The latest Marvel Teaser featuring a new art splash and minimal words is for Avengers Arena's second arc, as released via press release late Thursday. "Game On" says the teaser, which shows X-23, Hazmat, Nico, and Darkhawk inside a board game box.
Unlike the other teasers, this one is not announcing a new artist, as the original creative team of Dennis Hopeless and Kev Walker are sticking around for the next arc. No, the surprise here instead is in the characters shown and the possible misdirection that's been played since the start of the series. SPOILERS ON for Avengers Arena #3, which shipped this week.
The end of the issue saw Darkhawk, who is pictured on this image (and mentioned in solicitation text for #4), apparently get killed, with his source of power literally ripped from his chest. Seeing him on this teaser means either someone else takes over the role, the original isn't as dead as we thought, it's just plain misdirection, or maybe the "deaths" we've seen haven't been quite as perminent as readers have been led to believe.
Indeed if we turn on our speculation engines, the characters trapped inside a game here, coupled with the "health bars" seen next to them through the comic book, (not to mention Arcade's godlike powers in this world) could be a real clue to the true fate of these kids, with them trapped in some kind of virtual reality murderworld, not one where they're actually dying.
Either way, it's "Game On" for the Avengers Arena kids in April 2013.
