Review: Runaways: Battleworld

Each issue of each series tying into Marvel's massive, months-long Secret Wars event contained a pretty simple and straightforward one-page, four-sentence explanation of the premise behind it all. To make that short story long, essentially the entire Multiverse was gradually collapsing, and the superheroes who knew of the oncoming cosmic catacylsm were powerless to stop it. Dr. Doom seized the opportunity to do something (I haven't read the main Secret Wars series yet, sorry) that collapsed the remaining universes into a single, hodge-podge "patchwork" planet consisting of various "domains" that are, for all intents and purposes, their own little continuities. Relatively few people living in the various domains seem to realize they are part of a bigger, stranger world, and fewer still are able to move between those domains.

This was such a big deal that Marvel suspended the publication of pretty much their entire superhero line for months while Secret Wars played out, temporarily canceling all of their books (and therefore allowing for new #1s and relaunches afterwards) and replacing them on the schedule with a bunch of temporary miniseries and one-shots, the fact that the status quo would be both temporary and anything-goes giving the creators involved a welcome set of two-word directions: "Go nuts."

For a significant portion of 2015, then, the Marvel comics line reflected the nature of the Marvel Universe in-story, with sometimes seemingly randomly rebooted and remixed characters and concepts filling up just about everything outside of the main Secret Wars book. Marvel rather shrewdly launched many series bearing the titles of their most popular events and franchise-specific crossovers (Civil War, Planet Hulk, Age of Ultron Vs. Marvel Zombies, pretty much every X-Men crossover story since "Days of Future Past," etc); a pretty great bit of marketing, really.

It also allowed for the kinda-sorta revival of more off-beat and fan-favorite books missing from the publishing schedule for a long-time, like Runaways, the 2003-laumched, Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona-created series that did a few remarkable things for the Marvel Universe and line back then, including introducing a group of young and diverse characters long before that seemed to be a major priority for the publisher, and introducing a concept or characters that were actually new and were able to gain at least a little traction, something direct market readers don't really seem to want, and that the Big Two are set-up to discourage (If you're an inspired comics creator, why create a potentially profitable new character or team to gift to Marvel or DC, when you could retain the rights yourself by publishing your great new superhero concept elsewhere?).

The title had plenty of ups and downs over the past decade and change, and had cycled through several creative teams of varying levels of popularity and ability before being MIA for a few years (a few of the characters being dispersed to cameo here, or appear in a short-lived series there). Secret War now gave Marvel a good excuse to publish a new version of Runaways, and, perhaps most importantly, to assign it to some particularly gifted creators, at least one of whom seems like one of the last folks you'd expect to find writing a Marvel event series.

That would be Noelle Stevenson, co-creator of Boom's successful Lumberjanes series (and co-writer of its earlier issues) and the creator of Nimona (one of my favorite books of 2015). Honestly, considering her resume, this seems a little like a waste of her time and talents, at least from the perspective of a reader and fan of hers (From her point-of-view, however, it might actually be incredibly lucrative; if she's got a good royalty deal and these various Secret Wars collections do as well in trade as, say, the Civil War collections have, she could be making checks off this thing for a good long time).

Stevenson is, sadly, just writing, rather than writing and drawing (I'd love to see what her version of most of these characters look like), and her artistic contribution seems to have been limited to a single variant cover. She's paired with an incredibly talented artist, though, one of my favorites in the superhero business, Sandford Greene. His is a very loose, very dynamic style featuring slightly cartoony character designs and an incredible amount of energy in his line-work. His work is in the same arena as that of creator Alphona, and he is therefore a perfect match for this group of characters, this particular story and a team-up with Stevenson.

Just as so much else about Secret Wars' "Battleworld" setting is remixed and rejiggered, so too is the line-up and premise of Runaways. The originals were a small group of teens, each the children of supervillain parents who, upon realizing that their parents were actually evil, decided to runaway together. Of those characters, only one appears in the Secret Wars incarnation: Molly Hayes/Bruiser (Karolina Dean/Lucy In The Sky and Nico Minoru/Sister Grimm were both appearing in the pages of A-Force while this was being published, if you're wondering where some other original Runaways might have run off to).

The rest of the cast is pulled from all over the Marvel universe, but what they share in commons is that they are all super-teens and all have some form of a rebellious streak: The X-Men's Jubilee, Hulk/Herc supporting character Amadeus Cho, Cho's fellow Incredible Hercules cast-mate Delphyne Gorgon, Hulk character Skaar, Cloak and Dagger and Sanna Strand/Frostbite, who is apparently from something called X-Men 2099. Also appearing in fairly prominent roles are X-Man Pixie, Marvel's original teenage sidekick Bucky Barnes and Valeria Richards.

Almost all of the characters are reimagined in one way or another, generally in minor ways that don't affect their personalities much, like having the grown-up teens like Bucky, Cloak, Dagger and Skaar being contemporaries of the others, for example. Some of the reimaginings just seem random (like Cloak having Dagger's powers and Dagger having Cloak's powers*), but the most pervasive form of reimagination being asesthetic and, again, mostly minor (Amadeus wearing glasses, Dagger with dreads and a billowing white coat, etc). I particularly liked this version of Bucky, who has the smokey, make-up smeared eyes of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier version of the character.

Though only four issues long, Stevenson plotted the series as if it could rather easily have been a six, eight or 12 issue series; hell, it could have been an ongoing series. It takes about an issue and a half to set everything up, and about an issue to resolve everything. The actual running away part of Runaways is really only about 20-25 pages long, but set-up so that Stevenson and Greene could have inserted as many issues as they wanted to make/Marvel wanted to publish between #3 and #4. Given the simplicity of the premise, the richness of the "Battleworld" setting and the strength of the characters–the cast is almost exclusively fan-favorite characters, with clearly defined personalities–it's really kind of a shame this is such a short series.

It opens in The Victor Von Doom Institute for Gifted Youths, the Secret Wars answer to the sorts of super-schools that have proliferated in the Marvel Universe over the past few years (The Jean Grey Institute, Avengers Academy, The Future Foundation). Our heroes are a Breakfast Club of various types, who, due to an elaborate set of misunderstandings, all end up in detention together. That also means they all end up on the same "team" for some sort of weird final exam at the Institute. Thanks to Cho's gaming of the system, they learn that what appears to be a big Tron game is more of a Battle Royale, and that Valeria and Doom have been tricking the super-kids into killing one another until they winnow the school body down to the cream of the crop.

Our heroes do what the original Runaways did when they learned a terrible secret about their own lives: They run away.

That takes us to the running-away portion, where our heroes visit a few of the other regions/domains of Battleworld, like The Valley of Doom from the pages of 1872 and Weirdworld from Weirdworld. Eventually they realize they have to go back and set things right at the school, which they do. You can see then how easy it would have been to stretch this series, as there are a lot of domains on Battleworld, and these new Runaways could have ran to and through all of 'em, with the Bucky-lead upperclassmen of the Institute hot on their heels.

Instead, the story ends somewhat abruptly, but even still, it seems to promise continuing adventures, as a final form of the team–which lost and gained members due to deaths and changes in sides–all posing in a further adventures group-shot panel that practically promises a sequel. Given the temporary nature of Battleworld, though, it's hard to imagine how they would do that, although looking at that cast, I think Cho is the only one currently appearing in a post-Secret Wars series (The Totally Awesome Hulk), although I wouldn't be surprised if Jubilee pops up in one of the X-books.

To my surprise, this collection ends with Secret Love #1, the all-around excellent anthology one-shot that I originally wondered how and where Marvel would collect. Featuring five short stories, I assumed they would be divvied up between the titles featuring characters they are associated with. For example, the six-page story featuring the Battleworld version of Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes meeting the Battleworld version of Kamala Khan would seem to belong in the Ghost Racers collection, the three-page Squirrel Girl comic would belong in the first post-Secret Wars collection of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and so on.

Secret Love's inclusion here just seems completely random, like they weren't sure where else to stick it. None of the original Runaways characters appear in any of the stories, nor do any of the characters featured in the Secret Wars version of Runaways. (It's worth noting that there's no indication on the cover or the back-cover copy that Secret Love is even in this collection, just a bit of fine print in the corner of the back cover noting that that the book is "Collecting Runaways (2015) #1-4, written by Noelle Stevenson and illustrated by Snadford Greene, plus Secret Wars: Secret Love #1."

And it's not very big fine print, either.

See?

Regardless, both Runaways and Secret Love are fantastic superhero comics, evincing a great sense of humor, likable characters being generally likable and all-around great art. It's a pretty good way to spend $15.99 of your comic book budget.



*Scratch that. Apparently Cloak and Dagger somehow switched powers in the "real" Marvel Universe prior to Secret Wars. See the first comment for the correction.

Young Avengers Catch-Up: Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways (2006) and Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers (2008)

Marvel's big line-wide event/crossover stories generally provide the publisher with the opportunity to pump up their output for a few months, and a positive side effect of that is that it allows for book-less characters to appear. That was the case with the Young Avengers characters during both Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's super-successful Civil War (in which heroes fight heroes over 9/11 metaphors) and Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu's less-successful Secret Invasion (in which heroes fight Skrulls over gross, clumsily executed fear-of-Muslims metaphors). In both instances, the characters met up with Marvel's other team of young, created-this-century heroes, The Runaways.

Their very first meeting came during the so-called Civil War, during which Iron Man wanted every single super-powered person in the United States to register with the government and then be drafted/press-ganged into a huge superhero army to make sure Speedball never accidentally makes an explosion-powered supervillain blow-up near a school again. And he felt so strongly about it that he was willing to murder his former teammates and imprison them without trial in extra-dimensional concentration camps.

Captain America disagreed.

The Young Avengers sided with Captain America (although Stature would eventually come around to Iron Man's position, after the conclusion of this series), while The Runaways were essentially conscientious objectors, seeking to avoid this conflict as they generally seek to avoid all of the Marvel Universe's conflicts. Conflict finds them, of course, as it usually does—otherwise, Runaways wouldn't have been much of a Marvel comic.

So when a TV camera catches The Runaways being attacked by SHIELD agents and their android member Victor Mancha is badly injured, the Young Avengers track them down and try to recruit them to Cap's side. In the might Marvel manner, they fight before realizing there's been a misunderstanding, and they're all on the same side.

Meanwhile, a sinister SHIELD agent sics a brainwashed and reprogrammed Marvel Boy (the Grant Morrison/J.G. Jones version from 2000's Marvel Boy) on both teams, but instead of capturing them all, he's ordered to simply retrieve a handful of aliens for his controller to experiment upon.

Zeb Wells wrote this one, and Stefano Caselli drew it. Typically of Wells, it was very well-written (Or is that Wells-written..? Ha!), and organically funny. There are jokes in here, but they are jokes made by the characters—it's funny because the characters are being funny, not because the writer is manipulating them.

The story doesn't really go anywhere in terms of status quo, at least not in terms of the Civil War. The Young Avengers are still with Cap at the end of the story, and The Runaways remain determined to stay out of it. Wells does manage to come up with some interesting suggestions for relationships between some of the characters—most unexpected being the friendship between Speed and Molly—and to move a few emotional arcs forward. Similarly, Marvel Boy is put right back where Morrison left him at the end of Marvel Boy, but in a rather triumphant manner.

Caselli's art is excellent, and he handles the straight superhero designs of the Young Avengers and the street-clothes of the Runaways with equal aplomb. He does a fine job of juggling some dozen or so characters, and making each distinct. He also does remarkably strong work with his "acting" through the characters.

This was an odd one to re-read after reading Young Avengers #1, as Marvel Boy is apparently being added to the cast of the new, ongoing Young Avengers title, and, in fact, the book opens with Hawkeye Kate Bishop waking up in Marvel Boy's bed after having spending the night with him.

She casually refers to the events of this series—she apparently didn't recognize Marvel Boy until she sobered up the next morning with "Oh, yeah! You kicked all our asses that one time! Billy, Teddy, everyone!"

In fact, he beat the living hell out of both teams, killing one of the Runaways (who was a shape-shifting Skrull, and thus able to recover from a broken neck), capturing Billy, Teddy and Karolina and delivering them to his boss for a few hours of torture and he began strangling Kate until he was interrupted by Nico, and started strangling her instead.

In other words, whatever Kate was drinking the night before Young Avengers #1, it must have been some strong stuff.

In Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers, the two teams once again meet, this time on the Avengers' home turf of New York City (The Runaways were still visiting there after recently returning from the 19th century with a new member in tow).

The actual events of Secret Invasion are so nonsensical that I don't think I can recount them in a way that makes a whole lot of sense. Essentially, a bunch of religious fanatic Skrulls think their gods promised them Earth as their homeland, and want to take it over; they've been taking it over by secretly infiltrating it for years, and then they simultaneously try a PR push to convince the Earthlings to join their religion while also violently invading New York City with spaceships and an army of Super-Skrulls.

The two teen teams are there when the Super-Skrulls attack and, as it turns out, both teams have their own Super-Skrulls on their teams. Teddy/Hulkling of the Young Avengers is a half-Skrull, half-Kree who was prophesied as a savior meant to unite the various warring factions of Skrulls, while Xavin of the Runaways was a Skrull prince and Super-Skrull in training who ran away.

The plot of this series focuses on Xavin's efforts to infiltrate the infiltrators, providing cover for his superhero team to get safely out of New York City, and to try and rescue Hulkling. Both Xavin and Hulkling are targeted for special attention by the invading Skrulls, since the former betrayed them and the latter's existence could maybe sway some Skrulls from their Skrullegion.

Despite the prominent roles played by several characters from both teams—mainly Xavin, Hulkling, Wiccan and Speed—this isn't really much of a Young Avengers comic. Many of the team barely cameo, with Patriot and Hawkeye barely getting a line or three. The Runaways don't fare much better, but they are certainly more of the focus of this story, as their Xavin is the de facto star, and the story starts with their point of view.This one is written by Christopher Yost, and features art by Takeshi Miyazawa. It's Miyazawa's art that is probably the most noteworthy aspect of this collection. It's rare to see teenage superheroes actually look this young, but Miyazawa actually draws them all to resemble children, rather than shorter than usual adults.

That the Secret Invasion mini seems the weaker of the two in terms of its scripting may have something to do with how short it is (it's just three issues), and the fact that the premise of the story its tied to makes it more difficult to expand the focus too far from the Skrull-related characters.

Yost's effort isn't as all around strong as Wells', but there are some fun moments in this—Speed's rescue of Molly and the Runaways' newest recruit is particularly memorable—and Miyazawa's charming art goes a long way towards making this well worth a read.

Young Avengers Catch-Up: "What If The Runaways Became The Young Avengers?"

This story was published in five installments, each of which ran as a back-up in one of 2008's suite of What If...? specials (What If? Secret Wars, What If? Captain America: Fallen Son, etc), as an enticement to buy them all. It can be found in collected form in Runaways: Homeschooling, the volume that contains Kathryn Immonen and Sara Pichelli's high quality, but unfortunately truncated run on Runaways.

The title isn't terribly accurate, and the story has almost nothing at all to do with the Young Avengers. This isn't the story of how the five surviving original Runaways take on the names or identities of the Young Avengers characters, or teenage versions of any Avengers (That is, Nico doesn't become Wiccan or Scarlet Apprentice, Gert doesn't become Patriot or Lieutenant America, etc). Nor do they take the place of the Young Avengers in a Young Avengers story, or meet any of those characters.

For the most part, then, this is just a Runaways story with a catchy title, and a single shared plot-point with the first story arc of Young Avengers. Iron Lad, the disguised teenaged version of Kang The Conqueror, has come back in time to recruit a team of young super-heroes, and, instead of choosing the characters who would become the Young Avengers, he chooses the Runaways. Teen Kang is the only Young Avenger character to appear at all, unless you count a one-page cameo from a future version of The Vision.

Teen Kang trains the Runaways, gives them new, more superheroic spandex costumes (The Runaways just wore street clothes), has them using their superhero codenames (which the characters all came up with early in creator Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona's run on the book, but then almost immediately discarded) and collectively calling themselves The Young Avengers.

When we meet them, they're fighting apparently ubiquitous Marvel bad guys The Wrecking Crew, training to take on Victor Mancha, whom Iron Lad tells them will grow up to be Victorious, a super-villain who decimates The Avengers in the future (As Runaways fans know, Mancha is actually the "son" of Ultron who joins The Runaways). There's a twist, a betrayal and multiple versions of Kang and Mancha show up for the big showdown fight.

As a Young Avengers story, it's really not, not in anything but name, anyway. As a Runaways story, it's interesting enough; writer C.B. Cebulski's plot is fairly generic, and his big moments are merely repeats of those other Runaways writers had previously used, but he gets their voices right, and gives them a few of those Whedon-esque smartasseries that Vaughan was so fond of. As a What If...? story, it's pretty weak, as the variation from the "real" Runaways story is so very slight, and really little more than a matter of cosmetics (their team name and wardrobe, basically).

The artwork is provided by penciler Patrick Spaziante and inker Victor Olazaba. Stylistically, its closer to the work of Young Avengers's Jim Cheung than to any of the artists to have worked on The Runaways...it's certainly quite different than Pichelli's art, as a flip-through the rest of Homeschooling on the way to this story will attest.

It looks an awful lot like Barry Kitson art, with maybe a hit of J. Calafiore in the faces. I wasn't crazy about it, but there's nothing wrong with it either. It just looks rather dark, cluttered and overly-rendered, particularly when compared to the work of Pichelli or Alphona or Humberto Ramos or other Runaways artists

I do like the story's title, and wouldn't mind reading a What If...? story in which the characters from The Runaways joined up with the characters from Young Avengers and formed some sort of super-sized super-teen team, but then, there probably wasn't room for Cebulski to even consider it, give the relatively short page-count (32) that the story's original format demanded.

The only thing I didn't like about this week's Runaways #10...

...is that Wolverine didn't actually let Molly fight the opponents she had the Danger Room generate for her before he turned it off.