Avengers Undercover 1, Deadpool 25

Avengers Undercover 1
Hopeless (w) and K. Walker (a) and Beaulieu (c)

The survivors of AVENGERS ARENA are dealing with their new lives in their own ways, with Hazmat trying to keep her head down (though she can't help punishing some jerks commenting on the videos), Chase making a new living on the interview circuit, Nico trying to keep to their shared promise of NOT making a new living on the interview circuit, Death Locket trying to get her Deathlok soft and hardware removed, Cammi returning home, and Cullen hunting Arcade wherever he may be, to the chagrin of Anachronism. They're each trying to return to civilization but it's made infinitely more difficult by the release of the videos by Arcade, which has played into the world's love of reality television and the like. After one of Cullen's most recent online videos in a line of videos he's posted where he searches and torches a number of Arcade's hideout, it's become clear that he's bitten off a bit more than he can chew when he attacked Baron Zemo's new Masters of Evil and been captured. The other survivors (minus X-23 who is out galavanting with the O5 X-Men) agree to go try and help Cullen.

Really strong first entry into this new series as Hopeless and Walker move directly from AVENGERS ARENA to AVENGERS UNDERCOVER. The personalities are still fresh in their minds just as the events of AVENGERS ARENA are fresh in ours. It's a really interesting and compelling idea to have the entirety of AVENGERS ARENA available to view in this universe, giving regular people a chance to watch it all and ignore the horror, instead focusing on the competition and the strategies where there were strategies. Suddenly, people like Hazmat who weren't even on the radar of normal people find themselves endlessly talked about and discussed and critiqued when all they want to do is forget that part of their past. It's huge and inescapable and really fascinating to see already. Excited to see how this one progresses, particularly given how strong this opener was.

Deadpool 25
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Hawthorne (a) and Bellaire (c)

Deadpool chats with Crossbones for a while over a few beers before they eventually take to the streets to battle. Crossbones, of course, is furious with Deadpool for leaving him up in a hot air balloon and Deadpool is sick of everything in his life right now and goaded into even more violence by the Preston voice in his head, though the Preston voice seems to actually just be another voice in his head as the real Preston, alongside Coulson and Adsit, shows up just in time to keep Deadpool from completely murdering Crossbones. The SHIELD agents have also brought Deadpool's money with them, giving him a chance to take off on vacation out to Europe to get away for a little while.

For a fight issue, this one definitely moves a little slower than the average. It's not a bad issue, per se, but typically when you have an issue that's almost entirely made up of fighting it moves a little quicker than this. If a fight comic does move this slowly, it's usually saying a little bit more. There's some weight here as we start to see just how much the recent events have impacted Deadpool's already fragile state of mind and how much it may mean to him going forward. Still, it's maybe a little heavy-handed in its presentation of a depressed Deadpool, though it doesn't cross the line to boring at any point. On top of it, posehn and Duggan wrap up, if a little anti-climactically and abruptly, the Gorman storyline as he drops into the fight randomly and gets thrown into a trash compactor for his efforts. Bit of a weird way to wrap it up there. Still, certainly the way has been paved for Deadpool's next adventure.