent, like the writer said, these are characters that would otherwise be involved in nothing at all, much less a story w/ such stellar art & potential that this title has exhibited so far….if some creator wants to write a story w/ (a certain character who exploded) in 5 years, there is nothing stopping them from doing so, but because of this story he will also have a new wrinkle to explore that makes the character that much more interesting, that he was willing to pay the ultimate price for the woman that he loved, and whether or not he would’ve done it over again….remender is exploring a similar theme right now w/ the black ant, a character who bucks the usual trend and decides that his sacrifice was ultimately pointless and wrong in his eyes….people who write these comments, pieces & petitions should use their energy in more productive ways, let these creators play their stories out before you fling dookie at every aspect of it

  20. “Online petitions to comic book companies have the power to do exactly one thing, and that is instantly make me tired. I read the headline about something like this, and my hand reflexively goes up to my forehead and rubs my temples and closed eyelids for a long, long time, because I am forced to confront the fact that adults are responsible for it and this is the world I have to live in forever” is the best comics related paragraph that I have read in over a month at least.

  21. ” Marvel isn’t killing your characters, you name-typing freedom fighters; they’re keeping them alive and accessible. Or would you rather have all of them safe and sound in a locked drawer somewhere in Marvel’s basement again?”…….Nuff said.

  22. PREACH BROTHER, PREACH!!

  23. I look at comic characters in the same way I look at real people. They change, sometimes in ways you do not like, and they die, oftentimes with stories left unfinished, questions unanswered, and at a time no one who knows them well wants. But that’s just life.

  24. “You will only get the book canceled by not buying it and hoping others do the same.”

    EXACTLY! I agree completely with you Jimski!! I haven’t read this book yet, but from what I’ve heard around the grapevine it is actually pretty good.

    As for retconning the deaths of these characters, Marvel will be sure to do it if the character is popular enough, or someone wants to tell that story. Marvel isn’t going to just cancel this book and release a statement, “Oops! Our bad! What a terrible book! Let’s pretend it never happened.” Let’s be realistic people 🙂

    If “Character A” dies in Avengers Arena, and then a year from now Bendis wants to use the character in Uncanny X-Men, he can. All he has to do is put them in the story. If someone asks, “Hey, “Character A” died in Issue X of Avengers Arena! How is he alive??” Bendis can explain it in the story, explain it off the page, or just ignore it, and that character is magically alive again. That’s the wonderful thing about being a fictional character…You never truly die as long as someone remembers you.