When I first heard the news about the Tsunami trades being cancelled, the biggest disappointment was that we might be seeing the end of Runaways. Fortunately, things change, and while not all of the Tsunami line got a trade collection, The Runaways now gets a full-color, manga-size trade aimed at bringing this smart, fun and always unpredictable teen superhero story to the masses. I was impressed with this book when reading it in single issues, and I'm blown away once again to go back and reread and realize how good the book has always been. Vaughan brings the strong characterization and neat ideas that he has brought to his other well-regarded work like Y The Last Man, and the art team serves up some interesting and effective artwork to bring the story to life. Runaways works in serial format because of the shocker cliffhangers and unpredictable twists, but the solid pacing and characterization mean that it's just as good in trade paperback format as well.
While Runaways has something of a dark tone, Vaughan and company color the book with plenty of humor as well. The opening sequence is both an imaginative touch to the Marvel Universe, extrapolating from the popularity of games like Everquest in the real world, and a goofy little bit of fun and shaking reader perceptions. This humor comes through in Vaughan's dialogue as well, which is Whedon-esque in the best sense of the term, meaning that it's full of clever pop-culture references and smart, sarcastic wit. The revelation about the password and how even super-villains can lack the technical savvy of the younger generation made me laugh out loud, and I love how Alex Wilder's talent, rather than super-powers, turns out to be a tactical savvy honed by playing the role-playing games we saw in the first issue.
The vignettes introducing each character are leavened with plenty of humor as well, and I was especially fond of Hollywood family the Deans. Each of these vignettes provides humor, but it also provides something more important and that's characterization. Vaughan packs an impressive amount of information into five pages covering five characters; we learn their basic temperament, their socioeconomic status, their age, how they relate to their parents and a lot of other important things that help Vaughan hit the ground running with six well-established characters in a first issue. As much as I enjoyed the vignettes, however, the story is even better when the whole group gets together, as Vaughan has created a dynamic that is sort of like a family but which incorporates a degree of unfamiliarity as well, giving way to strong relationships but plenty of room for discovery too.
Having established a sextet of interesting teens and pre-teens in the first issue, Vaughan spends the next couple showing them gathering their abilities and weapons and learning more about their parents. Vaughan has gone for a potpourri of supervillain origins here, and the result is a really interesting organization in The Pride and a nice mix of powers and potential problems for the Runaways themselves. It's easy to relate to these kids and their confusion and attempts to just keep moving, as the circumstances they've fallen into are quite shocking and life-changing. The kids aren't sure what to do, the readers aren't sure what they're going to do, but it's pretty much impossible not to be desperate to find out.
I wasn't familiar with the art of Alphona and Newbold, but their work here is reminiscent of some of the work that Udon Studios did, notably on Agent X. Some of the expressions of their characters when they're angry go a little too over-the-top for me (the wide mouths just kill me), but overall I thought they did a great job of handling what is basically a story of a bunch of normal kids in a wealthy but normal environment. The variety of fashion that the characters wear is an especially nice touch, and Brian Reber's colors keep things bright and lively as well. Their work is all the more impressive when the superpowers start to come out, and though Reber deserves a lot of credit for the laser-light show of Karolina, I was pretty happy with all the work done on the action sequences between the characters and their parents, not to mention the well-designed homes in Los Angeles and secret labs therein that serve as the backdrop for the action. Mind you, the shrunk-down size and cheap paper does hurt the artwork, reducing it in quality from the slicker, full-sized color we get in the regular issues, but given the price point, it's not an unfair compromise to ask for.
There are a lot of stories about teenagers with super-powers these days, including big names like Teen Titans and New Mutants, but Runaways is probably the most interesting, and certainly it has an approach that is unusual and mesmerizing. Having read the issues that come after this trade, I know that all the potential established in this trade paperback does not go to waste, and in fact the book is still serving up plenty of surprises, beautiful artwork and some of the most fun teen superhero adventure in comics. All while retaining a pretty strong theme of teenage rebellion and adult arrogance as a throughline.
