With ‘Avengers Academy’ coming to an end after this current story arc, many fans began to wonder what would happen to Reptil, Finesse, X-23, and the rest of the students. Elsewhere, a new Marvel NOW teaser was revealed last week that featured the word SURVIVE on it and fans were at a loss as to what series this could be for. One week ago, none of us thought that these two events would be related, but now we know that they are indeed connected.

According to Comic Book Movie, the teaser is for the brand new ongoing series from writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Kev Walker called ‘Avengers Arena’. This title will bring together 16 of Marvel’s younger heroes and put them in a fight or die sort of situation on Murder World, which was created by the supervillain Arcade. It’s pretty much like Marvel is now doing their version of ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Lord of the Flies’, or the Japanese cult classic ‘Battle Royale’, which is given an homage on the cover of the very first issue, as seen below:

Arcade has chosen members of the Avengers Academy and The Runaways, as well as some heroes from the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe and students of the mysterious Braddock Academy. Series editor William Rosemann shares who exactly will be part of the ‘Avengers Arena’ roster:

“Fans of ‘Avengers Academy’ will hopefully be excited by the next chapter in the lives of Hazmat, Mettle, Reptil, Juston and his Sentinel and X-23. Speaking of schools, who are the Braddock Academy? After his last appearances in ‘War of Kings’ and ‘Nova’, Darkhawk soars again! Staying with sci-fi, just wait until you see what Dennis and Kev have planned for Annihilation’s Cammi, baddest girl in all the galaxy. And last but certainly not least, direct from the pages of the dearly missed ‘Runaways’, we have Chase and Nico!”

If you haven’t guessed by now, some of these fan favorite characters will die. Actually, depending on the rules of Arcade’s sick game, all but one of them could die! But Hopeless assures us (via Newsarama) that he didn’t just pick characters that he wanted to kill off:

“These kids were chosen carefully and with specific story beats in mind. We definitely plan on taking advantage of the broad personality spectrum we have in play. Even the characters [that] die off early make their mark on the story. I didn’t throw anyone into the book as cannon fodder.”

Fans online have already been voicing their displeasure about this series, but I’m actually looking forward to it, despite the fact that I’m a Runaways fan and I don’t want to see Chase and Nico die. If you’re looking forward to ‘Avengers Arena’ being a part of Marvel NOW! like I am, be sure to keep an eye out for it at your local comic book store in December.