By Brian K Vaughan, Adrian Alphona & Craig Yeung (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-905239-78-8
The third chapter (collecting volume 1, issues #13-18 of the Marvel comic-book series) in the saga of children on the run from their parents who have been revealed as an evil coalition of mutants, alien, sorcerers and super-criminals kicks the saga into high gear as the youngsters stop escaping and start attacking.
So for newcomers and by way of recap: Six L.A. rich kids with nothing in common except that their parents hang out together discover that those selfsame adults are, in fact, a league of super-villains intent on world conquest. Since no parent can be trusted anyway, the kids band together to use their own powers to bring them to justice. The adults have fingers in every pie, though. As the De Facto owners of Los Angeles it takes little more than a phone call to frame the Runaways for kidnapping each other and for a particularly grisly murder.
From their cool hide-out they rescue another boy with evil parents, only to fall foul of a timeless monster, and super-heroes Cloak and Dagger first hunt, (recruited by a bent cop in the pay of those ol’ evil parents) before teaming up with them. Unfortunately, the insidious adults mind-wipe the heroes as they go for reinforcements…
This volume contains a positive flurry of frantic activity, the kids discover the reason behind their parents’ villainous coalition, find a traitor in their midst, save the world and even clear the way for the sequel in the best manner of bubblegum drama. There’s even room for plenty of fighting and vast bunches of snogging, and a few A-List super-hero guest-stars too.
As a weary old man it’s so easy to be disparaging about a new (-ish) genre-form tailored to the young, hormonal, middle-class and socially advantaged, be it comic books, TV, clothes or music. Yet I’m fairly sure that my discomfort with a lot of modern material aimed at new young consumers is the old one: lacklustre creativity soaked in varnish and dipped in glitter is no substitute for quality storytelling. Even the most naïve newcomer knows “Shiny” is not the same as “Good”.
Soap operas are generally considered to be the ass-end of drama everywhere, yet can often transcend their base origins to produce outstanding quality, shattering depth and lasting worth. And more so in comics where we’ve had this very argument for decades over not just the content but even the very form of our medium. Perhaps I’m just getting tetchy waiting for it to happen.
All that being said there is a marked and consistent improvement in this book, (except with the art which I just can’t seem to warm to, competent though it clearly is) and the story does actually improve with re-reading – especially as this UK edition is printed in the regular trade paperback size and not the annoyingly cramped and cluttered digest format. Perhaps the thing simply needs a decent amount of breathing room to work.
For something that’s a distillation of so many hybrid strands that’s actually not such a bad thing. I’d advise you to read them and decide for yourselves.
© 2004, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved. A BRITISH EDITION RELEASED BY PANINI UK LTD