Avengers Undercover #1

Avengers Arena left a fowl taste in my mouth, and in the mouths of many readers. Even reviewing other things by the writer, the faults in Arena proved not to be one off issues, but full blown aspects of the writer's style. In other words "That wasn't a bug, that was a feature!" Avengers Undercover starts out by reminding us of one of the flaws I thought was unique to Arena, but managed to spill over here: Dennis Hopeless is an Arcade Fanboy.

The issue starts with a news report about Murderworld talking about how Arcade went from zero to Top Tier Villain who managed to get away because plot armor, and all it serves to do is remind me of how incompetent he was in Arena and how he had to intefere almost half a dozen times to get his 'well oiled machine' to work at all, among other stupidities. The report then trouts out the extraordinarily failed attempt from Arena to be social commentary, pointing out how people watched it and how bad that makes society look.

I get that people in the Marvel Universe are, in a sense, jerks. When given the choice between good and evil, they mostly go evil. But this is beyond that by a longshot. Before, death tournament stuff was the abode of basically rich fetishists (Claremontian, even). People with a specific, deadly kink who paid money to get it done, logisitcal problems be damned. To expand that to the wider world just doesn't fly. This is because, historically, peole have to be acclimated to accept death games over time. Rome's games weren't built in a day, and nor were they really exported aside from one guy Syrian king who was exposed to them as a youth and then acclimated his own people to the games.

I know too much about this genre to take half-handed takes at it with anything but contempt.

The scene then shifts to Hazmat at a fast food place overhearing people talking about Murderworld, and one person n particular listing stupid things she did in the games. I can't help but feel that he's an intentional strawman more than to just get the audience feeling bad for her (she's being written by Dennis Hopeless, so I feel bad for her already), but as a comment on the many people who look at Avengers Arena and found it to be deeply stupid and the players within forced to incompetence for little adequately explained reason and overall how Dennis Hopeless really did not understand the characters or the genre beyond browsing Wikipedia. Hazmat vents some nuclear energy in his general direction to shut him up, but it really doesn't feel like a victory. If anything, it's an attempt to show the character off the falls flat because her actions (like those in Arena) generally can be explained as "She did this because she's ANGRY!" and that's about as deep as it goes.

The same lack of depth can be found in the Runaways on TV scene. Chase of the Runaways gets shown off here and he's re-imagined as the worst aspects of the jerk jock stereotype, undermining the layers other writers have given him. He may be a short sighted idiot, but he crosses the line into utter douchebaggery with a few biting comments towards Nico, who confronts him on breaking the 'pact' to not speak of Murderworld. He shames her by mentioning how she missed Molly Hayes birthday (a fellow Runaway) and has basically been AWOL from the 'team' for the 3 months since Murderworld.

Now, withdrawing oneself is actually a sign of PTSD and a legitimate reaction from what little research I've done on the subject. But, with the way the scene is framed, it makes Nico look in a negative lite and doesn't really point out that Chase's insensitivity and belittling of her symptoms that's the real monstrous thing here, rather than, well, Nico's abandonment.

For those that dont' know, Nico was basically the "Den Mother" and "Team Mom" of the Runaways, so her withdrawing like that is a huge shift in character dynamics that, well, gets really close to spitting in the face of longtime Runaways readers. Throwing out all that had come before, all with the lingering idea that it's Arcade's fault because he's such a badass, evil villain (again, something I just can't buy into) among other things that just make the scene that much more idiotic and offensive.

We also get two other scenes before the new gang gets together: one of Cammi with her mother doing talks at AA and the like--which is really odd because Cammi's mom DIED back in the Drax miniseries that introduced her, the narrative point being that she really had nothing on earth to keep her there anymore,and she wouldn't come back even if there was. Cammi leaves her mom just as abruptly as she did before in a manner which evoke's Poochie's "I must go now, my planet needs me" gag on the Simpsons as she rockets off to her mother's cries to not be left alone which I'm sure are supposed to tug at heart strings, but I don't shed tears for Zombie Mothers.

The last scene is that of Death Locket meeting her biggest fan while in a SHIELD facility. Credit where it's due, this is an intentionally creepy scene and it works very well. Only problem really is that, because of the intended social commentary against Reality TV and the like, it can't help but also speak to the primary audience, readers and fans of Arena (and now Undercover) for liking it. This actually does have some precedent, as Death Locket's design got her a lot of attention and initial fan art, with at least a few "Waifu" esque fans out there, so it's not unprecedented to draw on that thing. However, readers should also know that the fanart and talk of her dropped off almost immediately when she basically ended up being a prop for the majority of the plot.

Anyway, Anachronism asked everyone back together because Bloodstone has gone nuts in his quest to hunt Arcade (and also people who talked bad about him on the Internet). In a comic universe, Bloodstone's reaction is understandable, but it leads to a few bland action scenes and Chase making 'insensitive' comments that are designed to get the audience to not like him. Sorry, BKV wrote him too well for that to happen, Hopeless.

Bloodstone tracks down Arcade to that AIM island thing and promptly goes full demon to destroy where he thinks he is--only to be revaled to have been enslaved as a weapon by the new Masters of Evil. Chase volunteers the idea of going to rescue him solo.

Okay, that just snapped my Suspension of Disbelief again. Not as hard as the line "I've always been a Hater" did back in Arena, but pretty close. That is one of the dumbest move suggestion possible. Maybe if the other authorities would do nothing to help, then it would make sense. But for them to just flat out and go? Rushing in blind like they did at the start of Murederworld? Rushing back into violence and death when they all have PTSD because of similar things? That doesn't even make sense! There's being ignorant, and then there's just plain stupid. And this is just plain stupid. It's poorly thought out and basically forcing the characters to get into place, rhyme and reason be damned.

The Art is mixed. Kev Walker's pencils are pretty good, but his redesigns are just bad. Hazmat is bland, Anachronism looks like Sting from the WCW during his crow phase, Nico's new look can be summed up with the word "Breasticaboobicalchesticamanicalpendularglobularfun", Chase looks like a complete tool, Death Locket looks generic and bland and Bloodstone--well, he looked bland before and his monster form looked like a knock-off muppet and not much has changed since Murderworld. Cammi also is there and her look is average. No complaints.

What really makes the art hurt is the overuse of Blue-Orange contrast that makes the entire thing look washed out. The colorist has a love of filters, and has used them effectively in the past, but just doesn't stop using them so everything looks like a saturated still from the first Transformers movie.

PTSD is a sensitive topic to a lot of people, but Dennis Hopeless has all the subtlety of a sack of dead fish. Here, he blunders through the story and pushes with all his might to get the characters where they need to be regardless of what their characters would actually do. And probably the worst part about this is that we've already seen many of these kids dealing with post traumatic stress disorder in their prior appearances. Hazmat had PSTD from nearly killing her boyfriend and having to live a life defined by daily sensory deprivation (which, ya know, is torture) as the root of her anger and frustration with life, only for this series to have her basically be Spider-Man with Mettle as his Gwen Stacy. Nico and Chase lost both their parents in an act of self sacricfice and Chase lost the woman he loved the most. TWICE! Thanks, time travel. Nico also lost the first boy she ever loved due to betrayal in his mad gambit to make the world a better place. Each story they appeared in had them deal with these events where they had agency in the events now having these new events somehow be worse than what they've already gone through. In Nico's case, it is actually arguable, but the others? No. It's stupid.

We've already read about Hazmat, Nico and Chase dealing with PTSD. Having a story that has already been done with the characters as some 'bold new direction' for them is the height of sloth and stupidity. Just what I'd expect from the beligerence that is Dennis Hopeless and have since X-Men Season One.

Since Katy Bashir is Dead, there is no "Stupid Katy moment" as there were in my Arena reviews, but as SF Debris has done, I'm shifting it to "Annoying Character" -- basically, awarded to a character who proved to be the most annoying while reading this.

Hard choice, we have several strong contenders. We have Luke, the Strawman Detractor; Ainsley, the creepy fanboy, and Chase Stein: Douche extraordinaire and wearer of shitty mowhawks. In the end, I have to go with Luke. He's designed to be repulsive, sure, but he's also with two young women who are way out of his league for no other reason than Kev Walker likes to draw suicide girls in training apparently and whose arguments are counted in the laziest way possible. AInsley is at least intentionally annoying and Chase's actions could be read deeper if one didn't know just how shallow Dennis Hopeless is as a writer in the first place.

Now that may seem harsh, calling Hopeless a belligerent writer, but the letters column start up basically confirms it: he thought it was a good idea to antagonize fans on the release of arena by tweeting "Deal with it". He regrets it, which is a point in his favor, but his writing has yet to show any development towards improving in the ways Arena failed: He still treats villains like Mary Sues and ALL POWERFUL until they are no longer needed to be; the pacing is still wonky (to many perspectives), he has yet to fully understand how to work his premise (PTSD is a complex topic, but even with some people saying he's showing it well, they never say why or how and my own analysis of the possibly good representation is marred by flawed execution), and he really doesn't know how to handle deaths in comics.

While Mettle did get at least an indirect mention in Hazmat's scene, far to much was made of Apex's death at Death Locket's hands by comparison and Cammi's mom is back for no reason. A thing which will continue to plague the series as the preview for #2 shows Mako from the Vengance minin--who died in the second issue of that mini when Lady Bullseye chopped off his head. If a writer wants to have the deaths he's done be taken seriously and with high drama, casually resurrecting characters with no explanation whatsoever is not the way to go. The only explanation I've seen given for this is that it's the result of Wolverine breaking Time.

And that's about as narratively satisfying as "Superboy Prime Punch".

While this series hasn't reached the vileness of Arena with its first issue, the potential is there if the PTSD is used as an excuse to turn some of them evil. That way, when the Young Avengers come back, some of these fan favorite characters can be jobbed in panel to the heroes because that's what happens to teen villains after their debuet. Hell, it's happening now: look at the preview and watch as Coat of Arms is taken down in a single panel. If Dennis Hopeless plan to turn Hazmat or the Runaways evil comes to fruition, then that is their future already spelled out by the writer--completely unintentionally. Which is how many of the deeper meanings in his work come out.