Avengers Arena: The Complete Collection

Avengers Arena #1-3

by Dennis Hopeless

Trapped on an isolated island, 16 superhuman teens - including members of the Runaways and Avengers Academy - are given a chilling ultimatum by their demented captor: Fight or die. And only one of them will walk out alive! Thus begins a primal battle that tests the skills, stamina and morals of each combatant. Welcome to Arcade's Murder World - where secrets are plenty, alliances are fleeting, and the key to victory might be rewriting the rules of the game! Cammi and Hazmat battle the mysterious Deathlocket; X-23 and Juston Seyfert's Sentinel join the fray...but who is the killer stalking the heroes in their sleep? Who are the students of the Braddock Academy? And why does Darkhawk equal death? As emotions run high and the bloody fi nal battle draws ever closer, who will fi nd a way to survive?

COLLECTING: AVENGERS ARENA 1-18

Genres: Marvel, Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Ebooks

408 pages, Paperback

First published November 27, 2013

About the author

Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum is an American comics writer from Kansas City, Missouri who has written for Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Boom! Studios, Arcana Studio, and Oni Press.

See also under Dennis Hallum

Reviews

[Amanja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming soon

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/-OhI64Jz1kk

[Cristhian · Rating 5 out of 5]

El mejor trabajo de Hopeless a la fecha.

[Matthew Yeldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rip of Battle Royale/The Hunger Games, but they were honest about it. I expected it to be a bit grittier, and it kind of smacks of thinning the crowded herd of unnecessary and uninteresting characters, but I love the ending. I love that responsibility doesn’t just fall on Arcade’s shoulders but the adult heroes as well. And it looks like Arcade just might have succeeded for once.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bunch of messed up kids who happen to be super heroes…forced to survive in the middle of nowhere…for a madman’s amusement…

Avengers Arena by Dennis Hopeless and Kev walker (and fill-ins) was a marvel comic essentially using Battle Royale as inspiration to have fun with some teenage heroes in training…

In a quest for legitimacy, Arcade (the X-men villain) captures 16 young superpowered individuals and forces them to survive in his new murder world, but there’s a catch…

None of these kids are what you’d call ideal or “stable”. They aren’t the kind that grew up idolizing captain America or easily followed orders or did what they were told. Some don’t even know what they are as they’ve been thrust into a horrible situation with a bunch of strangers.

What’s impressive about this book is that it originally got a lot of criticism for being some kind of cash grab or cheap marketing stunt. Just killing off some no name heroes for shock value…but as it progressed it got to be something else.

The creators wisely use a mix of old and new characters…with many of the new ones having a healthy amount of backstory we learn throughout. Some of these new characters have continued to pop up now and then which is also pretty good.

However the existing ones…they ran the gamut from 90s hero Darkhawk to members of the Runaways to x-23 to students at Avengers Academy (a book that ended just before this started)…but then also characters that few (other than myself) would have remember…like Darx’s teen sidekick and the kid with a pet Sentinel (and briefly his own ongoing).

Only one or two would be considered “wasted” characters that didn’t have any history or prove useful to the story (that would be new character Red Raven), but the rest get a healthy amount of characterization.

This lengthy maxi-series would be followed by a sequel Avengers Undercover…where some of the survivors go after Arcade for revenge.

Sadly, most of the characters in this have lapsed into limbo…but maybe they’ll pop up again one day…

[Travis Duke · Rating 3 out of 5]

400 pages of battle royale meets hunger games with a bunch of young mutants and super heroes. The story puts a bunch of them on an island for a battle to the death. OK first off the story its amazing however the characters and their relationships is where this books shines. It can be confusing at times because the kids are forming alliances and switching sides but the characters shine and you grow to like them. As for the characters its a good mix of unknowns and people that downt always get the spot light. The book is violent and at times the panels are brutal but the art is above average so I enjoyed the book. 400 pages is a chunk for sure but I slowly just chipped away at lunch breaks and I liked it.

[Joshua Bertram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look no further if you ever wanted a Battle Royale/Hunger Games story about teenagers made to fight each other, but set in the Marvel Universe. Beyond the basic plot gimmick, though, writer Dennis Hopeless is careful with building characters and making the events meaningful. The book gets better as it goes along, and contains a couple of genuine surprises and really nice art in the action scenes. It might even have something to say about the tragedy of children left to fend for themselves, or worse, to be exploited by adults. If you're particularly connected to any of these characters the prospect of them being murdered might make you nervous, but I'd encourage giving it a chance.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Battle Royale in the Marvel Universe, would be to undersell this graphic novel. Dennis Hopeless has combined a series of the auxiliary character's from the Marvel Universe, and demonstrated that you don't need to be a Marvel A-list character to have a fleshed-out, unique, origin-story or compelling plot. Despite having a long list of main primary characters, their divergent backgrounds, deep narrative, and individual progressions within the story arc provide memorable experiences. Also, they're heroes, they are not going to want to battle to the death. So, what can they do instead?

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Staff of One was unironically the MVP

Mischaracterised a lot of the heroes…
Not Nico though (except her kicking Chase out of the alliance), the monologue leading up to her death was genuinely the saddest thing i’ve ever read. ALL SHE WANTED WAS TO NOT DIE ALONE. Albeit she came back, I can only imagine how it felt to read that in 2013 not knowing she was going to come back on absolute smoke 2 months later.

“Can we just sit here for a minute and, I dunno… Pretend none of this is real”
NICO YOU DESERVED BETTER

[Grace]

Read volume 1 in 2024, didn't love it, won't continue.

Original review for volume 1 (2 stars)-
This coulda been so cool. Awesome premise. Not so awesome execution. They try to make us care about the characters by doing flashbacks for all the characters mixed throughout and it just doesn't work. With this type of premise, u don't need to know everything about every character or be emotionally connected to them. U need great action and unbelievable moments and meaningful and funny banter to make the characters likeable. Maybe 1 or 2 flashbacks for certain characters.

[Andrew Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its been too long since I’ve read something without page numbers.

There were some good moments, but I finished wanting more carnage, as crazy as that makes me sound lol. There were too many pages where someone takes an axe to the chest and then is up and at ‘em three pages later… Even if all these contestants are superheroes. I was disappointed with the absence of a “final girl” or something to that effect. The art was very nice tho

Review for The Superior Spider Man is coming

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this as the three graphic novels, but easier to rate the series as a whole. Slow start as we got to know the players of the game, but also just enough gut punches to keep going on. Greatly enjoyed the overall story, the alliance building and tensions and desperation as things went on.

Side note, man this version of Chase is ... something.

[Eduardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/ 5
Não conhecia quase ninguém do elenco de personagens além da Nico, Chase e X-23, mas acabei me apegando a vários deles.
O plot é interessante, mas gostaria que o autor tivesse tomado mais riscos em relação às mortes. Alguns retcons dentro do próprio quadrinho me incomodaram um pouco, mas a experiência foi divertida e eu com certeza vou procurar mais sobre os personagens daqui

[Jdetrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, much better than I would have expected. It's got a lot more personality and character development than it would have had to, and the death count is low, with mostly pointless characters as the victims.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! I did read the Avengers Academy and some of the Runaways first so I was familiar with most of the characters, their powers, and situations. I feel like that helped a lot so if you start this and think it sucks, I would back track to Avengers Academy and then work forward to this.

[Shawn Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun. Arcade is one of my favorite villains, I tend to like his type of HH Holmes plots and he hasn't been so overused as to be played out. I like the modern reinvention of him that's going on and I hope to see more of it!

[Xavfro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun take of Battle royal / hunger games, got to know a few charachters that i would like to read some more of.

[Adam Eastment · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one, bunch of characters I’ve never really read much about before but considering it was a battle royal it was a good read.

[Lee Diamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

Wasn't sure about this book and took me some time to get around treading it but I thought it was great

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am fucking astounded at how good this was. I've never seen such a weird premise both done so well and so friendly to people who don't know who some or any of the characters are.

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I (to my own surprise more than anyone else’s) really enjoyed this Battle Royale + Marvel mash-up. Great pacing, touching character moments, and a punch up for Arcade.

[Elia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my Runaways/X-23 read we have Avengers Arena in which teenage superheros are expected to fight to the death, basically Hunger Games meets Marvel. While bringing together a few different characters from different books (Avengers Academy, Runaways, X-23, etc.) and doing an excellent job at exposing these characters for a new audience, it's also hard to care about the high stakes when you have no context or emotional connection to some of them. I tried to read Avengers Academy a while ago and didn't enjoy it. This is way better written and still a lot of fun, seeing character with their backs against the wall. The villain of the piece is obvious from the get go for anybody with an inkling of Marvel knowledge. The sequel title (Undercover) has the teen characters "break bad" or pretend to at least, it's not quite as good, but a worthy epilogue.

[TK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not deep or anything but full of some of my favorite characters. Also some of the best Nico spells on the block.