Avengers Undercover #7 Thoughts and Review

[javi150190]

Cammi is paying for her selfrightgeousness right now, she's stuck with a gigantic troll and with no means for asking for help. As for Nico, she's the one putting the blame on herself, the only character who scolds her (Chase) doesn't exaclty punish her for anything, he points out that she's screw things up, but he doesn't put himself on a pedestal or anything.. Hopeless seems to belive that women (or at least the female characters he works with) are more interesting than men (Seriously if Aiden of Cullen don't betray the group I'm going to be SERIOUSLY dissapointed).

This is not a narrative of rewarding or punishing people (at least for me, I have been on a situation similar when I was dealing with trauma and I behaved in a similar manner of that of Nico for a year), is about showing them coping with trauma and coming to their own conclusions :Hazmat deciding to take things on her own hands, Cammi deciding that she's better than the rest of the group and Nico and Becca struggling to make a decition on the direction their lives are going. I'm not sure this is a morailty tale or a caution tale, is just a charater study, with an admidetly predictable plot that only serves as a background for the decitions that this teenagers take.

(Speaking of predictability, I bet that SHIELD is only going to decide to attack Bagalia when they discover that Zemo has a living McGuffin on his hands. Seriously, what the hell was that?

[Nelson]

This is not a narrative of rewarding or punishing people (at least for me, I have been on a situation similar when I was dealing with trauma and I behaved in a similar manner of that of Nico for a year)

In that case I belive we should stop our argument right here. Don't get me wrong, I can continue but...well, I have my intepretation and you have yours and sure I can call this book pile of cow extrements and go how it ruins the characters, but if you actually see yourself and what you had to go through in them..well, I'm not a dick to tell somebody who had to live through traumatic experience and then cope with it that what they see in the book is wrong, even if I consider the book in question to be horrible. People like you are only fans of this book I'm having any sort of respect for (I would probably be quiet about Undercover completely if I didn't knew there are people with PTSD and others who had to deal with trauma, who find it offensive), so I'm going to stop here, okay? Can we agree to disagree?

[javi150190]

Sure, ethics are subjective after all

[Zartan's Brother]

Every guy except kid Briton had death happen to him either offpanel (Reptil) or obscured by shadows (Juston, Mettle). And even kid briton had only one panel. Every woman had death dragged out for several panels (or in Nico's case - pages) for cheap shock value. Even Apex gets shot on several panels, but once she transforms into Tim, is granted off-panel death. Similiarly injuries suffered by Reptil or Chase are given little to no attention why we get several panels showcasing wounded Hazmat and X-23. That's what I mean by fetishizing violence against women. Putting it in front as main selling point why male deaths are done with as quickly and with as little gore as possible.

You're oversimplifying to make your point. X-23's injuries almost always get shown just like Wolverine's do. She's unstoppable and nigh-unkillable, so her injuries are merely bumps in the road. I don't agree that being burned alive, exploded, decapitated, or crippled/neck snapped are less graphic than Hazmat getting stabbed and surviving. Nara's injury was obscured when it happened, even though she died from it. Apex and Tim were killed off-panel. The most violently depicted deaths/injuries were inflicted upon X-23, Nico, Mettle, Kid Briton, Red Raven, Reptil, and Juston. Bonus points to Cullen for getting hacked at by Aiden and Darkhawk for getting shot by Deathlocket, both of which looked painful. Hopeless was very even-handed when dishing out violence towards his characters, in my eyes.

And don't even get me to how all his women fall into 3 types. a) A victim, having most trait associated with femminity, whose role is to make a mistake and have horrible things happen to her so readers may feel sorry for her (Hazmat, Deathlocket) b) femme fatale who is know as sexually open-minded but also selfish, manipulative, and who dies either as a form of punishment or redemption (Nara, Apex) and b) Butch-woman, without any feminine personality traits, yet not genderfluid in any way, who is only one allowed to act competently (or at least in a way writer wrongly assumes is a competent one) through the story (Cammi, X-23). And only two latter can have any big impact on the events, with the victim only making a mistake and facing it's netagive consequences. Nico undergoes a transition from victim closer towards butch-woman - the moment she can actually have positive impact on the plot is when she literally abbandons her compassion - virtue commonly associated with femminity she is most well-known for. Dennis Hopeless fals into the old action-girl fallancy where woman can only really be strong is she abbandons her femminity and becomes man with tits (notice how no female character can be show as being better than Cammi) with a lot of nun-whore dichotomy and puritan approach to sex as sign of evil that needs to be punished. If power i i nthe hand of women it's either fethishized, a bad thing or woman in question is really a man wih tits.

None of Hopeless's kids fit the femme fatale archetype. Cammi's personality is actually pretty compassionate (having her reach out to the Runaways and Cullen, caring about everybody's safety). X-23's personality, by and large, is the same as previously established appearances.

Deathlocket, by the way, moreso fits the final girl trope than simply a victim role.

I'm not pretending, I actually belive that, honestly. I also geniuquely belive he is racist, because well..
* Out of 2 black characters i nthe book one dies first and another one spents majority of the book as somebody's slave.
* Both Asian characters are injured in horribly graphic manner going beyond how deaths and maimings of other characters are potrayed.
* We have two people of color with known leadership experience who immiediatelly fall in line without a single word when a white person starts giving orders, even asking her on advice for things they should have skill in (Nico asking her how to break a fight among teammates) despite said white person being much younger than them and having never diplay to have any leadership experience.
* Out of all Braddock Academy Kids only one character who isn't a white dude or a fantasy race is a villain.
* Also notice that in Undercover only people who actually acts as if they are traumatized by Arena are 3 women of color and a gay guy, while 3 white straight people are fine and narrative potrays them as superior to those who were affect by these events (as evidenced in last issue where Nico outright admits Chase is better than her because Arena didn't broke him and she was jealous of that)
I'm not one of those people who go and pretend to be offended to get a book they dislike cancelled. I honestly belive that this guy is either an open bigot or too stupid to realize what kind of things he put in his script.

1) Is Deathlocket the character that you're counting as the second black character who is a slave? Because she's not black. Hopeless said he considers Deathlocket Hispanic and Cammi mixed race (part indigenous Alaskan). Dunno if that makes the whole thing race thing better or worse for you.
2) You're talking about Nico and Hazmat's injuries? I'd say that Juston's crippling and neck snapping, while they involved little blood, were pretty horrific. Not sure I'd say anything Hazmat experienced was as graphic as Reptil/X-23's burnings or Mettle's exploding. Nico's was the worst, imo. That whole topic is pretty subjective though.
3) One of Hopeless's biggest flaws in how he characterized everyone was that he wanted Cammi to be his Batman: no powers, but prepared for anything and a good strategist. I don't think that was rooted in any racist or sexist motivations at all, just a desire for readers to see Cammi contribute to the team.
3) Tim Bashir of the Braddock Academy is neither white nor a villain.
4) As for the trauma, I think Cammi was more affected than she tries to show, but I could be wrong. Aiden is definitely taking the whole thing much better than I would have expected (crush/girlfriend dead, best friend suffering ptsd).

Hopeless may fall into the trap of relying on certain stereotypes (killing the black guy first, etc.), but I think that to call him an open bigot is beyond absurd. Why is it so hard to simply criticize the strength of the narrative without trying to ascribe sinister motivations to the writer?

Nico turning villain would immiediatelly imply that if your parents are evil, you are bound to become evil as well no matter how much you try, which is genetic determinism. It happenign now would also imply that PTSD and experiencing trauma or tragedy will make you evil, which is ableist. In other words, it's horribly offensive.
Second, Baron Mordo is a joke. He is too weak to fight Doctor Strange on even ground and too dumb to challenge him in a battle of wits, reducing him to Strange's personal jobber. Is that the future you want for the character? Somebody who shows up just so Wiccan can destroy her and show of how cool he is? Feels like a wasted potential too me.
Third, nice associating old and ugly with evil you have here. I find this approach to be condemnable.
Fourd, character who exemplifies everything Nico oculd be as a villain to me already exists, so turning her evil in my opinion is just redundant. Especially that this character's show wasn't even that popular to justify the change with money.

If Nico turns evil I will be incredibly disappointed with her overall arc. Hopeless loves the Runaways though, so I hope that she'll overcome her demons.

[MegaJay]

Don't bother arguing, most Arena/Undercover haters tend to stretch the truth to justify their delusions. I'm still scratching my head trying to figuring the "Anachronism is a Hopeless stand-in" thing.

[Zartan's Brother]

Don't bother arguing, most Arena/Undercover haters tend to stretch the truth to justify their delusions. I'm still scratching my head trying to figuring the "Anachronism is a Hopeless stand-in" thing.

Yeah, I remember that there was a contingent of determinedly hateful posters who would say anything about Hopeless just to "prove" that Arena was bad. I was hoping that such ridiculous posts would die out after the forum reboot.

[protege]

Well, if you have anymore money, spent it on Superior Foes of Spider-Man, that book is fantastic and vastly, pardon me the pun, superior to Undercover.

Nope. tried it, didn't like it.

[Mutant God]

Every guy except kid Briton had death happen to him either offpanel (Reptil) or obscured by shadows (Juston, Mettle).

Its not certain that Reptil died, he might be still alive.

Nico turning villain would immiediatelly imply that if your parents are evil, you are bound to become evil as well no matter how much you try, which is genetic determinism. It happening now would also imply that PTSD and experiencing trauma or tragedy will make you evil, which is ableist. In other words, it's horribly offensive.

Thats not true, Victor and Karolina are in good hands. Maybe her as a true villain not right now but messing with dark magic could have a bad side effect later on.

Second, Baron Mordo is a joke. He is too weak to fight Doctor Strange on even ground and too dumb to challenge him in a battle of wits, reducing him to Strange's personal jobber. Is that the future you want for the character? Somebody who shows up just so Wiccan can destroy her and show of how cool he is? Feels like a wasted potential to me.

Well every villain technically is a jobber but its better to be a personal jobber than some low level criminal who gets beaten a low level hero. I think it would cool to see Wiccan and Sister Grimm (thats her code name, that doesn't say villain?) battle it out.

Third, nice associating old and ugly with evil you have here. I find this approach to be condemnable.

I didn't say ugly, I said creepy which is a personality trait not a physical trait. Also for some reason I imagine her in the future as a rich witch living in a creepy mansion on
a deserted Bagalia with a demonic butler who tries to send a dark magical item back in time to change present self into powerful sorceress .

Fourth, character who exemplifies everything Nico could be as a villain to me already exists, so turning her evil in my opinion is just redundant. Especially that this character's show wasn't even that popular to justify the change with money.

Who? Also you can't have too many witches in a comic book world and Marvel needs more villains

[Nelson]

Its not certain that Reptil died, he might be still alive.

Your point?

Thats not true, Victor and Karolina are in good hands.

And they also are not in this book, so they have no impact on the meaning and message of this story.

Well every villain technically is a jobber but its better to be a personal jobber than some low level criminal who gets beaten a low level hero.

Or you know, you could actually be a decent villain, like Doctor Doom or Dormammu.
Oh, here is another thought - Mordo is only a threat when he is backed up by stronger antagonist. Is that what you want for Nico? To be a joke who needs to pledge herself to bastards like Dormammu or Shuma-Gorath to actually be able to accomplish anything? Walking "No Self-Made Woman" trope?

I think it would cool to see Wiccan and Sister Grimm (thats her code name, that doesn't say villain?) battle it out.

She haven't been using this name outside one 4-issues story. it's horribly dumb to make her a villain because her nickname should villainous. I like Nico partiarly because, despite her dark attire and powers, she is kind, good person. Making her villain would take it all, alsongside many other things I love about her, like her motherly nature and compassion, away, thus making her not interesting at all.

I didn't say ugly, I said creepy which is a personality trait not a physical trait. Also for some reason I imagine her in the future as a rich witch living in a creepy mansion on
a deserted Bagalia with a demonic butler who tries to send a dark magical item back in time to change present self into powerful sorceress .

I often associate creepy with physical/descriptive traits, and tend to understand it as "unsetting " and "unpleasant to look at", I apologize for the confusion.
Personally I see future Nico as a hero. Maybe not 100% goody-two-shoes, maybe more willing to cross few lines, but still a hero. More like well-written Doctor Strange.

Who?

Master Cyclonis from cartoon Stormhawks. She is pretty much everything evil Nico could ever be and more. And as I watched that cartoon and Cyclonis is my favorite character from it, I have no need or desire to see another character I like turned into cheap knockof of her.

Also you can't have too many witches in a comic book world and Marvel needs more villains

Marvel has loads of villains, half of which they never use, especially magic ones. When was the last time Umar did anything trurly villainous? Half of Strange's and Thor's Rogues lie in limbo unused.
Second, most of Marvel's magic users are either dead or evil. This is why Marvel had always been losing at their magic with DC, why until Kieron Gillen came along they never produced anything you could honestly call their equivalent of Sandman. Marvel is obsessed with Science-Fiction and tends to dismiss magic and those who use it as "these arseholes who groans at our cool sf heroes from other dimensions". This is why I hate Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers too, with him reducing Doctor Strange to a dead weight and having plot about how he sacrifices good side of him to become boderline villain for good intentions (AGAIN!).
And yes, you can have too many witches just, like you can have too many of any character. If 90s taught us anything, with their army of Cable clones, is exactly that.

Don't bother arguing, most Arena/Undercover haters tend to stretch the truth to justify their delusions.

Well, at least we don't pretend to like Runaways and then, when our beloved book is cancelled, ignore much more popular character being center of it's marketing campaing and blame it's failure on them. You know, like you did.

I'm still scratching my head trying to figuring the "Anachronism is a Hopeless stand-in" thing.

Fat redhead nerd writes about fat, redhead nerd who is given body of great warrior, kills his bully, has mean girl he had a crush on fall in love with him and redeem herself through sacrificing herself for him, yet, despite initial rage, he remains unfazed by it in long term and gets hot Asian chick throw herself at him so he can comfort her after death of her lover and his best friend is named after author's best friend.
Yeah, I totally not see how this can sound like some sort of power-revenge-sex fantasy. Not at all.
Also, why is he using an axe? Celts considered it vikings' weapon, used by people who pillage their villages and rape their women.
And why he looks like Slaine McRoth ripoff?

[Nelson]

Continuing because forum's words count didn't let me post it as one post

X-23's injuries almost always get shown just like Wolverine's do.

Aside of one page of issue #13 on which he's not injured, Wolverine does not appear in Arena. So whatever happens in his books is irrevelant to how Arena potrays violence towards genders. We're talking about this book specific, not marvel as whole.

I don't agree that being burned alive, exploded, decapitated, or crippled/neck snapped are less graphic than Hazmat getting stabbed and surviving.

Burned alive, which we barerly seen - one panel for the burning and then they showed us as little of damage it did to him as possible. Explosion and neck snapping were put in the shadows so we didn't really see anything. Decapitation was on one panel. Hazmat getting stabbed and then running with her wound was going through multiple pages. Similiarly, Nara and Red Raven had much lighter death but them dying was shown on multiple panels to increase the shock value. Injuries suffered by Darkhawk and Cullen were shown on one panel and paid no attention to later.

Apex and Tim were killed off-panel.

No, Tim was killed off-panel. Apex was shot multiple times on-panel and then transformed into Tim.

Is Deathlocket the character that you're counting as the second black character who is a slave? Because she's not black. Hopeless said he considers Deathlocket Hispanic and Cammi mixed race (part indigenous Alaskan). Dunno if that makes the whole thing race thing better or worse for you.

Deathlocket - definietely worse. Bcause now only black person i nthe story got killed first just because. And having Hispanic as somebody's slave is still offensive.
As for Cammi, having her as mixed race does make it better, but not much better - she could be full indigenous Alaskan, person of mixed race wrestling power and leadership from full people of color still carries unfortunate implications ("POC can lead only if they have white blood in them").

2) you admit is subjective so I'm skipping it.

One of Hopeless's biggest flaws in how he characterized everyone was that he wanted Cammi to be his Batman: no powers, but prepared for anything and a good strategist. I don't think that was rooted in any racist or sexist motivations at all, just a desire for readers to see Cammi contribute to the team.

Well, makign her Batman sure explains why she makes my blood boil (I fucking hate Batman), but he still wrote her as better than anyone else, even at thir fields of expertize and had her shown as better than more feminine women or people of color. Maybe he wasn't motivated by sexism or racism but he sure didn't care about women or people of color enough to see how it can be offensive.

Tim Bashir of the Braddock Academy is neither white nor a villain.

He isn't really a character either, just something to make Apex look "cooler". And even if consider him a character, he is person of color who is utterly victimized and exist for readers to feel sorry for. Not really good as well.

As for the trauma, I think Cammi was more affected than she tries to show, but I could be wrong.

She acts exactly the same she did before, nothing about her changed at all. If she's hiding how Arena affected her, she's damn good at it. But I'm only considerign what actually is shown, and what is shown has her as perfect hero who looks down to everyone for the fact thet dare be broken by this clusterfuck.

Aiden is definitely taking the whole thing much better than I would have expected (crush/girlfriend dead, best friend suffering ptsd).

As I said above, I really don't see how he's Dennis Hopeless' self-insert, nto at all.

Hopeless may fall into the trap of relying on certain stereotypes (killing the black guy first, etc.),

Falling into racist stereotypes is still racist, even if you don't realize it. Black Guy Dies First IS a racist trope.

but I think that to call him an open bigot is beyond absurd

There are people who are bigots because they are hateful and those who are bigots because they're too stupid to understand how what they're doing is bigotry. Hopeless might fall into the latter category, but I would still call him a bigot. He wrote this shit. He wrote "and then the only black guy i nthe cast explodes", he wrote "every teenage girl dreams of killing her first boyfriend" (wtf?), he wrote Nico abbandonning her compassion, he wrote havign Cammi better than anybody else - without realizing how this might look like and how it can be offensive. So yes, I am going to call him a bigot. Bigot from idiocy, but still.

Why is it so hard to simply criticize the strength of the narrative without trying to ascribe sinister motivations to the writer?

I can do that as well (all the cliches, all the stealing from other works, the fact he tried to criticise Battle Royale and Hunger Games while utterly missing the point of both and in consequence his book became exactly what they were condemning, his overblown ego creeping int oth pages, horrible characterisations, nonsensical plot, turning actually morally ambigious characters into two-dimensional assholes, I could go on all day) but I think that some very unsetting and disturbing things I've read from his works are more important. Other people are criticising him for other faillings of his books (granted, you bullied them all away, but still), I can throw what I got from it.

If Nico turns evil I will be incredibly disappointed with her overall arc.

Prepare to be.
Not like if there was anything good about her arc. I mean, cutting away her bounds with Molly, one of most beautiful things in Runaways, in a throw-away way, turning her into psycho who gets off by the idea of sucking face of living corpse from hell, reducing what was between her and Alex to creepy, perverted nerd getting girlfriend despite doing nothing to deserve it, making Chase treat her in an abusive and emotionally manipulative way (which pretty much sank their ship, by the way) and giving her magic hand of dissability superpowers, which is horribly offensive, and then spending entire issue whining about how it's much better than Staff of One (you konw, magic item that actually has limits and forces creativity from the writer, instad of reducing magic to flashy pink lasers), havign her take a part in lynching - her arc exemplifies everything wrong about writing women in comics. It's another shitty story where woman with power and a maternal figure at the same time gets hurt, killed, driven crazy and generally shat upon, which happens way too often in fiction. It's everythign Bendis did with Scarlet Witch all over again, only worse.

Hopeless loves the Runaways though

Yeah, sure. And the idea for Arena came from Mark Waid, except when it came from Tom Breevort and Axel Alonso. Not trusting whatever Hopeless or Roseman say, they proved to be liars before. I doubt this disgrace actually read anything with Runaways, considering his understanding of the characters is so horribly shallow he doesn't seem to know them beyond reading their wikipedia entries and he misunderstood the very core concept of them as characters. If he really is a fan, then he is most shallow, ignorant kind of fan, the kind that never actually invests into the story and never looks deeper than flashy colors and punching - kind of fan who never actually took time to dissect his comics and see what makes them work. Kind of fan who should never write anything he loves.

so I hope that she'll overcome her demons.

She probably will. Not under this asshole, through, he is too obsessed with "making an impact" and "leaving his mark" to undo the damage he did to her. The only reason he bought up PTSD is because he knows it's not something you cure or get over, but something you have to live for the rest of your life so now his potrayal of Nico and other characters is definitive one, because he is exactly the kind of selfish jerk with overblown ego to do it. I just hope next writer to ever write the character will retcon all he Hopeless ever did to her with mind-controling nanites or Nightmare being a dick or whatever. He doesn't deserve to have his works be respected by anybody, ever. Assuming anybody ever writes her again, which I doubt. Because why would anybody want to waste their time trying to clean Dennis Hopeless' shit? Chances are he ruined the character beyond repair simply because nobody will ever bother to repair her. It's not like anybody at Marvel cares about Runaways, or anything but fucking Avengers for that matter, in the slightest.
These days I fucking regret Hopeless ever ressurected her, undoing her death would be much easier than undoing this shitfest. Hell, these days I regret BKV ever published Runaways in Marvel. They would be treated with much more respect at Image or other indie publisher.

[Mutant God]

Your point?

No point, just telling myself that Reptil could still be alive

Or you know, you could actually be a decent villain, like Doctor Doom or Dormammu.
Oh, here is another thought - Mordo is only a threat when he is backed up by stronger antagonist. Is that what you want for Nico? To be a joke who needs to pledge herself to bastards like Dormammu or Shuma-Gorath to actually be able to accomplish anything? Walking "No Self-Made Woman" trope?

She haven't been using this name outside one 4-issues story. it's horribly dumb to make her a villain because her nickname should villainous. I like Nico partiarly because, despite her dark attire and powers, she is kind, good person. Making her villain would take it all, alsongside many other things I love about her, like her motherly nature and compassion, away, thus making her not interesting at all.

I often associate creepy with physical/descriptive traits, and tend to understand it as "unsetting " and "unpleasant to look at", I apologize for the confusion.
Personally I see future Nico as a hero. Maybe not 100% goody-two-shoes, maybe more willing to cross few lines, but still a hero. More like well-written Doctor Strange.

Master Cyclonis from cartoon Stormhawks. She is pretty much everything evil Nico could ever be and more. And as I watched that cartoon and Cyclonis is my favorite character from it, I have no need or desire to see another character I like turned into cheap knockof of her.

Marvel has loads of villains, half of which they never use, especially magic ones. When was the last time Umar did anything trurly villainous? Half of Strange's and Thor's Rogues lie in limbo unused.
Second, most of Marvel's magic users are either dead or evil. This is why Marvel had always been losing at their magic with DC, why until Kieron Gillen came along they never produced anything you could honestly call their equivalent of Sandman. Marvel is obsessed with Science-Fiction and tends to dismiss magic and those who use it as "these arseholes who groans at our cool sf heroes from other dimensions". This is why I hate Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers too, with him reducing Doctor Strange to a dead weight and having plot about how he sacrifices good side of him to become boderline villain for good intentions (AGAIN!).
And yes, you can have too many witches just, like you can have too many of any character. If 90s taught us anything, with their army of Cable clones, is exactly that.

Cool, it was just a weird idea I had.