Despite being a tie in to an event comic, Avengers Academy's tie in to Fear Itself is honestly one of the best things to come out of both. I'll also be posting another honestly good thing to come out of Fear Itself, an issue of Secret Avengers written by Nick Spencer. Because it's taking place in Washington DC like the events here, and is just that awesome.

This arc serves as a culmination of a lot of what Academy was about and may just be the best arc in the entire series. Yeah, it's downhill after this. But it's one hell of a high note.

Get your hankerchiefs ready, this is gonna be one hell of a tearjerker.

It also continues the trend these posts have had of "Academy showing up Arena at its own game" as we see death handled maturely and with peak drama.

For those that managed to miss this event (lucky you), the issue opens with a basic re-cap. Magic Hammers have hit several super villains giving them Thor-type power-ups, enhancing or adding to existing powers they had. Then, suddenly, Nazis! Nazis every where! In Mecha!

They all serve "The Serpent", the Asgardian god of Fear, seeking, well, to spread fear around the world so he can have power. There's more to it, bu that's the basic gist of it. So, in other words this:



The kids are primarily on rescue duty, but with mechs everywhere, they have to fight them off. Striker is scared because he died once already, but Tigra talks him through it and gets him to use his lightning to make an energy field that blocks bullets. He gets his confidence back.





Pym had been launched into the field before along with Justice, Quicksilver and Speedball, but the later 3 return to find out the kids are deployed. Pym is about to go Papa Wolf on the Nazis, but Maria Hill stops him. He's and his team are needed in Dubai. TItania and Absorbing Man are there leveling it. They're the only ones available to help. He tells her that they'll go, but that won't stop him from reaching his students.

Jesus, the details in this sequence. Reptil looking on at the firefighter he couldn't save. Mettle shielding himself from what he had to do . . . Brilliant. Cudos to Tom Raney's pencils for this.

Pym arrives in Dubai and gets smacked with the hammer. Absorbing Man was tough before, now . . . with Titania also powered up. Yeah, Ow. They are now Greithoth, Breaker of Wills and Skirn, Breaker of Men.

And they're breaking Dubai.

Thus ends Part 1: "There Are No Unwounded Soldiers."

Next issue.

Half of it is Hank and co fighting the worthy (Skirn is particularly pissed at Pym because he broke Absorbing Man SO MUCH that it's effecting Greithoth's mind and now he's obsessed with hurting Pym) and managing to teleport them to Antartica, but Hank KOs himself. It's pretty awesome. But there's one other story in #16.

Veil saves a little girl from being crushed by debris.





Working together, with Veil as a scout, they manage to escape the collapsed building.




Green is not a good color. It's the color of the gas Chlorine. She gasses the Nazis who killed Katie's mom.

But it's too late for Katie and her mom. Her mom is dead in front of her, and Veil . . . failed.




God I love this little thing. I'm an evil bastard sometimes, but this is truly beautiful suffering. This is how death needs to be handled more often.

Thus ends that issue.

And with that, we go to Secret Avengers #13

Hank McCoy has been sent to retreive one stubborn senator from the floor of the senate. He stayed behind for two reasons, the main and imporant one was to give people hope. The other, well, he's a Mutant. And his power is animation. Of machines. Of Fossils. Of Statues. Of Spirits.







Ahem, time for a little change in music:

The senator brings hope to the people, but dies in the attack (but not before returning all the monuments and spirits).

#17 begins with the kids wrapping up cleanup as the new Initiative takes to the field. Falcon tells them to go back and rest, they've earned it. Oh, and that Captain America ("The Fake One" ) is dead. They've been through war, there's no need to sugar coat things for them.

Later:



Hazmat gets her suit on and runs to see Veil.


That . . . is horrible, mean, sad and adorable all at the same time.

Finesse and Reptil sit and talk about their experiences in the battle.



Oh hey, Avengers Arena is ignoring how another character's powers fully work for the sake of forced drama. Again. What are the odds?

Reptil asks if she ever saw someone die before. She says yes, but then adds "But never so many". Even she's effected by the horrors. Then striker comes in and he's still rather calm and confident as normal. Reptil asks him how, when he ran from Korvak and all that. He gives an honest answer.





The Worthy Have Found Them! And to make Pym suffer, they're gonna kill the kids.



Ah, another plot point Arena forgot: Reptil is thje class leader, not Hazmat. I love her too, but leadership material she is NOT.

Reptil manage to hold them off and escape (turning into a dragonfly for the first time too), but Geirthoth gets a really good line in: "I remember Dinosaurs. They had the sense to run."

The infinite mansion partially collapses because of it, leaving them in one part of the building with the two monsters. Then Skirn find the other 3 kids. Mettle gets knocked through a wall and into the white space around the Mansion in one blow. Hazmat's average blast deals minimal damage, she suggests Veil possess one of them.

Bad. Idea.



Yeah. Moral of the story: do not touch the mind of an evil god.



Yeah, Arena, keep on trying to get me to believe Arcade is somehow as bad or worse. Keep tryin'. It's not gonna work.

Meanwhile!



I include this part for one reason: Did Reptil turn into a Paleosaurus?

The monster from this movie:

Yeah, I know, Reptil can Hybridize dinosaurs into new forms for himself.  But c'mon! 


More emphasis on that plot point being ignored in Arena for convenience!  Jeez.  It's like the phrase "High Concept Character Study" was an oxymoron or something.  Anyway, gotta love Finesse's reaction here. 

The kids form a plan to take advantage of one thing: everyone assumes they're heroes.  Reptil and Finesse are hung up on a statue while the two Worthy make out and talk about using them as bait and tortuing them just cuz when Hazmat shows up.

 

Hazmat drops tactical nukes.  She meets Mettle out in the void, along with the training robots who have her containment suit.  The Worthy are knocked back and stunned, but otherwise unharmed.  It's as close to hared either has been in this yet, so it's damn impressive.  From there, however, they find the Pym Particle Generator that keeps the place  in Underpace and Absorbing Man . . . Absorbs the energy, bringing it slowly back into real space.  Terrifying the Microverse in the process.  Once it reaches the city of New York (where else?), it'll crush it just by its presence there. 

Mettle and the others revive, but they are not told good news.

They don't have many options.  They have to destroy the Infinite Mansion.  It may even destroy the Worthy.  However, someone has to stay and activate it.  Worse, someone else has to hold off the Worthy before they find and kill the one at the computer.









Look at all this.  Hazmat and Mettle.  Katie and her mom.  Finesse.  Even the Nazi Mettle killed.  These deaths and, frankly, perfect set up to deaths have several things in common which puts Arena to shame:  It has intense buildup that is about the characters who die, and the after effects are visible, touched on repeatedly or given a marker to go with.  Arena barely does this, and the first real mourning it's giving is us is being given to one of Hopeless' OCs.  I'd call  it author favoritism quite honestly.  Especially because of that damnable 8 day time skip that occurs between #3 and #4.  Here, we don't have time skips.  We dwell, and it enhances the drama 

Hell, all the nameless deaths in this arc lead up to this point.  I fully believed that they could die here.  And it would have been dramatically amazing and a wonderful death to go out on.  Not because they'd be going out as heroes, which they would.  It was because it wrung out the maximum dramatic potential for the scenario and built it up expertly.  It simply respects death as a narrative tool. 

Arena doe snot.

But then Hank Pym bursts in and saves Hazmat and Mettle, and Quicksilver takes Finesse's place.  When she asks if he'd die int he second it takes to activate he simply says "A second is an eternity for me.  I''ll be fine."). 

The kids are given a brief debrief and word of thanks.




Yeah.  That happens. 

Given it all, that's completely understandable. 

We get some nice scenes dealing with the fallout of the event.  Including a scene of Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel talking about what Tony Stark did to get Odin's attention.  Hazmat tries to talk Veil out of going back, saying that things can never really go back to being how they were with the way they are now. 



Speedball's back!

He's found himself thanks to the events of "Fear Itslef: The Homefront"  Worth a read.  

They go and round up some super villains (including two villains made during the limited time that Young Allies had), but they are handled by . . . Jeremy Briggs. 

Yeah, She called him.



Yeah, that doesn't go very well with some of them.



Pietro, you scamp!  Also, Mettle continues to break hearts. 



Justice goes to talk with her as well, and it's a pretty good scene.

Here's the highlight:




Justice decided that he'll leave too, but not alone.



And I suddenly understand the shippers. . .

Anyway, Avengers Academy needs a new place, so they revamp the old West Coast Avengers Mansion. 

And we get this bit:



Argh! My feels!

Not only is Avengers Academy moving, however.  It's also . . . expanding.




This is both a good and bad development.  On one hand, hey! They're all rescued from Limbo! On the other, it alters the focus a bit, muddying it. The first arc hurts because of that muddying.  However, it also allows for one off adventures of the 'wallpaper' character.  Something Wolverine and the X-Men has yet to take advantage of.

See you all next month for . . . probably the worst Avengers Academy story.