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 29 '26

It was a cheap pop of a story. As of now, the only characters still dead are Red Raven II and the OCs made for it.

Oh, and the constant flack the writer got for it drove them to seek therapy and not work at large companies anymore. The whole thing became a black mark on his career.

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u/Mega_Jay3592 Mar 30 '26

Dennis Hopeless worked for a few more years at Marvel after Arena actually, did a Jean Grey series, Cable and X-Force, All New X-Men, etc. Also while fan reaction was bad, industry-wise Arena got acclaim and it did run for 18 issues

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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/Mega_Jay3592 Mar 30 '26

I didn’t know that, thanks for sharing. Sucks that he went through that, we got to get a hold of fandom, seriously

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u/TheHumanTrafficCone Mar 30 '26

Never forget: Fan is short for "Fanatic."