Contrived
And here I was ready to give this series a second chance. I really was. It was improving, problems were being addressed from the prior issue and things were looking up. Then this issue came around and I was reminded of just how bad Arena could get, not through fault of the concept, but through fault in the writing.
The Good
Kev Walker is back on art duties and not quite as phoning it in as he was towards the end of Arena.
After 22 issues with the character in his stable, Dennis Hopeless finally figures how to select words that make Nico Minoru's spells her own.
The Bad
This is a Cammi centered issue and honestly, Hopeless' writing of her removes many of the reasons why I liked the character back in her cosmic incarnation in the first place. The revival of her mother to provide pathos for this one issue makes it so forced and contrived that I really can't care about here. She was annoying before under Hopeless' pen, but here it's actively detrimental to the overall story as her emotional scenes detract from far more interesting and concerning things going on with the other characters. Things with far deeper implications than what Hopeless realizes.
SHIELD's perfectly timed arrival is the epitome of contrived convenience. if it is later revealed that Zemo planned it, I would not be surprised, but we don't even have an indication of it, nor of what the kids are being held for. They just are. Things are happening, but it's so rushed and forced as to be jarring and nonsensical.
The Ugly
SHIELD has Necromancers. Many people who like the story so far just take it as a cool little thing, forgetting what the word actually means,and the implication that SHIELD was after the kids to start with as soon as they dropped Arcade. If you think about it for too long, it just becomes worse and worse.
Cammi has a panic attack over a mildly legitimate thing (That Arcade probably has cameras everywhere and recorded the whole thing), but her rant manages to deeply implicate the other kids into pre-meditated murder all on her say so when we, as readers, saw nothing of the sort (beyond Bloodstone setting up the thing). Her panic damned the entire group, yet the scenes focus on her sympathy and sadness when she damned them all through fear and stupidity. I don't know which aspect the writer wants the reader to focus on, because they are so dichotomous as to be completely antithetical.
The main sin of this issue is that it's completely goofy. Hopeless can do goofy decently well when writing comedy, but the mistake here is filtering his PTSD character study and temptation of evil series through that lens utterly destroys any dramatic potential the series had. Nico's spells produce comedic effect (or end with her being nerfed again because people weren't quite enraged enough at that happening the last time), dramatic over-reactions are played more for laughs than drama and it just kills everything good the last issue did.
And then there's Zemo in full Nazi regalia to tempt the kids to evil. Can anyone take the scene seriously? And really, how offensive is it to have Nico and Chase who's best friend and girl friend was Jewish, join up with a Nazi? Or Hazmat (Japanese herself), who dated a black man, joining a supremesist like this? It's offensive, dumb and vile.
Also, there's more Anachronism/Hazmat proto-shipping which just turns my stomach.
In case you hadn't guessed, annoying character goes to Cammi, who pulled a full on Nelix (of Star Trek: Voyager infamy) in that she and the series talk about her great skill and cunning, but whose actions manage to get the rest of the group injured/killed. Again. I don't feel sorry for her. She's becoming the next Kati Bashir if things keep on going like this.
