Runaways #13

Welcome to another exciting episode of Just How Badly Can They Screw Up RD's Favorite Comic?

With Runaways #13, Kathryn Immonen continues to bury some clever ideas under mounds of muddled dialogue and weak [and in some cases, conflicting - RD] characterization. Low points include:

1. Nico's spells: The witty phraseology of Nico's magic has long been a highlight of this series. Here, she casts three spells, and two of them were utterly wasted. "Crystal Light" made Klara's plants vanish, along with the debris of the house, but how? I didn't have the first clue what it was supposed to mean or accomplish. [All that came to mind was the nasty diet drink that comes in a powder that you add to your water so you can pretend you're being healthy when actually you're drinking cancer juice, but what does that have to do with mutant vines? - RD] "Mood ring" turned a cut on Hunter Stein's cheek into a lie detector (I think?), yet we never actually see Nico use that to test the man (more on that in a second). Kudos on "Abraham Lincoln" to create an instant log-cabin, though. THAT was good.

2. Klara: Remember how she was actually getting some page-time in the last two issues, even if most of that was a dubiously justified freak-out? Well, despite all the trouble she's caused, she gets exactly zero lines of dialogue here, and only one panel of any significance. She's calmed down, without any explanation. Apparently all it took was a sammich and a juice box. Oh kids, such simple creatures, no matter what century they're from.

[THIS was one of my biggest problems. Klara's freakout was such a huge deal in the first issue of this storyline - I thought FOR SURE we would get some major characterization and possibly some post-traumatic counseling for the poor girl. Turns out it was a momentary dramatic lapse in sanity and Karolina has taken care of it (because even with Nico back in take-charge mode, something as deep as an emotional breakdown is Just! Too! Much! for the "leader" to deal with, OMG don't even get me started on the utter shite Immonnen is doing to Nico's characterization and how badly I wanted to PUNCH HER FACE when she... okay, I'll stop). - RD]

3. Hunter Stein: So Chase is sure he accidentally killed his uncle, and insists the Runaways can't trust the man claiming to be Hunter Stein. Fine. So why doesn't anyone bother to follow this up, to ask Hunter point-blank about his "death"? Wouldn't that be the first thing you'd do in this situation? Instead, the Runaways ignore him - endangering themselves in the process - until they can put him to work. The plot is kept moving at the expense of any semblance of character logic, and it knocks me right out of the story. To make matters worse, Hunter devolves into a ridiculous plot bunny to reveal all the wondrous inventions hidden away in the Runaways' own home that the teens have heretofore failed to discover. Hunter goes so far as to accuse the Runaways of being the "least curious group of kids" he's ever seen. Exsqueeze me? We're talking about the kids who discovered their parents were super villains, dug up a whole bunch of said parents' hidden toys and magics, and used those tools to turn themselves into kick-a$$ superheroes. Is this writer seriously trying to tell me that these kids are lacking in imagination, just so her new character can become their spirit guide? Is she really trying to put a Magic Adult in the last comic that should ever need one?

4. Bard Reffrinse, Ur Doin It Wrong: Nico starts comparing Chase to Hamlet while accusing him of "uncle-cide", and Karolina replies, "But Hamlet doesn't actually kill his uncle, does he?" Umm, actually he did. With the stabbity stabbing. It may be said that I'm a little obsessed with my Shakespeare (teeny bit), so lines like this will bother me all out of proportion. If it was meant to suggest that the kids aren't all that classically educated (perhaps in keeping with the arc's title, "Homeschooling"), then that's a little too subtle for me. If the italics are meant to imply that Karolina is in fact referring to Chase rather than the original Hamlet (perhaps so Molly and Klara won't overhear the older girls discussing if their bud just ended a dude?), that too needs explication. Because otherwise I'm just gonna think somebody doesn't know their classic literature* and completely failed to GTS**.

There could be a fascinating plot fighting to get out here, there could even be some interesting takes on the characters, but Runaways is drowning in nonsensical, non-sequatorial characterizations and fuzzy dialogue. I'm just incredibly frustrated with this book right now.

[For the record, we could have gone on for pages about the total suckitude of this issue, but mostly I just want to say SERIOUSLY KATHRYN IMMONEN PLEASE STOP. YOU ARE RUINING EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS. IF YOU DO NOT SHAPE UP, I WILL STRIKE YOUR STORYLINE FROM THE RECORD. - RD]

- JC

* Which is fine. Not everyone's college degree is as awesome, useful, and lucrative as my B.A. in English Literature.
** And that's just sad.

Runaways #11

If Runaways #11 were a beer commercial, the slogan would be, "Tastes hip! Less filling!"

Brian K. Vaughan's original Runaways stories were a soap-operatic teenage roller coaster. After Joss Whedon sent Nico, Karolina, Victor, Chase, Molly, Xavin, and Old Lace on a time travelling vacation, Terry Moore attempted to give the teens a little grounding, setting them up in a malibu mansion abandoned by Chase's parents. From there they fought aliens and zombies, and started to rediscover their super-heroic ambitions.

New writer Kathryn Immonen and new artist Sara Pichelli, in their first issue, blow the Runaways' cozy home life to smithereens again. Literally. It's a crystal-clear statement of their intentions: to make Marvel's premier youth-rebellion book feel edgy again. But as the same clarity isn't always evident in the execution, the results are decidedly mixed.

Immonen works a little too hard to remind us that the Runaways are adolescents, flighty and hormonal. At the risk of sounding like an old man at 28, the fast-paced, jargon heavy dialogue, with internet-speak every other word, wants to be more charming than it is. And some important bits of characterization get muddled in the sound bytes.

For example, a few issues back, Xavin left the Runaways to take Karolina's place on trial on the alien world of her birth. Now Karolina is angsting (and flirting with Chase). Will she ever see her lover again? Does she have to start over as a single girl? So Nico sits her down and tells her: "I don't think it's the last thing Xavin will ever do, but it is the last thing she did for you. So just honor it... and yourself. Okay?"

Is Nico telling her friend:

a) "Don't worry about it, buddy, Xavin'll be back in no time!"

b) "Go on with your life, Xavin would want you to be happy! But don't settle for a dirty boy like Chase."
c) "You're gay, remember? And I'm curious. Let's make the 1950s weep!"

Each of these could be variously interpreted to fit with Nico's character [whether her character this week is "inspiring optimist" or "slutbomb" - RD], but it's not really clear what she actually means to say.

I was glad to see Klara finally getting some character time, but disappointed that she felt so inconsistent with the Klara of the past 10 issues. Terry Moore never seemed to know what to do with Klara, so he treated her like Molly's sidekick and exposition-companion. It was cute, but it ignored what really makes the character fascinating and unique: she's a girl from the 1910s stuck in the modern world. Now Immonen seems to have turned Klara into a chronic couch potato. The concept has potential; of course the boob tube would be fascinating to a kid who grew up in a time before them. But Klara's been around TV for a while now, and she's never been this addicted. Nico's suddenly worried that Klara's going to develop a "Vitamin-D deficiency," after several issues of Klara running around outside with Molly. If Klara's withdrawing into herself and becoming a TV zombie, this might be a perfectly natural reaction for a girl out of time; it might even be a perfectly natural delayed reaction. But it seems more like Immonen wasn't sure what else to do with her and wanted to shove her out of the way.

I also would really like to have seen a little more development of Klara's relationship with Old Lace, considering her intense reaction to the dinosaur's death. She spends the early part of the issue cuddling with Old Lace in front of the television, only to demand that the others "get that dead thing away from me!" after OL dies saving her life. The line isn't consistent with her character (what there is of it), nor is it a particularly natural thing for a traumatized kid to say. [Considering that as a resident of the early 20th century, she would have had a lot closer relationship with death than most people today, I would have expected sorrow or indifference, but not repugnance. - RD]

I really haven't decided yet how I feel about Sara Pichelli's art. I love some of the little details, like Victor reminding us he's a 'bot by plugging a modem directly into a port on his own arm. I love the playfulness when Chase and Victor are dancing. The shots of Chase on the ground feeling Old Lace's passing through their psychic bond were truly heartbreaking, and easily the best scene in the issue.

I like some of Pichelli's dynamic poses (when the older girls aren't breaking their backs) and exaggerated facial expressions, but these dance right on the knife's edge between expressive and unnatural. Witness Nico squinting at her fruit salad.

Closing one eye and screwing your mouth up like that, they're pieces of two different expressions. They're both in the pensive family, sure, but... Go try and make this face in the mirror. Feels weird, doesn't it?

Then there's Nico's new wardrobe and body-type. RD soap-boxed about this some in her review of issue 10 (speaking of gender), but what struck me is that this is another case of previously strong characterization getting muddled. The artists of Runaways have always taken Nico's clothes right off of HotTopic.com, but Nico's choices in the past have been definitively goth-prep, giving her some of the coolest costumes in comics. Now, suddenly, she's goth-punk. Those are two distinct styles, and different enough that I believe the change would warrant some dialogue.

Also, I'm a bit confused by those dirty little scratches everyone has on their noses and under their eyes. Judging from the coloring, they're all taking lessons in being a drunk from W.C. Fields. Also not an atypical part of the teenage experience, I guess. More worrying is the way they all seem to have developed a bad case of vampirism, and not the cool kind. The least bit of overhead light, and even Latino Victor and California girl Karolina are sparkling like Robert Pattinson.

Oh, and late in the issue, the sound from the TV indicates Klara is now watching an infomercial for a fitness machine, yet the screen still shows the soap opera from earlier. Whoops.

- JC

[I'd like to note that because I don't pay very close attention and because they traded hairstyles, I spent the entire issue thinking Chase was Victor and vice versa. That's not entirely abnormal for me; I got Victor and Xavin confused in earlier issues when Xavin was in human-boy mode. But there really should have been some defining character moment (aside from the plugging into the arm thing, which I completely missed) so I could tell them apart. So I count it as a double fail. - RD]