Avengers Arena #7 Review by Randy Young
This book might have been my favorite read of the week! Hopeless gives us an intermission to the current storyline to answer the question we’ve all been asking. How did Arcade become this bloodthirsty and ruthless?
And answer it he does.
Apparently every year Arcade has a big birthday celebration. His 29th birthday was no different. The difference is that this year he’s wired for sound. He wants to hear all the wonderful gossip that goes on at his party. This story element is a brilliant excuse for getting his character to move from point A to point B.
What Arcade hears isn’t gossip but people making fun of him and pitying him. He lashes out at the closest character that happens to be Constrictor.
Fast forward a few days later and some second degree burns later, Arcade isn’t feeling too good about himself. He realizes that he is a sad excuse for a villain. As he drinks his sorrows away, Constrictor comes back for a little revenge. He feels that someone that pitiful doesn’t deserve the money he has. Arcade thinks him right until he has a little revelation. The next few panels are funny but disturbing at the same time.
Fast forward again a few months later and Arcade now has his new Murderworld. He’s reinvented himself and has a new goal to show that Murderworld can actually be deadly and needs to be taken very seriously.
The reasoning behind this new origin and the demise then reinventing are perfect. They answer all questions one might have had about Arcade. Hopeless has definitely elevated Arcade to a whole new level.