REVIEW: Avengers Arena #3

[CBR News]

"Avengers Arena" #3 by Dennis Hopeless and Kev Walker dispatches another teen hero in another entertaining and illuminating character study.


Full review here.

[Jakerose]

Technically, it's a good book.

The plot is compelling and the characters are developed well, but ultimately it's lacking the strong metaphor that underpins other stories in this genre. Perhaps that will arise over time, perhaps it'll continue on its character-driven path -- but unless it finds something to say with its characters and setup, it's never going to escape accusations of being an imitation, regardless of quality.

Would be pretty easy for it to be about the younger Heroes never taking the place of the old ones

[Majin Gojira]

That the reviewer holds that there are two deaths, when it's only one unclear/possible one, and claims that both deaths have proper build up (only one did) makes me doubt the majority of analysis, however, the segment Jackerose quotes is very true. Though the metaphor suggested would be pretty hard to work inm and does not quite fit with several of the characters (Cammi and the Runaways in particular).

[Marveluted]

Would be pretty easy for it to be about the younger Heroes never taking the place of the old ones

I don't know if that'd fit seamlessly into Avengers Arena, but I would be extremely interested in a book about that.

It especially applies to young Avengers and X-Men types (oddly, looks into the future show that it's not the case for the FF though); you can "graduate" but you're not likely to make the team, and if you do they often cast you aside rather quickly. Seems sort of antithetical to what both groups are trying to accomplish.