Runaways Vol 1 Pride and Joy, by Brian K Vaughan

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I’m a fan of Rainbow Rowell, and a friend of mine sent me the first two volumes of Marvel’s Runaways by her. I started reading them without knowing anything about Runaways, but I liked them well enough that now I’m starting at the beginning. Therefore, I read Vol 1 with some preconceptions, which made it very interesting.

• Premise. A group of kids find out their parents are a supervillain organization when the kids witness their parents murder a girl. All the relevant issues are addressed:
  
  • Lies. If my parents have lied about this all my life, what else have they been lying about?
  • Loyalty. They’re my parents, so even if they’re bad, I don’t want to hurt them.
  • Evil. How far will my parents go? Ie, would they kill me, even though I’m their kid?
  • Identity. If our parents are evil, what does that make me-or you?
  I was really happy when each of these issues came up, but overall, I don’t think any of them was dealt with nearly enough! Maybe they’ll be dealt with more in future issues, but I feel like the “evil” and “identity” concepts combine into an essential issue of trust/morality that I think should’ve been dealt with right away. That is, their parents are evil but also extremely powerful, what is to say that one or more of these kids wouldn’t decide to join them? Instead, they instantly all agree the murder they witnessed was wrong and furthermore that something should be done about it.
  
  One of the last pages featured a note from one of the kids saying they were still loyal to their parents, but it was very much framed as “because I love you,” and not a little bit more morally interesting (to me) “maybe you have great reasons to be evil.” But if there is a mole among the runaways, I do assume that will be addressed. I think there was a mention or two in Rowell’s run that suggests to me that Alex Wilder is the mole, which seems so wrong, since I feel like he is the main instigator/leader who wants to see this evil addressed. But maybe we’ll get back story.


• Setting. This was written in 2003 and seems to be set contemporaneously, which is neat because they’re teenagers who make pop culture references, and even though my pop culture was super shaky in 2003 I went into a pop culture vacuum for like, maybe all of 2005-2014, so really miss a lot of references then. I mean, I miss a lot of references now, but I actually feel like tumblr made me savvier, which is kinda sad.
  
  How many Marvel comics are set in LA? It’s nice to have one elsewhere instead of everyone jam-packed into NYC. I liked the Hostel and Chase’s eagerness to go there.


• Alex. I think he might’ve been my favorite! I love that he’s a gamer; there’s a suggestion he plays D&D. His relationship with his parents was the one I felt the most about, possibly because there was just a little bit more of it than the others. His dad saying, “I worked to build all this for you so now you gotta be what I want you to be” is something I identify with very deeply. I also felt like Alex was so earnest! Which would make me sad if he betrays them. I also just found his character design really compelling.
  
  I didn’t really care about his relationship with Nico and wished it hadn’t jumped to kissing so fast, but I really DID like that he called her a nerd and loaned her The Prisoner, and she brought it back and told him her thoughts on it. Sharing media is always a beautiful start to a relationship, imo.


• Gert. I think she might’ve been my second favorite. I liked her in what I’ve read of Rowell’s run but I didn’t really get her; I feel like this provided the necessary context/explanation of her archetype. She’s like, the cynical outcast obsessed with old films nerd who’s judgy about pop culture and politics; I identify with that type. The character design isn’t as cute as Kris Anka’s in the current run.
  
  On the one hand, it makes sense that there’s someone who never did trust her parents, because some teens don’t. OTOH, her reason for not trusting them didn’t really do it for me. I guess part of my problem is that lots of kids have legit reasons to hate their parents, but the kids I happened to know in middle school and high school who hated their parents seemed to use it as a sort of social cachet, and something I had trouble believing that they actually felt. I witnessed not only how their parents treated them but also how they treated their parents, and I had trouble believing there was true hate there and not teenage rebellion that seemed cool.
  
  Then again, the main girl I am remembering who felt this way I deemed probably wasn’t serious partly because her parents never hit her. Since my parents hit me all the time (spanking and slapping, not like . . . fists and belts and baseball bats) and I still loved them, I sorta thought she had to be faking it. Since that was the stick by which I judged these things I was obviously missing some pieces, so who knows.


• Chase. Man, what a douche!!! This was particularly interesting in light of the Rowell comic, though, in which he is still a hot jock piece of beef but dresses semi-hipster in an outdoorsy Seattle kind of way. He has a man bun. And sometimes Rey hair. He is SUPER hot, y’all. And is also the most earnest, sweet-hearted, Tries His Best kinda guy I have ever read.
  
  But that makes me kinda like his dudebro heritage? The suggestion is that either in this run, OR in the time between this run and Rowell’s, he learns and changes and grows into himself. And yup, I totally know the world has enough entitled hot white guys who later learn their lesson and/or become sympathetic, but. I am a sucker for someone who grows and changes. It means a lot to me, so I kinda love him.
  
  Also, his dad beating him also provides some sympathy, though I have also seen enough of that story in the context of entitled hot white bullies that I don’t need to see more of it. That said, of them all, he kinda seems the most reluctant to turn against his parents? And at the same time, the most eager to show all the runaways his secret hideaway where he goes to be alone? Like, he secretly wants them to be a team. He really just wants a family to love him!!! Idk, there are some super interesting issues there that I hope get explored.
  
  
• Nico. I really didn’t think there was as much of her character here as there were with the others. They’re definitely portraying her as goth, except Gert got all the cynical hate-the-worldness, so Nico mostly . . . paints her nails black? But I did really like the origin of how she got her staff, and I am very interested to have a bit more explanation of why she absorbed it and how it works.
  
  There was one pretty nice Nico/Karolina moment, if I am remembering correctly, where Karolina agreed with Nico. No idea if there are ever gonna be Nico/Karolina hints in Vaughan’s run, but I love it in Rowell’s so it was nice.


• Karolina. She’s set up to be very California Girl with her Hollywood parents, veganism, and assurances that her parents are Not Involved. I think her character evolution makes sense, because your whole world view is destroyed when you learn you’re secretly an alien (presumably, I mean, I don’t know this from personal experience). I want to see her dealing with that some more. I love how excited she was when she found out she could fly, and I love her rainbow light character design. I also loved how she punched her mother! I did not love how the art kept showing the bracelet that makes her not glow breaking, but then she was wearing it again.


• Molly. I do find mutant power associated with puberty very interesting, but I didn’t quite like how it was handled here. Every time someone ALMOST said the word “period” or “menstruation” they trailed off or got cut off, which seemed a too-cute way to handle it. Honestly, the main thing I wonder about re: Molly is whether she DID get her period. There’s this subplot in the Rowell run where a 13yo friend of Molly’s, who is 13 forever, goes on about how it’s great being 13 forever because you don’t have to deal with a period. And I kept thinking, “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice not to get your period AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD.” So it was nice to see an 11yo dealing with it, even if she didn’t get it.
  
  In other news, Rowell was right that Molly's parents’ fishnet masks are really weird.
  

So overall, I really liked it. I’m not as sold on the characters as I am in the Rowell run, but the premise is interesting, and there is the promise of more issues I’m interested in being addressed, so I am very eager to read more!

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