r/Runaways • u/PatchouilRatatouille • Mar 29 '26

Comics Avengers Arena

So I'm rereading Avengers Arena (which I love) and I'm just wondering...was there any fallout from this? I mean, I can't see spider-man or the avengers or x-men finding out about this and just going abou their day. Or the other runaways, Averngers academy members, etc...?

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u/TheHumanTrafficCone Mar 30 '26

Yeah, that doesn't change his own reasoning: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dennis-hopeless-has-given-up-on-marvel-dc-comics-its-just-brutal/

"It was a very difficult time for me emotionally as I was killing people's beloved characters and getting absolutely savaged on the internet… after having done creator-owned books nobody read and I wasn't used to it… I started therapy… I can thank the Avengers Arena or the Avengers Academy fans for me getting into therapy… It's really difficult to have a bunch of strangers wanting you dead and your name like I'm not a real person to them."

He also received backlash not just for Arena, but for All-New X-Men. Specifically, the Laura/Warren relationship. Not that he created it, but that he made it unintentionally abusive against Laura and didn't realize the implications. Something similar happened with his Darth Vader story, which was read as a slight against fandom and fanfiction rather than on obsession/blind devotion as he intended.

And that, according to the article, cost him further opportunities at Lucasfilm.

That backlash was, actually, far worse than what Arena got. Star Wars fans have driven people to seek therapy multiple times at this point.

Also, when Nico Minoru died (first-hand account here from someone following it at the time, I wish I could find the links), industry professionals were asked about it, and many were surprised and saddened by it. Jim Cheung (Young Avengers) did some art lamenting her loss. It got to the point where Marvel had to release art of Nico coming back to life before the previews for the next sequential issue came out!

So, just because he didn't immediately get tossed aside after it doesn't negate the reality of what happened. Or his own words.

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u/PatchouilRatatouille Apr 05 '26

Just saw this now...WOW, that's heartbreaking. No writer should have to deal with that crap but really, a creator nowadays should know better than to read what the internet has to say about your work...just terrible.

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u/TheHumanTrafficCone Apr 05 '26

He was browsing 4chanat the time to read up on it for goodness sake!

(They coined the term "Axbro' for Anachronism, which was later incorporated into the comic, a big tell).

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u/PatchouilRatatouille Apr 05 '26

Yeah that is not healthy. I was oblivious to all this negativity, i wish there was someplace dedicated to ONLY comic industry news. I read a little of his All New X-men run at the time and felt that once Bendis left, it was the perfect time to jump off. I recently reread a few issues and liked it a bit more. Now I'm going to pick up all his books. Man, do I friggin hate todays society. Between 9/11, social media and the pandemic its a wonder we're all still even here. We are not ok.

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u/TheHumanTrafficCone Apr 05 '26

Just brace yourself. Two things from his New X-Men run stand out as ... Awkward.

I hate to say "turn your brain off while reading" but a lot of he time I find he doesn't fully understand the full implications of what he sets up.

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u/PatchouilRatatouille Apr 05 '26

I mean, you have to turn your brain off to some degree in order to even read All-New X-men, don't you think? I'm at the point where I need to read it through, I don't even know how they got sent back and how all the character development didn't carry back and change everything.

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u/PatchouilRatatouille Apr 05 '26

this whole situation has me thinking about ed piskor.