Runaways! The breakout hit of the otherwise DOA “Tsunami” line, which saw a bunch of unrelated books branded as some kind of American response to manga even tho they were not intended to be this or to be a line of books at all by Bill Jemas in the waning days of his power. The “line” featured the debut of the Runaways, a book called Sentinel which was just a shameless rip off of the Iron Giant, a relaunch of New Mutants, and solo series for Namor, Mystique, Venom and the Human Torch. It could not have made less sense. Runaways, Venom, Mystique and New Mutants were the only ones to last longer than a year, and all of them shed the Tsunami branding. Weird times. But Runaways was the big one. It didn’t necessarily launch the career of writer Brian K. Vaughan, but it sure pushed him in the right direction. He was aided and abetted by artist Adrian Alphona, who would later go on to draw the first Kamala Khan stories, inker Craig Yeung and colorist Christina Strain. The premise is as ingenious as it is hard to maintain: A group of kids find out their parents lead an evil supervillain organization called The Pride. They’ve been getting together while their parents meet their whole young lives, and when they learn the secret, the run away. Over time, they come to learn some of them have powers, some of them have weird other stuff, and all of them have no idea what to do with their lives. Their leader eventually betrays them, and then the book relaunches with a volume 2, which is what this is issue #09 of. And if we’re looking at it, one assumes Spider-Man will be making any appearance. But as is often the case, I’m pleased this blog is giving me a chance to revisit this series, in whatever limited capacity. This issue opens with a recap page and then a 2-page ad for a car, which is insane. Then we open in New York, on a woman in the hospital. It turns out she’s Dagger, and she was brought in by Cloak, who appears and scares off the nurses. He asks her to forgive him, but a voice behind him says it’s too late for that.
The nurses behind Cap are SUCH an Adrian Alphona thing. His comics are always so alive.
That blow knocks Cloak down to Luke Cage on the street, who clocks him, saying there’s video footage of him beating Dagger. That doesn’t sound like something he’d do. Cloak says “The young ones… I remember…” and vanishes. And we cut to a priest looking very perturbed among the crowd of onlookers. But this isn’t an Avengers comic, let’s meet our contestants.
So that’s Molly, Vic, Gert and Chase. Molly is a superstrong, adorable little mutant powerhouse. Vic is a robot made by Ultron, tho I don’t recall if he knows that yet. Gert has a psychic connection to a velociraptor she named Old Lace (In which is, in my mind, the biggest mistake in this series). And Chase is Chase. He seems pretty normal, at least at this point. He’s going to see…
…Nico, magic lady, team leader. She’s got a magic staff that lets her cast any spell, but only once, which is a great plot device. And Karolina learned she was an alien or part-alien, I don’t recall, betrothed to a Skrull, and after some exposure, she agreed to go to space with them, so she’s MIA at present, which upsets Nico. They chat and flirt a little about Karolina’s absence while Alphona draws the MOST teenage looking teenagers possibly in comics history, and then a commotion downstairs leads them running back to the others.
They live under the La Brea Tar Pits, in a secret lair once used by their parents, as alluded to earlier. The intruder is Cloak, who they know from a previous adventure (Except for Vic, who is new). The security system unleashes literal Security Daemons, each based on the gimmicks of their parents’ old shenanigans. The team dispatches them with ease.
A severe blow to the head from Luke Cage, earlier!
Cloak begs them to help him after some comedy business about his origin, and the team agrees. Cloak is gonna teleport them back to New York via his, uh, cloak.
Thus endeth part one, bringing us to Runaways, Vol. 2 #10.
Covers for this book were by Jo Chen until the next issue, and I always thought her work was super striking. I don’t know what she wound up doing, but a lot of cover artists working today owe her.
That meta joke is too meta to really work.
Not sure Vaughan totally gets Wolverine. Well, we find Cloak dumping the kids out of himself into a snowy alleyway in New York in the present. The experience of traveling through the Dark Dimension has left a couple of them pretty shaken up.
Cloak and Dagger sure love a church.
Old Lace! Dumb name, great character.
Ouch! The gang is then shown the surveillance video of Cloak attacking Dagger after she beat up some muggers. We’re led to believe it’s pretty graphic, but don’t see all of it. Then Cloak produces a glove found at the scene, which the cops say he was wearing, but he says he’s never seen before. Pressed, he admits he stole it out of the evidence locker.
So, we follow Nico and Chase out into the night, where Nico is starstruck to see She-Hulk walk by, and they talk about how superheroes are a normal thing here. Then they spot a suspicious, drug dealer lookin’ guy. They imply they’re looking for a drug that gives you powers, and the guy reveals himself to have portal powers not unlike Cloak’s. They go into him and come out in a shady looking room, where a warning says weapons have been detected.
That is an extremely Adrian Alphona character design. Back at the hospital, a very distraught Captain America asks a nurse if Tandy has had any visitors besides Cloak. He’s told that Father Lantom was here, and for an unusually long time. Cap looks suspicious.
Wouldja look who it is! Who would’ve guessed Spider-Man would show up in this?? We’ll see how his appearance goes next post.