Unashamedly ripping off Battle Royale, from the logo on the cover to the bad guy admitting he read the book last time he was in prison and enjoyed it, Avengers Arena drops sixteen super-teens into a walled-off Colosseum where only one can survive. Behind the mayhem is Arcade, a perennial punching bag of several different Marvel heroes who's best-remembered exploit is trapping the X-Men in a giant pinball machine twenty years ago.
In a universe filled with super-powered beings and living gods, let's face it: Arcade's the B-lister every super hero team is glad to fight, because he's a joke. He's Lex Luthor without the genius, a guy whose only "power" is being a trust-fund baby with more money than sense. Take away his ineptly-named "Murder World" and he's just a guy in a cheap suit trying to get his jollies by screwing around with beings far mightier than he could ever hope to be, rigging up annoying traps and comically-oversize hammers instead of doing anything threatening. Whenever Marvel re-arranges their entire universe, destroying worlds, killing characters, and splitting dimensions, Arcade's the schlub every reader wishes they'd get rid of for good -- not because he's an asshole or the ultimate evil, but because his grand schemes reek of desperation and absurdity. His antics earn him a sting in prison for a bit, then everyone forgets about him because no one actually got hurt playing one of his games. No one likes Arcade, no one fears Arcade, no one respects Arcade.
Well, up until now that's been the case. But Arcade's hit rock bottom: tired of being a punching bag, tired of being taken for granted, tired of being the proverbial nerd getting sand kicked in his face. Writer Dennis Hopeless has taken the single most hopeless "villain" in all Marvel-dom and asked the question, "What if Arcade was scary? Like, really scary?"
I love when a writer can give a character such a great make-over that suddenly they become either extremely useful (in terms of heroes) or extremely terrifying (in the case of a villain). In this case, Hopeless delivers the real Arcade experience by taking chunks of Battle Royale, Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, and every other teenage dystopian novel of the last two decades you care to name, and weaving them into a Sentinel-level nightmare. Sixteen mutants enter Murder World's domed-over arena, and Arcade gives them thirty days. At the end of the month, the one still alive gets to leave.
Raise your hands, all of you who are betting on X-23! (Yeah, me too...)
My main complaint about Book One is that it's a very slow build. These first several issues are all character back-story, making sure we're acquainted with everyone who's about to hit the chopping block, and that's important if you're going to throw more than a dozen super-teens at us. It also gets to the heart of Arcade's history, showcasing his transformation from weenie who's been wuss-slapped one too many times to living god of Murder World with the ability to shrug off anything his soon-to-be gladiators can hit him with. This sets the stage nicely for what's to come in the next trade, but Volume 1 suffers a bit for it as well. Back-stories for all involved are appreciated, but they do delay the action somewhat, so if you're looking for the carnage, be prepared to wait after the first couple mutants go 'splat'. Also, sixteen may not sound like a lot of characters for something like this, considering Battle Royale has forty-two players and Hunger Games has twenty-four, but Takami and Collins had the luxury of a higher page count with which to give readers a sense of who nearly all the people dropped into the garbage disposal were. Avengers Arena doesn't have this luxury, and while some characters are well-known or at least previously introduced, many of the teens in Murder World are making their comic book debut. Hopeless has to walk a nasty tightrope between heavy exposition on the characters and getting to the action, and I don't see how it would be possible to do sixteen character back-stories justice in a graphic novel setting like this without at least quadrupling the page count.
Otherwise, this is a ferocious, no-holds-barred book that isn't afraid to drop some hideous R-rated violence in full color when called for. Heads will, literally, roll before Kill or Die is done, and that...is awesome.
Four retractable claws to the jugular out of five!