#avengers undercover

[crashdown]

underrated characters day 28!!! death locket remains one of the best things to come out of avengers arena

[taiblogcomics]

Bad Guys Making Bad Decisions

Hey there, cybernetics. Well, we're on issue 7 of 10. That's really all there is to say at this point!

Here's the cover:

Oh, jeepers, no. Nico, don't kiss that mans. He doesn't even have lips, for one thing. He's got all that misty red leakage. And, like, he couldn't even be bothered to put on a clean shirt, for cripe's sake. Now, the real question is, trace the angle of Nico's arm. Now trace the angle of the Staff of One. Where is she holding onto that thing? Like, even if it's in her other hand--which seems even less comfortable--where is she holding it? Or if Alex is holding it… We can see his one hand, so same question applies. I think they just wanted to get the Staff on the cover and didn't really think about it because they weren't drawing the characters lower than the bottom of the frame. That all aside, great cover, though. Very spooky. Oooo~

So… What the fuck was last issue about? I've honestly forgotten. Something with Deathlocket? Yeah, that sounds right, sure. Anyway, we open today with narration from Nico, where she's like "Most girls fantasise about killing their first boyfriend, don't they?" Geez, I hope not. I think you may be projecting, Nico, because you literally did that. Anyway, these feelings are surfacing for her because Alex has trapped her in a pocket dimension to fight a magma elemental. You know, standard stuff you do with your ex, I'm sure~

It's not even the lava golem she's fighting that's pissing her off, it's that Alex keeps flirting with her. And that's certainly fair. Fortunately, before it gets too awkward, Hazmat and Anachronism enter and tell her there's a problem regarding Chase. If you recall, Chase blew his cover last issue by preventing Captain America from being shot. Because despite his somewhat dudebro personality and his even douchier looks in this storyline, Chase is actually a good guy. He's the hope we still have riding on this storyline. That oughta worry you.

The away mission returns, and they did retrieve their guy from AIM or whatever they were doing. But as Nico teleports in, they find Chase was shot. Surprisingly, Excavator covers up for him. Sometimes folks just get shot while on missions, you know how it goes. He says it wasn't anybody's fault. Nico retorts that it's always somebody's fault. And hey, remember how I said Chase appears in future Runaways stories, so I wasn't worried? Nico casts a spell to "fix him", channelling purple lightning into him. Well, for once, she certainly can't make him worse~

Now here's a cutaway I didn't expect. We move over to the SHIELD Helicarrier to see our other victim of the AIM debacle: Captain America. He's having a debriefing with Maria Hill and Hank Pym. Hank obviously wants to just storm in there and get the kids, while Maria points out that Bagalia is a sovereign nation and they can't just do that. But in case you think she's the reasonable one, Hank just wants to help the kids, while Maria calls them "fugitives" who conspired and succeeded in murdering a man, resisted arrest, and escaped custody. In case you wondered if she still had that stick up her ass~

Now, Cap is of course on the same side as Hank in rescuing the kids, but they can't really do anything about it right now. He's more worried about the agent they lost in the debacle: a certain Reginald Crenshaw, head of SHIELD's entire information network. This is who the Masters of Evil were targeting, who was being held by AIM. He's warded against psychics of all stripes, so the Masters haven't a snowball's chance in hell to get him to spill. Funny wording, that. Because remember Satannish's cameo a few issues back? He possesses Crenshaw, completely hacking his mind open. …Figuratively, to be clear.

We return over to Nico and friends, observing Chase in emergency care. She's getting antsy because it's taking more than a few minutes to heal him. The doctor (who's a creepy half-cyborg fucker the wiki is telling me is actually the Tinkerer, a man who does not have a medical degree) tells her that Chase is suffering from the trauma of the gunshot wound and is comatose. Nico doesn't get it, she healed that wound with magic. She's seen Chase get up after being hit by a car (which I think is a reference to the ending of the "Rock Zombies" storyline in Runaways). So why isn't he okay now?

Dr. Walker (or the Tinkerer or whoever he is) tells her that neuroscience is more complicated than that. You can't just "magic" someone's brain better. And she's welcome to try, maybe she'll regress him into infancy somehow. She retorts that magic doesn't work like that. Looking smug, he retorts with a request for how magic does work, then. And of course, her retort is "it just does!" and blowing all the windows apart while storming out of the room. Ah, teenagers, am I right~?

This very funny tantrum is followed by the extremely stupid decision of her to go snog Alex Wilder. And, like, Alex is an evil jerk, but the first thing he asks is "How's Chase?" when she returns, with a look of genuine concern on his face. And I will give him points for that. Meanwhile, the comic ends with a glimpse of Cammi in prison. She's spent the whole time carving a peephole so she can spy on Baron Zemo and crew. However, her very chatty cellmate keeps bugging her. And why shouldn't he bug her? Because it's Arcade. He's alive, imprisoned by the Masters of Evil, and he still won't shut up.

Bad choices, bad guys, and of course, bad comic books. This one is mostly just continuing everything from last time. The Alex/Nico stuff is gross and uncomfortable, and it's not coz they're teens shacking up or anything. Alex's flirting comes across as way too manipulative, which is probably the point? It doesn't make me enjoy reading the character, though. This isn't the worst issue of the thing, but it does feel like it breezes by a bit too quickly. Maybe because basically nothiing happened in it, besides the ending reveal?

[majingojira]

Nico Minoru's Magic Part 2

Continued from Here.

So, Avengers Arena.

Avengers Arena is a story told by a writer who has no idea how the genre works and only a fair grasp of how the characters function at best.

This is easily demonstrated by what is established as Nico's status quo for the next few years in this book.

First off, Nico died. She casts a spell for help, and BOY does she get it.

In addition to once more supposedly 'bosting' her magic. She also gains a generic magical blast-attack without incantation, and the Flying Brick standard superhero package. A low end version. Marvel Universe grid method, she'd be at 5's for Strength, Speed, and Durability. Putting her in the same class as most of the 'bricks' in Marvel like Carol Danvers (uncharged), Teddy Altman, and Sif for Strength. Firebird or a basic Power Armor (Iron Man, Iron Heart) for speed, and Luke Cage, Rage, and Emma Frost for durability.

If that seems wholly generic, let that set the tone for the rest of what Nico has to go through for the next few years.

Fun Fact, the preview pages for this issue were actually released BEFORE the preview pages for #11 because her death caused that much backlash online.

Man, even re-reading it about a decade later still gets my stomach all twisted.

So, why should I suffer alone?

Avengers Arena #12

As you can tell, Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum (he chose the nickname for himself) really wants to try and be like Joss Whedon, but lacks the wit.

Having already established that Nico draws her power from negative emotional experiences -- Pain and Suffering, we have that wiped away for Blood. Gamifying the entire system. Now, we can keep track of her health bar (which they had in this series) and correlate it to her overall power access.

But here's the thing: Why should anyone believe Arcade?

In this series, he doesn't even make this Murdeworld, he commissions someone else to do it for him! And what occurs already fits in with multiple things of what is established (Pain/suffering fueling magic, the "Help" spell she cast with her dying breath). So it's REALLY easy to dismiss Arcade here as talking out of his ass.

I mean, this is comic books, we're used to stupidity ("I'm sealing up the fault lines, this is a good thing!"), but not with its own BS as much as this is.

So, it's easier to dismiss Arcade's claims as warrantless, because, really, why would you believe him? He's not just a liar, he's an idiot.

Especially in Arena, despite assertions to the contrary.

The next tidbit we get on Nico's new Magic Staff and Magic Arm of Super-Powered Disability doesn't come until the sequel series Avengers Undercover.

Because it makes dismissing Arcade as an idiot harder.

Avengers Undercover #7

Yes, Alex came back with this series. No, it was actually worse than Arena because it's hook was underwhelming by comparison.

Anyway, while the reliance on "It's totally blood magic now, you guys!" dumbing down of Nico's power, the idea that she's coating in a magical energy field to explain her Strength/Speed/Durability is a pretty viable one.

But the Arm of Disability Super-Powers earns its name rather... handily.

And I am not sorry for that pun.

The analysis of Nico's combat strategy is ... also deeply lacking, but that's another topic.

Once Dennis Hallum was done (Fun Fact #2: Hallum fought for this issue's topic specifically even though by this point, he knew he had only 4 issues left to finish the series), Nico was put in Limbo... until A-Force.

Where interviewers noted that her inclusion was weird because of her... being nearly Hawkman'd.

No new Magic, but Nico continued to display Super Strength in the Secret Wars volume. Why?

Because she took down an Asgardian. Physically.

Not just that, but a MEMBER OF THE THOR CORPS!

A-Force Vol. 1 #4

Arcadia Nico is ... Broken. Flat out Broken.

Anyway, when A-Force is formed in 616, Nico has a Power Up that is actually intelligent after the dumbing down of Dennis Hallum.

A-Force vol. 2 #2

Here, we have Nico taking down a cosmic being in a word, growing in power with her pain and suffering in-line with the Vaughn and Whedon run, AND the most logical expansion of her powers: Linguistic Advancement.

In the series, she is shown speaking fluent Japanese, and using Estonian as a "Heal" word. With 6,500, she has a lot to go with!

Another clever use of her powers comes from using coordinates to teleport.

A-Force vol. 2 #8

Elsewhere in the series, she gets to show off her powers by ... laying out She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, a Dazzler-Thor, and the rest of her teammates multiple times. Depowering them, knocking them out, etc. She also got to fight hard against mind control and subvert the worst of what her controller could do.

A-Force Nico is Peak Nico in terms of raw power.

But it does have some limits. She can keep multiple spells going at once, but doing so is hard for her. This may be an energy thing, but it may be a focus thing as well.

A-Force vol. 2 #6

She does get to punch out the lady mind-controlling her later on, and in One Punch no less.

But after choking out a Valkyrie-Thor, that's pretty pat.

The next really big change to Nico's powers comes in the current Runaways volume (5) with the reveal of The One, a sorcerer who was turned into the Staff and made a deal to use his magic to the benefit of the original caster.

But this is still developing as a story, the 'rules', basically allowing him to parasitize her senses (and probably take full control of her body, you know how these things go). Is also alters the history of the Staff from an implicit long linage to starting with the Witchbreaker.

Which has once again made her more powerful, but it's a much worse deal.

And...it's still developing. I'm hoping it reveals to be her grimmshape, but only time will tell.

So I won't go into as much detail with this. We'll see where it goes.

[extwentytrois]

endless list of marvel characters: 1/∞

nico minoru aka sister grimm

[hellyeahheroes]

Latest videos from Overly Sarcastic Productions talks about timeskips and you can bet two of fan-favorite DC animations - Batman Beyond and Young Justice - got brought up.

I will say, it reminds me of a point I once made that young Justice timeskips are likely the closest we had so far to a disorienting feeling of following one series or one team in a larger shared universe, without access to other works in it. Every new season of the show feels as if the book got cancelled then relaunched after the characters has spent various amount of time in different series and being affected and changed by their plotlines, not to mention big events. Except we do not have the access to any of those other series to see how it did happen, which can be quite jarring and disorienting.

Still, the worst use of timeskips I’ve seen would be Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover, where Dennis Hopeless would incompetently use to try to justify out of character behavior by saying the character changed during the timeskip. Not realizing his timeskips are so small it just makes it feel like an excuse, not an actual planned development.

-Admin

[baomien]

the life and times of cullen bloodstone 

[clintbartoncomics]

Avengers Undercover Issue #9

written by Dennis Hopeless

art by Kevin Walker

link to read

[gurufuk0]

Going Native

Parte de la serie Avengers Undercover .

Muchos de los jóvenes superhéroes que están trabajando a escondidas para destapar una organización liderada por Zemo deben decidir si siguen con la misión observando cambian de bando.

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