This December, Marvel comics is putting 16 teenagers on island with their equivalent of the Jigsaw serial killer, Arcade! Dennis Hopeless and Kev Walker are working together on this brand new on-going series that pits beloved teen heroes from Avengers Academy, Runaways, and Annihilation against one another on Arcade’s newest Murder World. And if this sounds a little Battle Royale or Hunger Games-esque to you, don’t think it didn’t cross the minds at Marvel too as they blatantly play on the classic Battle Royale movie poster! Avengers Arena, as the series is called, is set to be the company’s new teen hero book, replacing Avengers Academy in the new Marvel Now this December. The series will feature many great teen heroes, like Chase and Nico of Runaways, Cammi and Darkhawk of Annihilation, and Hazmat, Mettle, Reptil, Juston, Juston’s Sentinel, and X-23 of Avengers Academy (possibly giving you all a hint at who survives the current Avengers Academy Final Exam storyline and the series concluding 39th issue). Also on the island of Arcade will be the mysterious students of Braddock Academy, a school likely affiliated with Brian “Captain Britain” Braddock, who has went up against Arcade multiple times. This means these students are likely either English or from different dimensions. While there are quite a few students going into this book, with a rather large cast of 16 heroes in this new teen team title, Dennis is promising a fair amount of death to help cull the numbers. You can read more on what Hopeless and Walker have to say in their interview on Marvel.com about the new series.

Now while this concept sounds quite entertaining, we’ve seen superheroes forced to fight one another before in comics like Secret Wars, Countdown: Arena, and the recent AvX: Versus, only to be left somewhat disappointed with the pulled punches and lack of a real smackdown or body count. Hopefully Avengers Arena will be different with the concept of Murderworld returning, the smaller-name heroes, and Dennis Hopeless’ promise that “people die in this book”. What I find most interesting is the return of some unexpected characters, such as Darkhawk, who was last seen in Nova, just before the Thanos Imperative. The return of characters like him and those of the Runaways, who have been venturing around off panel for some time likely puts them at a high risk of death in the new series. But who might kill them? While Battle Royale had the insane and deadly Sōma Mitsuko, Avengers Arena will have Cammi of Drax The Destroyer and Annihilation. For those not familiar with Cammi, she first appeared in Drax The Destroyer #1, a twisted and psychotic young girl that followed Drax around on his killing spree during the first Annihilation War. She was last seen in 2007′s Annihilation #6, on some distant planet with Thanos’ Pyx (alien pixie) partner, Skreet. Her return to Earth, let alone around those her own age, will likely not end well…particularly for those around her. Of course, not all our heroes will likely turn instantly to killing one another, with many having some more altruistic perspectives of unifying and escaping. But that’s always the fun with these kinds of stories, and hopefully Dennis Hopeless will make Avengers Arena just that, the fun and exciting tale of Battle Royale in the Marvel universe done right.