Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I
talk about comic books and my name is Drake.
The Runaways is a very interesting series
in that a lot of people who don’t read comic
books actually have picked this one up and
read it, but for those of you who aren’t
familiar with the team or have only read the
first volume, I’m going to try to take their
ENTIRE history and condense it down into something
a little bit more manageable.
It’s going to be an undertaking, but let’s
dive in!
The Runaways are a group of teenage superheroes
made up of, you guessed it, kids who ran away
from home, but... they do actually have a
good reason for it because THEIR PARENTS ARE
SUPERVILLIANS!
These parents make up “The Pride” which
is a criminal organization that rules the
underground of Los Angeles.
When the kids discover their parents’ sinister
alter egos, they run away from home, find
out what makes each of them special in their
own right, and give themselves ridiculous
code names.
Let’s run down the list.
First up is Nico Minoru A.K.A.
“Sister Grimm”.
She’s the daughter of dark wizards.
She has “The Staff of One”, a magic relic
that comes out of her chest when she bleeds
that allows her to cast powerful spells, but
only one time each.
Karolina Dean A.K.A.
“Lucy in the Sky” is the daughter of an
alien couple from a race known as the (I guarantee
I’m going to mispronounce this) Majesdanians.
I guess it’s like majestic?
Majesdanians?
I don’t know…
Her true alien form can be hidden by wearing
a special medical alert bracelet, but when
it’s removed, she essentially becomes living
energy.
Karolina is able to fly and manipulate solar
energy including, but not limited to energy
blasts and force fields.
Next up is Chase Stein A.K.A.
“Talkback”.
He’s the idiot son of two mad scientists
whom he stole a pair of X-Ray specs from along
with the Fistigons, powerful gauntlets that
can manipulate fire.
He’s also the team pilot, transporting them
around in a massive all terrain vessel called
the Leapfrog.
That brings us to the youngest of the group,
Molly Hayes A.K.A.
“Bruiser” or “Princess Powerful”.
She’s the daughter of two evil mutants and
although she’s small, Molly has insane super
strength, but does have to sleep immediately
after exerting herself.
There’s also Gertrude Yorks, the daughter
of time travelers.
Gert’s parents got her a dinosaur from the
87th century that she shares a psychic connection
with.
Gert decided to name herself “Arsenic”
and the dinosaur “Old Lace” after an old
play.
Finally, that leaves Alex WIlder, the son
of non powered criminal masterminds.
Alex was the only member of the team to not
get anything special and instead, he acted
as their tactician and team leader.
And yes, while Alex was the only member of
the team to not get a code name, it doesn’t
really matter since the entire team basically
got rid of them all together.
Most of the first volume deals with the team
discovering their abilities and figuring out
how to take down their parents, but they still
have time to fight evil vampires, escape from
superheroes trying to bring them in, and of
course, good old teenage romance.
The OTPs are Alex and Nico followed by Chase
and Gert who got together after a LOT of sexual
tension.
The Runaways series is a great coming of age
story, but ultimately coalesces at the climax
where it’s revealed that their parents are
actually working for... giant evil god…
things?
Aaaaaand despite leading the team, it turns
out that Alex was working with their parents
the entire time and betrayed the entire team.
The remaining Runaways were able to disrupt
the ritual that their parents were performing
for the evil gods who needless to say were
not fans of that.
Alex was killed off by the gods and in a fit
of parental love, the Pride gave their lives
so that their children could escape.
Immediately upon escaping though, the Runaways
were found by Captain America who went public
with their story and put them into foster
homes which… they instantly ran away from.
It’s almost as if The Runaways are good
at being runaways.
Who'd've thought?
Anyway, the team decided to strike it out
on their own outside of the law in one of
their parents’ old bases.
Things went pretty well until a future version
of Gertrude comes back in time to warn the
team of a powerful villain named Victor Mancha
and then she immediately dies.
To prevent this, The Runaways kidnap Victor
before he can become a bad dude, but it turns
out that Victor is a pretty stand up guy despite
the fact that he can’t really control his
electrical powers.
Oh yeah, they’re also being tracked by a
super team called Excelsior, but honestly,
they’re not very important.
It turns out that Victor is the “son”
of the killer robot, Ultron, and was designed
to be a sleeper agent against his will.
Victor was meant to believe that he was a
normal kid that developed powers on his own
and he was obsessed with joining the Avengers.
When he finally does (because well literally
everybody becomes an Avenger at some point),
his true programming would kick in and Victor
would take them out from the inside.
When all of this is revealed, Victor’s mother
would not let Ultron take her son away so
naturally, the evil robot killed her.
This prompts Victor and the Runaways to take
out Ultron because let’s face it, pretty
much every creation of Ultron does turn against
him.
With nowhere to go, Vic became an official
member of the team.
Pretty soon after, Karolina comes out as a
lesbian to Nico who... rejects her (because
well… she’s straight) but get this.
AS SOON AS SHE WAS TURNED DOWN, a Super-Skrull
in training named Xavin shows up claiming
that Karolina’s parents arranged a marriage
between them.
Yeah, the plots move very fast in this series.
Well, Karolina tells Xavin that she likes
girls and bing, bang, boom, Xavin shape shifts
into a woman, Karolina instantly falls in
love, and the two go into space to get married
after only talking for like five minutes tops.
Don’t worry thought because after a small
tussle with the Avengers, Karolina and Xavin
do come back from space just in time to help
fight a new version of the Pride.
Okay so get this.
The New Pride is made up of Alex Wilder’s
old friends from an MMO that they all played.
They decided to try and perform a ritual that
would bring Alex through time a split second
before he was killed which would then save
his life.
That backfired and they actually summoned
a younger version of Alex’s dad who took
over as the New Pride’s leader.
Under Mr. Wilder’s leadership, the New Pride
became a serious threat despite their lack
of powers and managed to not only destroy
The Runaways’ hideout, but they also managed
to kill Gert who passed on her psychic connection
with Old Lace onto her boyfriend, Chase.
The Runaways were able to take out the New
Pride, but this victory was kind of hollow
since without a home, the team had to make
do camping out or sleeping on the Leepfrog
and the loss of his girlfriend made Chase
go kind of insane.
In fact, after a brief team-up with the Young
Avengers during the superhuman Civil War,
Chase almost sacrificed himself to the giant
gods that his parents worked for in order
to bring Gertrude back.
That didn’t work out and the Runaways ended
up working for The Kingpin which led to them
traveling back in time where they rescued
Klara Prast, a mutant with the ability to
control plants...
Because comics.
With Klara joining the Runaways roster back
in the present, the team teamed up with the
Young Avengers once again in order to help
out fight off the Skrull’s Secret Invasion.
However, after things calmed down after the
Secret Invasion, The Runaways moved into the
last remaining Pride headquarters, but were
attacked by a the few remaining Majesdanians.
Majesdanians.
Macadamia Nuts.
Aliens.
They blamed Karolina’s parents for the death
of their home planet and since they were dead
well…
Karolina was chosen to be put on trial in
their place.
However, Xavin took Karolina’s place by
shapeshifting into her and hasn’t really
been seen since.
Anyway, after a brief and honestly underwhelming
storyline about radio zombies, The Runaways
ended pretty abruptly with an unmanned drone
destroying their home and with Chase being
hit by a car, but he made a healthy off panel
recovery.
If we’re going to be honest, after The Runaways
Vol 2, the entire series kind of went downhill
and for a while, The Runaways only made brief
appearances and cameos in books like Daken
and Avengers Academy, but nothing too serious.
If we’re going to be honest, The Runaways
have basically disbanded during this era of
cameos, especially after Chase and Nico were
brought into what was essentially Marvel’s
Hunger Games after which, things were never
really quite the same.
The Runaways have all gone their separate
ways, but the recently released and ongoing
revival of the series is aiming to bring the
gang all back together and repair their relationships
and as of the time of this recording, the
book is actually really good and totally worth
a read!
Now I know that all of this has been very
broad strokes for the team because I’m going
to actually make a dedicated video for each
of the major members and dive a little more
into their histories and their personal story
arcs.
So if you like what you saw here then you
might want to subscribe and take a look for
when those come out or if you’re watching
this in the future then they’re probably
already out so you should watch them.
But if you liked this video then you probably
like younger heroes.
So why not watch my video that I did on the
complete history of Batman Beyond?
I go from the animated series to the spin
off comics and WAY beyond for an awesome in-depth
video.
Hopefully I’ll see you there and hopefully
I’ll see you next time!
