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From the start there
was something refreshing about Runaways.
Not exactly, I suspect, in the way Marvel intended:
there was nothing particularly hip or even authentic
in the story or its characters, and it always had a
slightly desperate, pleading quality to it. The first
run of the story in 2004 focused on the discovery by
a group of privileged teens that their parents were
not the kindly philanthropists they thought they
were, but were in fact the Pride, a group of
super-criminals who had made a pact with some
outsized aliens to destroy the planet in exchange for
eternal life and power for their children. Instead of
embracing their patrimony, the kids take off and
search for a way to bring their parents down. It is
overwrought apocalyptic drama, but it works.
Unlike Young
Avengers, which felt like a
junior league version of a big league teamup, the
Runaways had distinct personalities, charms and
faultlines that made them believable enough to
swallow the outsized premise and outlandish
coincidences that kept them running.
But the premise, it tuned out, was just the beginning
of the crazy fun (unlike so many of the current
half-baked miniseries these days which barely have
enough plot to fill up 6 issues).. The plot twists
and turns are exuberant and often irrational, as if
trying desperately to compensate in advance for the
plodding gracelessness of Heroes.
Originally launched as part of Marvel’s desperate
attempts to plug into the manga craze (and still
packaged in manga-sized trades), Vaughn was careful
to avoid pandering too obviously at the feet of that
particular golden calf and he was helped greatly by
Alphona’s lush, energetic pencil work.
Part of the fun of the first run of the
Runaways
and of
the first six issues of volume 2 was the idea of a
superpowered group with no capes, no costumes, no
flash. Adrian Alphona’s work in volume 2 was
especially ideally suited for this, making the
occasional supervillain or do-gooder in high costume
look absurd by contrast (including Captain America,
RIP). The kids are awkward, relatively human teens:
gangly or chubby, awkward in their skin, and trying
to cover it all up with snappy dialogue that doesn’t
always snap—and is all the more believable for often
falling flat.
The book really hit its emotional stride with the
death of Gert, and with Chase’s desperate attempts to
bring her back, even to the point of sacrificing
himself to the gods who held the key to her soul. And
it his its over-the-top peak with the unleashing of a
mega-demon (straight outta Powerpuff
Girls) in downtown L.A..
While the adults are off fighting their pathetic
Civil War in N.Y., a group of orphaned teens are
literally struggling with life and death on the other
coast. The childishness of Iron Man and Captain
America and their “war,” is brought into relief, as
are the very adult problems these “children” are
forced to deal with on their own.
In fact, these kids have always had to make up for
the immaturity of their seniors, whether their
criminal parents, the unbearably tedious Rick Jones,
or the sanctimonious capes who only show up to
pronounce on their case and then get back to “serious
business.” Ultimately, of course, they can only run
free for so long, and Iron Man and his team of the
terminally unhip eventually track our team down to
their secret lair beneath the La Brea Tar Pits. It is
at this point, when the pathetic battles of the
elders threaten to derail the much more interesting
plans and adventures of the younger generation, that
co-creators Vaughn and Alphona decide it is time to
walk away from their progeny. But aside from a
strange ellipses between iterations, the book has not
derailed in their absence. Far from it, in fact, as
the post-Civil War Runaways
has been
picked up by the book’s long-time admirer, Joss
Whedon, for a short run which takes the outlandish
storylines of the book and, as the poet said, turns
them up to eleven. Having (somehow) escaped Iron Man,
the team has headed east, where they seek sanctuary
with Kingpin who offers him his services in exchange
for a device that turns out to have been invented by
Gert’s parents, the time travelers. As happens all
too often when kids play with time machines, the team
finds itself transported back 100 years to 1907,
where they encounter a world completely alien yet
strangely familiar, populated by Wonders both good
and bad, including the Yellow Kid and Difference
Engine (playful homages both to the origin of
comics and the historical science fiction novel by
Gibson and Sterling that serves as inspiration for
the kind of writing Whedon is engaged in here).
Whedon is accompanied on his run by Michael Ryan, who
has a hard act to follow after Alphona’s brilliant
work on Runaways.
But he appears to be very much up for the task,
following Whedon along on his over-the-top breakneck
run through history and back again in the handful of
issues they have together. And Alphona’s task now
looks rather pedestrian by comparison, as Whedon has
introduced a whole complex new network of
superpowered gangs on the streets of turn of the
century New York—including a lovely lass who dances
on the air while drop-kicking strikebreakers. And the
tortured relationships between the Runaways get only
more tortured by their new travels. New recruit
Victor (Ultron’s long-lost son) and Niko’s fledgling
romance is threatened by the aforementioned lovely
lass’s manifold charms; Karolina and Xavin’s complex
courtship (she is a lesbian alien and s/he is a
shape-shifting Skrull) has been muddled once again by
Karolina’s love affair with 19th-century fashions;
Chase has encountered Gert’s parents in the past and
it turns out they do not approve (to put it mildly)
of his romance with their soon-to-be late daughter;
and meanwhile, the gang finds themselves lost in a
past from which they cannot return with first
recovering devices that Gert’s parents have planted
in random places throughout the century. It is hard
to imagine how Whedon will wrap this all up in a
couple of issues, and frankly I hope he doesn’t.
There is just too much potential and fun here. In a
few issues, the rumor has it, Terry Moore (of the
much-missed Strangers in
Paradise) and Humberto Ramos
will be taking the title for a spin, and the
combination does indeed seem every bit as promising
as what Vaughn/Alphona & Whedon/Ryan have
accomplished. But I do hope that some continuities
remain and that we don’t see the book breaking down
into discrete mini-series. I am all in favor of
seeing the kind of overburdened plotting
Runaways
has
always favored, a welcome antidote to the
decompression that made too many books overpriced
pretentious posturing. But if the book is going to
continue this formula of bringing in new creative
teams every 5 or 6 issues, I hope someone (Vaughn?)
is keeping an eye out for the big picture. And,
Marvel, if you are listening, I think I speak for
other comics history geeks when I say that we would
not be adverse to seeing the Street Arabs spin off in
their own title (one that will surely be more fun
than the ill-advised earlier Loners
spin-off).
Meanwhile, let the wild rumpus
continue!
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