@animehunter: i really hope that this is the case. I cant take it if chase or nico die

I think it's too optimistic. At best her "help" there will succeed in bringing outsiders to save a few of the others. But those life bars are there for a reason, and when they hit empty (like hers is on that page), they don't fill back up.

And like I said, that page is out in the open. I got it from the same source that leaked Juston's death two days early, and it appears to be the very next page after the solicited ones with Nico crawling towards the staff. If it's not real and Nico's not really dead, then it's not me pranking you -- I'm equally victim.

But like I said, reliable source for months. I have every reason to believe that page is from Wednesday's issue.

@akbogert: i know it is to optimistic Grr i really hate this freaking series. Killing off another great character. And not only that a great female character and a great poc character.

@shadowx: And for what it's worth (because I want to point out every instance of PIS that comes to mind), if Nico did manage to cast a spell which aids people in finding them/keeps people alive, there is absolutely no good reason why she couldn't have cast that spell much earlier. In fact, there has never been a good explanation for why she couldn't use her staff properly, and now that inexplicable, PIS handicap has kept her from staying alive.

It may not look like it on first glance, but (particularly if this "motivates" Chase) Nico just got fridged -- depowered and violently killed despite how her pre-Arena character and abilities should easily have kept her out of this mess and/or alive.

@akbogert: You might be right, because the logo at the bottom right of the page is normally indicates that it's the last page of issue. The reason I have a 1% doubt, is when a few pages of issue 1 of superior spider-man where leaked there was "to be continued" on the bottom right of the leaked page and when the actual issue was released the page was actually around the first five pages of the issue.

So until I actually read it I am going to hold onto the 1%.

@animehunter: More power to you.

I lost hope in this book the moment I read an official solicit advertising it to people who hate characters from Runaways and Avengers Academy and think Marvel needs fewer young heroes. When I saw the company actually telling those people that they wouldn't want to miss this series, my ability to be optimistic died.

@animehunter: Well, the entire issue was leaked on 4Chan. That is indeed the last page of the issue (prior to letters). I didn't read any of the issue -- just scrolled to see where the page fell in the book. Some of the comments in there were pretty upset, so I'm guessing the events that precede this are somewhat infuriating.

The only way this would be a fakeout would be if that "help" brings her back to life in the next issue. Which would actually be the first unpredictable thing I've seen in a very long time from this book.

@akbogert: God i hate fridging. Its honestly disrespect to both Nico and Chase if this happens. Especially Nico. Dont forget not only did they make her powers not work, but they gave Chase a power boost.

Oh god was that an actual offical solcit? This is honestly worst then any event or anything marvel has put out imo

@shadowx: Yes, yes it was.

Yeah Nico died and how she died was horrible and the writing was bad, and he ignored a lot of canon as usual.

I gotta give the creators credit, Apex is one of only a handful of characters that i truely do hate to the core, hope somebody ****s that bitch up and soon.

@akbogert: marvel I am dissapoint..

This isn't a slight to you.

But every fan who reads something like this gets angrier than they were before. Because a common, and now growing, complaint against Hopeless is that while he continues to kill off pre-existing characters whom people loved because of the talent and care of other writers, his writing seems to clearly favor and bias his handful of new characters. The fact that Hopeless kills a character with years of publication history and your response is not to focus on her, but on how great Hopeless is at making his own character appealing -- like I said, I just think it'd be helpful to understand that that's like pouring gasoline on a fire.

@akbogert: @shadowx: I found it on 4Chan read through it, what caught my eye was the last four page of the issue, she showed determination, doing everything she can to get to her staff and making it, even though she died, of blood loss from what I see.

She poured everything she had into saying one word "Help" This could have 2 possibilities

either as @akbogert mentioned the staff saves her by lowering her temperature in order to preserve what ever life she has left and at the same time making her appear dead or be instrumental in getting help from the outside which could play a part in issue 13 out July

@animehunter: Which, again...while better than it could have been, is still not good, because there's no good reason why she couldn't have cast a "come find us" spell earlier -- and it makes no sense that she wouldn't have tried.

Moreover, if you want to argue that she needed to put all of herself into that spell, then consider how much blood she lost prior to casting it. It should have been easier for her to cast the help spell when at full health than when she cast it here, so casting it earlier would both have saved more lives and not have killed her.

@akbogert: While I do agree with you, to a writer like Hopeless this would be more dramatic.

I mean how many time have we seen a hero, specifically a magical hero, on the verge of death only to be saved as very last millisecond by some device or magic, there have even been time where for that hero to evolve they had to die a dramatic death in order to achieve the next level.

Let me give you an example: Highlander, they begin as mortal but in order to become immortal they have to die horribly and dramatically.

@animehunter: Yes, to a write Hopeless this makes sense. Because he has already displayed a fundamental incompetence when it comes to how the Staff of One works and how powerful Nico actually is... &#@!, was. But the scene loses its drama the moment you ask the simple question "if she could have cast a spell as simple as "help," how do you explain her not having already done so?" The only actual answer is "because that would be inconvenient for the story Hopeless is trying to tell."

That is textbook PIS, and I defy anyone to defend it.

lol actually x-23 is the only person in this series that i actually like, really dont like any of the other characters at all, and couldnt care less about who lives or dies, Apex is just one of those characters that is just straight up dislikable, dont mind her brother he seems to be a likable person, and i actually felt sorry for him, but she is just a b****

@dh69: That's just my point, though. These characters were pulled from franchises with extremely devoted fans. The people who know and read them, almost without exception, adored these characters and the special corners of the Marvel universe they represented. The fact that this book -- the one place they finally get to see these characters -- abuses, depowers, or mischaracterizes them while simultaneously (and sometimes via that mischaracterization) building up and engaging reader affections for brand new characters, is a major portion of what makes this book so insulting.

@akbogert: Anyway, all we can do now is wait and see if the last thing she spoke, play any part in the upcoming issues, or if it was simply a last ditch effort that had no effect. I really hope it's the former and not the latter, because I really don't what to see that her determination was for nothing.

This series is an unending cycle of "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Some of these characters, like Nico and Laura, just don't make sense in this story. Whether it's their capture or their weakness once inside Murder World, their very existence in the story necessitates a certain degree of PIS and then they or their story must be continually subjected to deviation from canon to sustain their role in the story. For Nico, it was the sudden nerfing of the Staff. For Laura, it was Arcade's miraculous ability to produce his own Trigger Scent.

There is no room for creativity or originality. He is becoming increasingly predictable. Nico's death was either meaningless or it wasn't. If it wasn't, it was only meaningful insomuch as it served the plot, not the character, especially since she should not have even gotten herself into the situation she was in (with such serious injuries) in the first place. So it won't be interesting or surprising if her spell is a catalyst to get people searching for them because they should have been searching for them the whole time. It won't be interesting or surprising if her spell is a catalyst to help the searchers locate them because they should have had that capacity the whole time. Yet we are expected to say "oh, how clever of you to use Nico's death to explain how people were able to locate Murder World," when in fact that's both inevitable if her death is supposed to matter and still ignores the fact that she could have cast the same spell earlier and it should have been just as effective long before anyone was in these dire straights.

@akbogert: I agree with everything you say tbh.

@shadowx: @akbogert: I'm not sure if this means anything but there is a variant cover for issue 14 that included Nico, which could suggest she survived. The reason I mention it, is because it does not include all the others who were killed. I realise I might be grabbing at straws here, but when I saw it, it got me thinking.

@animehunter: If I started putting credence in the covers for this series I'd have to get pissed off about how Hazmat is ostensibly rebounding from her dead boyfriend into Reptil's arms in the next issue.

@animehunter: i wish this was evidence and ill gladly grasp at starws untill its

For those wanting to express what Nico meant to them, I began a thread at her forum so that you may express it. R.I.P Nico, We will miss you.

Is reptil in it?

@flashdamn: yep

I'm sure I'm going to get criticised for this. but ever since the death of Nico, I've had one thing that kept rolling in my head and I "think" it could mean something, so I wanted to put it out there and see what you thought.

It goes back to Avengers Arena #7 - Rock Bottom where the spotlight was on Arcade and his assistant Miss Coriander. Miss Coriander was listing everything she set-up for Murderworld, one of these things was Nanite-enriched oxygen.

As we all know in comics Nanites are used for many things, medical, monitoring, power suppression, there were even used in the resurrection of the dead (although I can't remember when), my quirk is, why use Nanites to just monitor the health of the teens, why not use conventional means, do the Nanites serve another purpose.

I am sure you can guess where I'm going with this and I agree it's a little out there, but the Nanite thing never really did make sense to me, and even though one of the teens were killed in a manner that would negate this possibility, as well as the fact this definitely is not a simulation, what about the others.

@animehunter: I don't know, but I will criticize you for actually tagging the Nanite page so many times :P

@akbogert: Thanks, I was hoping someone would notice lol

@animehunter: No problem. Out of curiosity, have you considered that Nanites might have something to do with it?

Also, Nanites.

@akbogert: I did consider that Nanites might have something to do with it, when did you think Nanites had a role to play?

Also, more Nanites.

@animehunter: To be truthful, though, I actually don't really expect that all to matter at all.

Folks can hold onto whatever hope helps them get by. Maybe for you it's Nanites?

For me it's the fact that as of last issue this book passed the threshold into the sales numbers that Academy had when it was cancelled. Not the numbers it had when it finished, but the numbers it had when the decision to pull the plug was announced. I have a lot of difficulty believing this so-called Season Two will happen, and that's the happiest thought I've had for a while.

@akbogert: I think a lot of people might be happy if the second season doesn't happen, I just hope not at the cost of, for me, two characters Laura/X-23 & Hazmat . It would have been three, Nico, but you know what happened to her.

Because we still have to contend with what we saw in issue 1 (Day 29)

@animehunter: I hope Nico's death causes people to drop the book. I won't pussyfoot around that. I hope that a lot of people expected her to survive and stop reading knowing that she's not making it. After Laura, I think Nico and Hazmat were the most popular characters in the book, the ones people said "I'm okay as long as ___ doesn't die." With Nico dead, I hope people live up to their word and really aren't okay like they said they wouldn't be.

But the way I see it, whatever happens with Laura and Hazmat has already been written. I just don't want to see more kids die than have already had their fates signed off on.

@akbogert: same here

Anyone with half a brain could tell this is all an elaborate dream sequence that will end with all the players hooked into a virtual reality system controlled by Arcade. It will be revealed at the end that no one has died they are all safe and sound in a room with big VR helmets on.

It's probably best not to go for the "insulting people's intelligence" route when the author and editors have confirmed multiple times that this is really happening and the deaths are definitely real and permanent until Marvel chooses to bring them back in a different book.

@akbogert: FEH!! Even if I am wrong anyone who pays to read that dopey book has already proven they don't have half a brain.

@rich711: I find that it is harder to change someone's mind if you treat them like they don't have a working one.

Preview : Avengers Arena 12

HUUUUUUUGE TWIST

@shadowx: @akbogert: Remember when I said

Hopefully it's not a repeat of what happened to Juston

@animehunter: im hoping its noyt a repeat of juston, aand im hoping she doesnt kill Chase in this "rage" she seems to be in. Because even though chase delivered that final blow, I figure Nico would no he would never do it on purpose and wouldn take it out in him. And if she does then that will be completly ooc. And even though she is alive his book is still really stupid

Indeed, while the natural tendency is to get excited, I am too cynical to simply say "oh yay she's alive." Not with this book.

And honestly, people are getting upset over having been hoodwinked. They say "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." I'd rather look like an idiot for falling for a trick than assume I'm being tricked only to realize something was real. If the worst that can be said of me is that I overreacted because I believed the writer repeatedly, bluntly saying something and it turns out he wasn't on the level, then I think that says more of him than it does of me.

@akbogert: Yep. Deniss Hopeless said every death in this was real and.you simply took his word on it. I see no Fault there. It just shows this book Is smply for the shock value, thrills, twists, and deaths. Its what M Night Shamalayn qould right if he wrote comics...

@shadowx: I would never compare Hopeless to Shamalayn.... Hopeless has made me care for every character in Arena so far.... Shamalayn has made me hate everything he touches.

Can we please wait till at least arch 2, Game On, is over before we really bash Hopeless... I'm super intrigued to know what's going on with Nico and what does Death Locket see that's such a surprise?

I was going to say "oh hey you, welcome to CV" but it seems you joined a while back and just lurked.

Anyhow, to be fair about Hopeless, the guy went out of his way to tell people "she's really dead, stop having hope." I think it's fair to say that if she's not really staying dead, that he deserves to be criticized for that. You know?

(Also I thought The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were good, just saying)

Also, remember look up tropes. Majority of Hopeless's deaths have followed cliches and tropes to a tee. Looking at Nico's revival being the Dark Resurrection trope.