Arcade

A combination of evil genius and hitman, Arcade affects a manner of dress and speech that makes him appear to be a comedic character.

This is part of his overall theme, which extends into his preferred method of murder, an underground funhouse of colorful deathtraps, usually decked out in cheery colors and disguised as an amusement park, which he has dubbed "Murderworld."

Arcade's back-story, up to and including his real name, remains largely unknown even to this day.

This is mainly the result of his knack for escaping once he has been defeated.

According to the man himself, he was born into an extremely wealthy family and lived for much of his early life in, depending on the telling, a ranch in Texas, or a mansion in Beverly Hills.

At the age of either eighteen or twenty-one, again depending on the telling, his allowance was cut off by his father, who declared that he did not deserve it.

In retaliation, Arcade murders his father, thus inheriting all of the man's vast estate.

Given his propensity for deception, this origin story can hardly be taken at face value.

Now independently wealthy and free to do as he pleased, Arcade became a freelance assassin, traveling across the world, killing people in rather mundane fashions, and amassing even more wealth than he already had.

He quickly grew bored with doing business as an ordinary hired killer and resolved to find a way to continue his work in a manner more suited to his sensibilities.

Discovering an aptitude for technology, Arcade designed and built his first Murderworld, a subterranean evil lair disguised as a very deadly amusement park.

From this base, and with the help of two mysterious assistants named Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers, he reemerged as the world's most expensive hitman.

For the price of $1 million (actually a token sum, since Arcade doesn't need the money and, in any case, never turns a profit), he will tailor Murderworld to exploit the specific weaknesses of his target and then watch, with unconcealed glee, as they are killed by the variety of colorful deathtraps strewn throughout the facility.

However, one of his "gimmicks" is that he always deliberately leaves each target a small chance of survival.

In one instance, when the girlfriend of one of his captives begged him "If you're going to kill them, at least have the decency to do it quickly, painlessly!" Arcade laughs and replied, "Decency's dull... besides, miss, your way, they're dead and that's that.

My way, they've got a chance. Not much of one, but a chance."

This sets Arcade notably apart from most other villains who use deathtraps; while most villains believe that their death machines are infallible, Arcade likes to give them a chance on purpose, for the sport of it.

Since his first attempt to slay the unlikely duo of Spider-Man and Captain Britain, Arcade has tangled, at one time or another, with a large number of heroes and teams of heroes.

In addition to battling the X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force and Excalibur as groups, he has attempted to kill many individual members, usually in pairs.

Examples of this include Gambit and Wolverine, Colossus and Shadowcat, Iceman and Angel, Nightcrawler and Spider-Man, Colossus and Meggan, Deadpool and Hercules, and Iron Man and The Thing.

Other would-be victims of Murderworld have included Green Goblin (Phil Urich), Doctor Doom, Northstar, Courtney Ross, Johnny Blaze, and the Micronauts.

Courtney Ross is one of the few non-super-powered civilians to escape Arcade's attention alive.

She survives for some time due to outwitting multiple opponents (such as the Crazy Gang) and discovering a talent for improvisational comedy.

In the end, she is rescued by the superhero team Excalibur.

The entire situation gives her a new outlook and appreciation for life (which doesn't last long, as she is soon killed by an unrelated villain).

In another confrontation with Excalibur, Arcade trapped the team in a Murderworld programmed as a Looney Tune parody, called the Loonies.

He was revealed to be the "Wizard of Oz" of this world after Excalibur had to go down the yellow brick road.

At one point Arcade entraps the two otherworldly warriors, Adam X and Shatterstar, who team up to survive his plans.

Arcade finds himself astonished as the two (mostly Adam) literally kill several of his employees.

This causes him to state that the clients will be receiving a refund and the two are not to be dealt with in the future. Shatterstar attempts to kill Arcade, but he only destroys a robotic double.

The battle with Ghost Rider came when Arcade, having taken his show on the road, joins up with Blaze's Quentin Carnival.

This particular Murderworld folded out from the back of a semi.

As with many people associated with Blaze, Arcade had become deeply entangled with supernatural horrors at this point.

Blaze rampages through the fold-out Murderworld, destroying all the obstacles in his sight.

Two allies of Blaze, Kody and Princess Python, arrive to assist but are subdued by knock-out gas.

It is discovered that this particular Murderworld is infested with demonic beings.

Blaze kills what he can, then leaves Arcade trapped in its depths.

Arcade's trailer, now more normal-shaped, is driven out into the desert and abandoned.

Prior to a confrontation with Wolverine and Gambit, he murdered his assistant Miss Locke in a fit of rage.

During the struggle, she wounded him with a carving knife and scarred much of his face.

Over time, Arcade recovered from the physical trauma (presumably through facial surgery, though that has never been confirmed or even addressed in future stories) and even built a series of Miss Locke androids, virtually identical to her in ever way, to replace his now-dead companion.

He is responsible for the destruction of Mutant Town, as part of a botched plan to kidnap X-Factor's Rictor.

He has since resurfaced, confronting Deadpool and Hercules, Dazzler, Human Torch and the Impossible Man.

As part of the Marvel NOW! event, Arcade is the main villain in the pages of Avengers Arena.

Arcade has abducted 16 teenage superheroes (consisting of Cammi, Darkhawk, Hazmat, Mettle, Nico Minoru, Reptil, Juston Seyfert and his Sentinel, Chase Stein, X-23 Apex, Nara, Kid Briton, Red Raven III, Ryker, Bloodstone, and Anarchronism) in order to force them to fight for his own amusement as his latest version of Murderworld that is somewhere in Antarctica (which he has full control over the environment).

When the teenage superheroes tried to fight him, Arcade demonstrated new abilities where one of them sends Hazmat flying.

Arcade then states that he will take out the weakest of the teenage superheroes.

Hazmat then attacks Arcade again, but Arcade elects her as the weakest and starts to kill her.

To save her life, Mettle sacrifices himself as Arcade apparently kills Mettle. Arcade then declares that the games have begun.

After several days had passed, Arcade seemingly shut off the food supply making survival more difficult.

Arcade makes the weather conditions hazardous in Murderworld, but notes there are safe zones at the edge of each quadrant for the competitors to rest, as well as food and medicine in Quadrant 2.

After X-23 goes feral upon the trigger scene causing her to attack Reptil and Hazmat enough for them to get away, Arcade comments on how his new trigger scent was a success and how amazed he was that X-23 would kill anyone with it on them.

Arcade then begins to reflect on the events that led up to him kidnapping the teenage superheroes.

Throwing a party at his estate for his birthday, Arcade realized it was made fun of him by the super-villains community and was wounded by his new assistant Miss Coriander after having asked her to try to kill him.

He then give his Murder Island to her and flees to his bar called the Hole in the central parts of Bagalia where he was burgled by Constrictor (who was one of the villains who had made fun of Arcade).

Arcade defeated him with a giant hammer-like trap and possibly killing him.

Arcade decided to create a new project inspired by children's novels.

Helped by Miss Coriander, he created a new Murderworld in Antarctica and was provided with powers from cybernetics, magic stuff, Stark Industries tech, and gamma radiation.

Arcade had replaced the captive teens with Life Model Decoys to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious of their disappearance.

Arcade speaks to his robot about the progress in the teenage heroes' fight against each other. Deathlocket and Apex end up going further into Arcade's lair where they are attacked by Arcade.

During the fight, Christopher Powell (who is revealed to still be alive) is awakened when Deathlocket releases him.

Christopher then attacks Arcade and manages to knock him out.

Apex, Deathlocket and Christopher corner Arcade who ends up teleporting away.

When Apex tries to hack Arcade's computers, Arcade talked Apex into letting the game play out in order to position herself as the sole survivor.

One week after Murderworld was shut down, Arcade is shown in a bathrobe within one of his safehouses where he has uploaded the footage of the Murderworld fights on YouTube.

Months later in the pages of Avengers Undercover, the survivors gather in Bagalia to find Cullen Bloodstone (who has been tracking Arcade.

When Cammi tries to tell the others to leave, Bloodstone instead has Daimon Hellstrom teleport the group to Arcade's latest party at Massacrer Casino so they can kill him.

At Massacrer Casino where the teenage heroes have infiltrated, Arcade pits the party guests against each other.

The teenage heroes take part on this until they turn their attention towards Arcade.

After being stuck in Catatonic Shock, Hazmat finally kills Arcade by blowing him to bits with a concentrated radiation burst as a way to avenge Mettle and those who died in his Murderworld.

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Marvel Comics
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