DENNIS HOPELESS
Dennis Hopeless deserves to be one of the top ten writers of 2013. He worked his butt off to get there, to get noticed, and to get a huge buy-in from a large disparate group of comics fans, and to do it all and get out completely unscathed.
Dennis Hopeless was at the helm of two big books in 2013. Cable and X-Force, starring Cable, Domino, Colossus, Doctor Nemesis, Hope Summers, and Forge (one of my favorite X-characters of all-time). He turned it into a heist book and made the characters into living, breathing entities. It helped that Salvador Larocca was on his side, slinging crazy art that just made the world seem real. But something about it felt like Dennis Hopeless just having a ball.
And then you get to Avengers Arena. The book comics fandom wanted to hate, wanted to despise, called names and swore up and down that it would destroy comics and everything we love. And then you read this beautiful little treasure of a book and it gives so many incredible details and so much love to these wonderful characters that it just lives and dies with his incredible work. Add in the amazing talented artists like Kev Walker and you’ve got a book that I hated to see go.
The basic premise made everyone think Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, but when you looked past the basic premise, you see the thing that Dennis and company were really doing: They were making you care about these characters like you never have before. Chris Powell/Darkhawk became a hero again. Chase and Nico were in a book and felt like they hadn’t ever been gone. Cammi and the Avengers Academy kids were just too much fun to miss. Throw in the new kids and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a winning comic.
And Avengers Arena is the book of the year for me in 2013, and Dennis Hopeless is the writer of the year. By far. It was a comic filled with heart, with love, with danger, and real consequences. Just a lovely book all around and it makes me anxious for Avengers Underground.
– CW Cooke / GHG