The Girls Make The Plans, The Guys Blow Them To Hell

Reading Avengers Arena up to issue 11, the girls have been more mature or productive in how they've handled things than the boys.

It isn't absolute: Hazmat's shifted between impetuous, violent behavior and an attempt to disconnect completely from the reality of her situation. Nara was as focused on revenge as Juston (though she also seems to have Anachronism wrapped around her finger. Not sure if that's intentional, or she just likes aggressive guys). On the boys' side, Bloodstone was the first to see through Katy's deceptions, and he's been quite cool under fire and willing to work with others.

Overall, though, the guys seem to devolve into chest-thumping and stupid attempts to protect their turf (meaning typically, a girl). Chase threatening to kill Reptil if he behaves threateningly towards Nico again, when they're supposed to be working together. Or deciding to ignore the majority of the group's wishes and kill Katy/Tim himself. As it turned out, he had the right idea, but went about it in the wrong way, getting himself expelled from the group, leaving him alone and vulnerable to Katy's powers. Or Kid Briton bullying Anachronism for whatever reason he sees fit. As for Anachronism himself, he's paying attention to Nara and not much else, plus there's the issue of how helpful it was to kill Kid Briton, however enjoyable (and deserved) it might have been. Reptil, interestingly, is going the other way. He's passive, following Hazmat or X-23's lead. It would appear the break-up with Finesse and the loss of Mettle have kind of dampened his self-confidence. He's not causing problems, but he's also not been doing much to confront them unless someone prods him along.

Contrast that with several of the girls. Nico really stepped up, recognizing that she and and Chase couldn't make it by themselves, and tried to forge an alliance with the Academy kids. When that got blown to hell, she still saved Cammi, and the three of them formed an alliance. She held the line alone against Katy's Robo-Army and got everyone else to safety. Cammi, despite her distaste for relying on anyone or feeling weak, was also willing to try and work with others. First Darkhawk, then Nico and Chase. I thought X-23 going to look for Juston was an intelligent decision. She'd been sticking with Reptil and Hazmat to help them, but once that wasn't a viable option (because of the trigger scent), she turned her attention to another friend. Sure, it doesn't work out so well for Juston that he was an afterthought until there weren't other choices, but I still think it's a good call on Laura's part. She could sit in the woods and bemoan her fate, or she could accept she can't look after her two less-survival savvy friends for the time being and try to do something productive. Like determine the fate of another friend who, if he's still alive, might be able to help.

Even Katy's a good example. She's decided to try and survive, just like the others. It's simply that her approach is to kill everyone she can't control, rather than form alliances to thwart Arcade. It strikes me as a "being cynical = mature" mindset, but that isn't necessarily out of place for a teenager. I was of a similar state of mind in high school (more pessimistic than cynical). Even so, she's proven to be clever, adaptable, and focused. She got herself a pair of powerful, easily manipulated weapons (Deathlocket and Briton), and tried to remove those she considered easy prey in a way that would give her deniability (by using Deathlocket). When that plan hit a speed bump - her targets survived and not only was one of them was smart enough to see through the deception, one of the others killed her pet boytoy - she was able to regroup within a day and take advantage of the opportunity presented. Now she has more firepower on her side than ever.

You could even throw Arcade and Ms. Coriander in. Arcade's always been portrayed as somewhat childish. The whole way he explained his origin way to the X-Men's friends as his daddy cutting him off when he hit 18, so 'the next day, I cut him off'. He treats it like a joke, which is how he's treated most things. It's all a game to him. If a target was boring, then success was irrelevant. Which didn't mean he let them go, he just wasn't much interested in their death. And now he's sick of being considered a joke, and can't recognize that the people saying it are even bigger losers than he is (the Constrictor should not be talking smack about anyone), so he has to prove them wrong. It's a big "nuh-uh, you're stupid!" Coriander acts out of some misplaced pity for her old boss, but she's smart enough to a) anticipate the double-cross, and b) set him up with his new digs and then skedaddle. Win, lose, or draw, this isn't a scheme she wants to be anywhere near when it's all said and done.

I did a (very) brief search on the Internet to see if there was evidence girls mature faster than boys psychologically. It seems agreed that girls brains develop earlier, what with them hitting puberty first, but that doesn't necessarily equate with maturity. Though I didn't find much consensus on how to evaluate maturity. I was thinking along those lines because of something my dad had said about how he'd noticed a decline in maturity in his students over his last 15 years of teaching, including the girls, who he felt were typically more mature. I didn't ask him at the time to define the term, but my guess is he meant more likely to stay on task, pay attention, etc. He might have meant in terms of their ability to synthesize information from different sources into a coherent argument, I don't know. Something for me to remember to ask him though I've been meaning to ask him if he threw that Goldeneye deathmatch against my friend for about 6 years so who knows when I'll get to it.

I don't know if it is true that girls are more mature than boys on average in adolescence. I wouldn't be surprised. But in the case of Avengers Arena, it seems too common to be coincidence that the girls are the ones doing most of the planning and thinking, while the guys posture and throw things into chaos by being needlessly aggressive towards each other. I don't have any issue with it, if that's what Hopeless is doing. Before I started looking for research, I took it as given girls matured mentally faster than guys, so it seemed perfectly appropriate to me that it would play out that way on the whole, with a few outliers in both directions.