Runaways is a comic bound to take you by surprise. Unlike the mainstream Marvel comics, it doesn’t sell itself on big names like Spiderman, Wolverine, and Iron Man (Although Captain America makes a brief appearance.) but prooves itself with superior writing, creativity, and art.
It’s an odd book. The cover art, the name, and even the first two pages sell the comic as some sort of Dawson’s Creek, Degrassi, teenage melodrama. Bunch of whiny kids complaining about being forced to go to some rich shindig. I thought it was a movie I saw before and had already predicted the ending. Bruce Willis is a ghost, right? Wrong! There’s deception, surprises, and death.
I’m in a horrible position right now. I want so very much to give a plot synopsis that will show a brief glimpse of the genius that is The Runaways. I think about my reaction when the event that sets the plot into motion happened, and I just can’t take that away from the masses.
Skipping what happened, essentially six children have to runaway from home and quickly discover that they have powers. Brian Vaughan and Adrian Alphona take the greatest hits from Marvel’s Golden Age: time travelers, wizards, geniuses, techno-freaks, and dinosaurs, and makes them fit in our current day society. It doesn’t seem like anything too special, until shit starts breaking down.
I suppose this really isn’t anything special. Alan Moore started blurring the line between villain and hero, pure and problems forty years ago. Most modern comics like to throw the world upside down, yet it still catches us off gaurd. Its hard seeing Tony Stark with a drinking problem, Captain America going against the government, or Bruce Wayne being tortured by past demons. We expect to see Clark Kent, goofily tripping over himself in front of Lois Layne.
1950s Americana still is the expected status quo in the comic universe. Comics like Wanted and Runaways blur that happy suburban dream world line, and turn neighbor Ted into a rapist and pops bodies under the floorboards of Uncle Bob’s foyer.
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