At this point, my enthusiasm for Runaways has dampened a bit, what with the Superman/Batman level delays in getting us the last couple issues, the fact that Vaughan is doing excellent work on higher-profile books and the uncertainty about what the promised relaunch in January will bring. All it took to reinvigorate my interest, however, was reading this trade paperback, which might not be quite as tightly put together as the first trade but certainly has plenty of high points. As we settled a little more into the series, Vaughan and his artists took the time to explore the characters a bit more, start up some relationships between them and throw in a couple big monkeywrenches in the form of guest-starring characters, whether it's "new kid" Topher or "B-list" superheroes Cloak & Dagger. These issues were worth it at $2.99 apiece... at $7.99 for a digest, it's an absolute steal.
The beginning of the second storyline meant that Vaughan had to keep things unpredictable without spinning his wheels on status quo, and that definitely describes this trade. The first arc of Runaways was as good a setup as you'll find in superhero comics, but it left the question of what happened next. As it turned out, what happened was less about the team going out and fighting their new supervillain nemesis (a fairly typical second superhero arc) and more about these kids starting to learn more about who they are and what they're up against.
Runaways began as a book that revolved around mystery, but what the hook for me was the characterization, and that continues to stand out as a strength in the second trade. The introduction to Topher to this group was a great way to shake them up a little bit, even as their group dynamics were beginning to become a bit more stable. So things like the romances within the team which had started to look like foregone conclusions started looking less likely, and seeing the brother-sister type relationships form up also changed as folks allied against or with this new arrival. In addition, Vaughan gives each character a very distinctive personality, and all of them are just damned entertaining characters. None of them are more entertaining than Molly, the mutant 11-year-old whose superstrength powers are counterbalanced by an almost superior power of cuteness, most notable when she handles the raging dinosaur Old Lace or when she makes her first appearance in costume. I love all the characters in Runaways, but this trade is the one that sealed Molly as my favorite.
There is a touch of coincidence in the plotting of this trade, particularly in the second story, but it's best to give Vaughan a pass on that and go with the rest of the storytelling, which flows nicely from realistic character dynamics. Or as realistic as you can be when the good guys are the superpowered children of a multi-powered and multi-origin worldwide conspiracy. At any rate, while Topher's introduction to the group turns out to be a little too convenient, the results he has on the group are worth forgiving the coincidence, and the shocker of who he is turns out to be a pretty good one, not as good as the shocker of the first Runaways issue but another good curveball from Vaughan.
However, it is the second (and shorter) story in this trade that is the real gem, ironic given that on first reading, I felt the reverse was true. But bringing small-time Marvel heroes Cloak and Dagger into Runaways is a clever bit of guest casting, given that these two heroes were runaways themselves. I was willing to give Vaughan and Miyazawa full points just for making the potentially interesting but rarely actually interesting Cloak & Dagger cool again, but I'm all the more impressed that they managed to use these guest stars as a pretty good spark for development in the characters, including a scene to remind us how nasty the Runaways' parents can be. These characters are also just the right power level to challenge the team, and just the right level of teen naivete to fall for the Pride's line of bull. While it's a little too cute and on the nose that Alex makes fun of the cliche of superhero fight-then-team-up, the way that Vaughan manipulates the characters into this particular cliche is actually pretty clever and entertaining.
The art on these two stories is broken up between two different teams. I love Alphona and Yeung's art on the book, especially their design elements, which play within the realm of regular fashion as modified by power displays or the needs of young teen superheroes. They also do some nice little action sequences, and I was particularly happy with the way they blend the tone of a horror flick with the feel of a superhero book in the final issue of Topher's arc. Takeshi Miyazawa, best known for his work on Oni's Sidekicks, is the artist on the second story arc, and honestly, much as I love Alphona and Yeung, I think Miyazawa's art might just be my favorite to have graced the pages of Runaways. His Cloak & Dagger had the perfect iconic cool of those characters while still maintaining a sort of teenaged innocence at the right moments (such as Dagger's hurt realization that the kids don't even know her name, or her defensive reaction to criticism about her costume), and his youthful characters and manga-influenced cute style turned out to be a pretty good match for the book and an ideal match for characters like Dagger and the young Molly. In addition, the colorists, Christina Strain and Brian Reber, give the book a shaded cel animation feel that perfectly matches these artists. These colors and the art reproduce surprisingly well at the smaller size (and on the cheaper paper) of the digest format, making these some of the best-looking full-color digests produced by the big two.
Runaways is an example of the kind of Marvel comic we could all use more of, having fun with superhero cliches without being embarrassed by them, featuring wholly new characters and concepts without losing touch with the coolness of a cohesive shared universe and always featuring a solid blend of action and that talky stuff that the kids like nowadays. With any luck, the relaunch will actually go off in January, and fans who heard the buzz the first time around will jump on and give the book the sales it deserved in the first place.
