Runaways, Vol. 3 - Dark Publications

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Product Description
This deluxe hardcover collects Runaways Volume 6: Parental Guidance and Runaways Volume 7: Live Fast, plus extras. In Parental Guidance, the secret super-villain society is back, but this all-new group isn't made up of the Runaways' evil parents. Who are these shadowy players, and what do they want with the Marvel Universe's next generation of heroes? Plus: When the youngest member of the Runaways is separated from her teammates, Molly Hayes must survive a night alone on the mean streets of Los Angeles! The 11-year-old mutant girl soon hooks up with a new group of runaways, but is their mysterious leader a hero or a villain? And in Live Fast, the Runaways say good-bye to the past, and make hard decisions about their future. Plus: Still reeling from the events of Young Avengers/Runaways, the teenage heroes must now confront a horrific enemy who threatens to tear the team apart. Collects Runaways #13-24.

Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Another excellent collection of my current favorites in the Marvel universe May 26, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

I love the Runaways. Probably this is because in a superhero universe where all the other inhabitants seem to be variations on a theme, these guys truly seem to march to a completely different drummer. Other Marvel heroes can be considered outsiders, like Wolverine and Spiderman, but even they have forged strong connections with other heroes. But our Runaways not only want little or nothing to do with other heroes, they don't want anything to do with any adult either, caped or not. This is the third collection in the Runaways saga and brings to an end the stories by series creator Brian K. Vaughan. Luckily the series has continued is uniquely capable hands. One of the clear influences on the Runaways is the television series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and BUFFY creator Joss Whedon has taken over the kids from Vaughan. Based on the first two issues by Whedon to have appeared so far, there is going to be no decline in quality. In fact, some fresh blood is likely to keep this the most original line in the Marvel world of comics.

The charter members of the Runaways were a group of kids whose parents turned out to form The Pride, a thoroughly evil criminal organization that dominated Los Angeles. After most of them accidentally see their parents commit a ritual human sacrifice that is the cornerstone to their power, they run away from home and eventually fight and defeat them, resulting in the death of their parents. One of the original kids turns out to be a traitor. The remaining members are led (somewhat ineptly) by the Asian goth teen Nico, who is a powerful sorceress who possess the Staff of One, with which she can cast any spell, but only once. She also has a tendency to develop sexualized relationships with others in the group, a real life character flaw that is a bit more real-to-life than that with which other Marvel heroes struggle. The oldest in the group is Chase, the child of two evil genius inventors. Chase, however, though goodhearted, is not the brightest bulb in the bunch. Karolina, who can channel the power of sunlight into a variety of powers, is actually an alien and a lesbian, whose betrothed, Xavin, is a Super Skrull warrior (who didn't complete his training and therefore can wield only one of his many powers at a time) and shape shifter, so that he/she appears alternately in alien, female, and male form. Xavin appears different in almost every frame. Gert is the child of time travelers and has no powers of her own, but she is psychically linked to a velociraptor named Old Lace that her parents got for her before they knew that she was going to reject them. Victor Mancha is a cyborg who is the son of Ultron. Gert traveled from the future to let the Runaways know that in the future Victor turns evil and kills most of the world's superheroes. Victor, humbled by this, is striving not be become the kind of person who would fulfil that kind of destiny. Finally, and physically least, is Molly Hayes, who I will confess is my favorite character. She is now twelve, is still very much a little kid (she is actually young for her age in terms of behavior), and is the child of mutants. The Runaways exist in the post-House of M Marvel Universe, which means that Molly is one of less than 200 mutants left in the world. Her powers are that she is incredibly strong, even by mutant standards (she and Victor replicate the famous scene in which Colossus throws Wolverine through the sky like a football; only, Molly's passes are a bit wobbly and Victor doesn't fly so much as tumble through the air), has remarkable endurance, and is virtually indestructible. But after using her powers for a bit, she usually has to take a nap (actually, it is a long, deep sleep). Her strength and tendency to fall asleep combine for one of the funniest moments in the book. A monster even larger than Godzilla tries to stomp on 4'11, 100 lb. Molly, his foot large enough to crush two school buses parked beside one another. She catches the foot, holds it for a bit, and starts growing sleepy. Nico casts the spell "Caffeine Injection" and Molly not only wakes up, but flips the monster backwards, causing it to fall (in the Marvel "Power Grid" Molly is listed as having Strength of 4, the same as Victor Mancha, but this seems wrong, since some of her feats of strength seem more in the Incredible Hulk, Colossus or Thing--Molly does use the phrase "It's clobberin' time" on a couple of occasions--range, which would mean ability to lift over 100 tons, which was certainly the weight range of the large monster in this volume, though maybe this was a burst that she won't consistently be capable of until she matures). Molly, who always wears some kind of hat with an animal theme, is also the only one of the group who would like for them to wear uniforms.

The volume collects two story arcs. The first is concerns a group of Alex Wilder's former gaming buddies who are duped into thinking the Pride were heroes. By following instructions Alex left behind they inadvertently summon Geoffrey Wilder, Alex's father, from the eighties. During the course of these adventures, Wilder kills Gert, who while dying transfers the psychic connection with Old Lace from her to Chase. The second arc, however, deals with the enormous grief that Chase feels following Gert's death and his attempt to get the Gibborim to bring her back.

I love the Marvel world, but as I mentioned above, sometimes it all feels like variations on a theme. The Runaways are just a wonderful breath of fresh air. They are loosely integrated in the rest of the post-House of M/Civil War universe, but not deeply so. In fact, in this volume the other Marvel characters barely make an appearance, though Cloak and Dagger along with Captain America appeared in the first volume and a number of the New Avengers and other East Coast heroes in the second one. This is sure to change in the current Whedon stories, since they are set in New York City (where they have relocated in an effort to escape super hero registration and foster care). Still, it is impossible to imagine that these guys will ever be easily integrated into one of the usual teams or organizations. It will also be interesting to see how they change as they age. Chase turned 18 in this volume. Many of the Marvel heroes seem to be perpetually ageless, but these guys seem to be aging. I'll be delighted to see what happens to them.

4 out of 5 stars

Awesome book, though Amazon shows wrong covers May 31, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Picked up both Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 hardbacks from Amazon.

I love this book. It's truly one of the best titles being published by Marvel these days, and is probably the most unique among them.

My only complaint, and this applies to both books, is that the cover artwork for both books is different than what is shown on Amazon, which is a shame. The two covers shown (Vol. 2 has an outline of Molly, and Vol. 3 has a group shot saying "one of these runaways is going to die") are fantastic cover designs, but they aren't the covers of the actual books. In fact, the Molly pic really belongs to Vol. 3 instead of 2, as the story it's associated with is actually in Vol. 3.

Oh well.

4 out of 5 stars

The Remarkable Runaways May 31, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I have the other three volumes that Vaughan wrote and was a bit let down by this volume. It still has the wit and craft of the others, but the story feels a bit perfunctory. Regardless, this is one of the best series written and Vaughan with his collaborators more than made me a fan with the first two volumes. I love Nico and Gertrude most of all because of their passion and personality. It's about time someone wrote a book with strong female leads. I recommend this to anyone and if you want to get a sibling into comics I'd say that this series is a great place to start. By the way, it's unfortunate that the cover pictured above is not the actual cover for the book because I think it's one of the best I've seen on a book. The one that actually appears on the book is much less effective. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and read this series.

5 out of 5 stars

The Runaway have to deal with the death of one of their members June 9, 2007
Knowing that the announcement that Joss Whedon was going to take over scripting duties on "Runaways," Marvel Comics put out a one-shot comic book entitled "Runaways Saga" that would help late comers such as myself get up to speed. The comic book recaped the entire 42-issue series and include four new original pages that I would learn were necessitated by the fact that at the end of "Runaways" #24, Iron Man shows up with a S.H.I.E.L.D. team at the gang's Los Angeles hideout, but at the start of Whedon's first issue a new story has started without any explanation for what happened with Iron Man. But the recap did not really make an impression on me and since "Runaways" was the 2006 Harvey Award Winner for Best Continuing Series in addition to being Whedon's third title for Marvel, I thought I would just go back and read all 42 of those previous issues, which have conveniently been collected into three hardback volumes, of which this would be the third.

This volume collects issues #13-24 of the second "Runaways" title (which is why the 42nd issue is numbered #24), all of which are written by Brian K. Vaughan and most of which are penciled by Adrian Alphona (Mike Norton pencils issues #19-21), with Craig Yeung doing the inking. First up there is a solo-story for Molly Hayes, "Dead Ringers," that should remind you of "Oliver" (or even "Oliver Twist") when Molly ends up with a crazy old guy who teaches children the fine art of thievery. The rest of the volume consists of a trio of story-arcs. "Parental Guidance" is a four-part story that begins when Alex's online friends, who think the Pride was a group of heroes rather than super villains, work a spell to try and bring Alex back to life. Instead, they summon a younger version of Geoffrey Wilder, Alex's father, who promptly tries to sacrifice first Nico and then Chase to the Gibborim to bring Alex and his wife back to life. The good news is that the Runaways stop Geoffrey, but the bad news is that one of the Runaways is killed (no, I will not give it away).

Obviously, this is going to be a major development for the series and not something that will be quickly forgotten, like when they decided Thunderbird was too much like Wolverine and killed the character off a few issues after the X-Men went international. The three-part "Dead Mean's Dead" is somewhat ironic, because it is hard to count on one hand the number of Marvel superheroes who have managed to die and stay dead. But one of the Runaways refuses to accept the death of their teammate and decides to do something about it, a story-arc that has both short-term and long-range implications for the group. "Live-Fast" is another three-part tale that starts when a giant pink monster attacks L.A, but it is more the second half of the previous story because the Gibborim want to make good on their offer to bring the dead Runaway back to life. Lots of times when major characters die in comic books somebody tries to do something about it, but it does play out a bit differently this time around since we are talking about a bunch of (mostly) teenagers.

Of course, that is what makes "Runaway" different from the rest of Marvel's comic books, that they are kids acting like kids only these are kids whose parents were dark wizards (Nico), alien invaders (Karolina), mutants (Molly), mad scientists (Chase), time travelers (Gert), Skrulls (Xavin), and a robot (Victor). Yes, they are fast approaching the number of times that Molly can surprise somebody by punching them through a wall or throwing a car at them, but you can hardly blame anybody for milking a good joke. Hormones are starting to play more of a role in the relationships between the characters, but the main attraction is still the idea that the kids have to make amends for not only what their parents did as the Pryde but they have to protect Los Angeles now that they have created a power vacuum by getting rid of their 'rents. Hopefully the S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative to put a team of superheroes in every state will not detract too much from the whole idea of L.A. having been essentially a superhero free zone for such a long time. It will be interesting to see how Whedon does, because I have found each of the successful hardback collections in this series to have been better than the previous ones and keeping the upward momentum going might be hard even for Joss.

5 out of 5 stars

Find the breaks at Wikipedia. July 15, 2007
Superb characterizations extend the simple (yet extremely interesting) original idea that control and authority are two very different things.
These three hardcover volumes rework, refine and re-explore that idea brilliantly. The seven paperback volumes contain the same material.
Wikipedia may help you avoid buying parts of this amazing saga more than once.

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