My love affair with comics has come and gone over the years. There have been times when I thought the stories were great and times I thought the art was great and sometimes both of those come together to make a great story.
That said, I'm addicted to Runaways.
Runaways Cover art by Jo Chen
Runaways is a Marvel comic series, created and written by Brian K. Vaughan. The series is about six teenagers who run away from home and try to become superheroes after they witness their parents murdering a young girl. Determined to find the reason behind the killing, they uncover their parents true identities as part of a group of super-villains called The Pride.
Without sinking into spoiler territory I will tell you that for me the selling point of the book is the characters. The teenagers in the stories are believable, sympathetic and just plain enjoyable to read about.
As the series unfolds the teenagers are basically abandoned and are attempting to find their own way. While they are trying to survive, they are also struggling to remain hidden from those that want to split them up and place them in foster care. They are also saddled with great guilt because of the horrible crimes committed by their parents and burdened by the normal teenage angst of trying to discover themselves.
The supporting cast of characters includes some second (and third) tier characters in the Marvel Universe. This works perfectly because these characters aren't so overused that you are sick of them. Some of my favorite guests to appear in Runaways are Cloak and Dagger (who play a large role) and Julie "Lightspeed" Power from another kid superhero group - Power Pack.
The writing is excellent and the dialogue is both believable and fun.
Some snippets of dialogue from the first thirty or so issues:
Molly: I'm a superhero.
Gordon: Yeah, and my dad's the Black Panther.
Molly: Really? His mask is cool. It's got those little ears.
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Provost: Before you can join our guild of thieves, you must remove as many balls from this mannequin as you can in a minute.
Molly: No problem.
(Molly smashes the mannequin to bits)
Provost: And you just became our most valuable member.
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Spider-Man: And who are you, Son of Electro?
Victor: No! I'm...I'm Ultron's kid.
Spider-Man: Uh-huh. How about you, Purple Hair? You from another planet or something?
Gert: No, but my dog's a genetically engineered psychic dinosaur from the 87th century. Usually.
Spider-Man: I should have guessed.
Victor: We're not lying, Spider-Man!
Spider-Man: And I wasn't being sarcastic, lil' Ultron. Trust me, all the nutty wamajama I've seen in my life, I'm whatever the opposite of a skeptic is.
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Molly: My mommy is a speech therapist. Maybe she can help you.
Gert: Your parents are psychotic supervillains.
Molly: Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting.
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Chase: I can, like, totally mold my flames into anything I can imagine!
Gert: And I see you've imagined a square. Very creative.
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Gert: I should have known. Nothing more evil than a non-Mac computer...
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The Runaways are: Karolina, Molly, Chase, Nico, Gert, Victor and Alex. (Warning - these links contain spoilers)
Runaways is available in digest sized graphics novels and currently there are five volumes (covering 30 comic issues) available. Most bookstores carry the digests. I picked up mine at Books A Million in the Manga/Comics section. Runaways is also published as a monthly comic which you can find at your local comic store.
'til all comic books are as fresh and fun as Runaways
Keep the Adventure Alive,
AT
I am, like, so totally going to go look for copies of 'The Runaways' so I might escape from my real life. Oh wait, I think my 16 year old just accused me of, like, killing her boyfriend....
Posted by: Marie | April 06, 2006 at 06:16 PM