“Try not to die!" Runaways Appreciation 2019

[Beetle]

aw man that's a shame.

Maybe they could get the cast back to voice the characters in a cartoon?

[Wiccan]

Such a casual way to announce your show has been cancelled. And yeah, I 100% believe it was cancelled. The show was allegedly a hit for Hulu standards and there's no way they thought the story had reached its natural conclusion when they didn't even get to the Victor Mancha storyline. Although they may pull the ''it was planned like that all along'' excuse to soften the blow. We all know what's really happening, though, even if they won't admit it.

Now let's hope Kevin Feige has enough love for these characters to include them in future MCU plans.

Yeah. It's clear that Marvel TV is dead so all shows are getting cancelled... I do hope they'll use them in something else but idk... Is Feige willing to acknowledge the TV shows at all?

[Personamanx]

Well, that's a bummer. In fairness I can see them wrapping up things nicely in 10 episodes, and am surprised they managed to entertainingly stretch the thin plot of the original volume for as long as they did. I reckon the comic isn't going to be around for much longer.

[mreddie]

Feige strikes again, yeah, this likely was planned but this, C&D and SHIELD ending all at the same time feels too coincidental. Wonder what happens since Feige has been wanting to do a movie on them since 2010 and sadly, I feel the book is not long. Which if it does, I'm just gonna stop pulling floppies for Marvel books.

[Personamanx]

Most of the attached/announced creative talent for the cancelled Runaways movie has been shifted onto one Marvel film/series or another since 2011. I don't know how they're going to treat the show now that it's ending, but it'd be weird to throw it out entirely. The films don't pay a lot of attention to the shows, that's a given. But the Marvels Studios appearance could still be indicative of some form of future. I wouldn't hold my breath for anything more than Lyrica showing up in Doctor Strange 2 though.

[H-E-D]

Deadline is claiming the story will reach a "natural ending" at the end of the season. Which is nice to hear, I guess.

I've long worried / expected that they end of the PRIDE story would be the end of the show. Seems like that's happening, though perhaps coincidently.

I love the cast and would be overjoyed to see them live on in future Marvel projects, but I'm just going to work under the assumption that they won't. Don't want to raise my hopes.

[Personamanx]

Yeah, no one should get their hopes up about anything Runaways related. It's all looking fairly grim. But a ten year hiatus followed by a brief resurgence isn't the worst thing that could have happened.

[hulkling]

At least the current volume is close to be the longest Runaways book ever.

[Personamanx]

True enough. If the current book can squeeze in a 31st issue it'll have that going for it at least. But aside from a tweet from Nick Lowe that wasn't followed up on, and Rowell's continued optimism I'm not confident it will happen. I'm still surprised that #29 didn't have "PENULTIMATE ISSUE." in the solicit, I guess there's no sense in announcing the cancellation too far ahead.

[Digifiend]

RUNAWAYS #30
RAINBOW ROWELL (W)
ANDRÉS GENOLET (A)
Cover by KRIS ANKA
CANON FODDER, PART 6!
• The biggest adventure of the Runaways career continues as they continue to clean up L.A. with Doc Justice as his J-Team!
• But not all the Runaways are so gung-ho about this new lifestyle. If RUNAWAYS has one tradition, it is painful twists, and you’ve got another big one coming, True Believers.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

[Personamanx]

I'm down with menacing Gert. But yes, unless they're being super stealthy about it I guess the word on the street is true. The book is surprisingly not dead yet.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, if it was the final issue I'd expect everyone on the cover, not just Gert and Old Lace.

[Drops Of Venus]

Rainbow Rowell confirmed on Twitter that issue 31 is definitely happening. I also saw a fan tweeting about a podcast that Rainbow was a part of, and according to the fan, she said she has plans for more arcs, but Marvel hasn't greenlit another arc yet, so as it stands, issue 31 could be the finale or not depending on sales. I have no idea what podcast is that, so I can't confirm if that's what she really said, but thought I should share in case anyone wants to take this fan's word for it.

Anyway, here's some spoilery synopsis and pictures from season 3, courtesy of SpoilerTV:

https://www.spoilertv.com/2019/12/ru...hotos.html?m=1

I'm kind of baffled at how much Hulu spoiled on these synopsis. They gave away key parts of the season, so I'm gonna discuss some stuff under the spoiler tags.

spoilers:

First of all, how lame that they so casually said ''Alien Alex'' in one of the synopsis, clearly indicating he's the one who's been possessed by the alien. I'm assuming this is their way of doing the ''Alex is the mole'' twist from vol. 1. They also made it sound like a mystery that someone gets left behind in the Dark Dimension, only to hint that it was Alex, since they want to come back to save him in a later episode. For ****'s sake, Hulu... The last two episodes are likely inspired by the time travel arc from vol. 2, so my guess is that Gert is the one who's going to die and then be brought back in the next episode, maybe inspired by the very first arc of the current volume.

end of spoilers

Now onto the not so spoilery stuff: I'm guessing Morgan may also play a role that's similar to Witchbreaker, so that's another thing I think they are borrowing from vol. 2.

The thing about people going crazy about Morgan's cellphones sounds so... random. But then it got me thinking that it could possibly be a reference to the arc from vol. 3 in which they had to deal with people turning into zombies because of the radio waves... or something like that. Never thought I was gonna see that particular arc being thrown in there, honestly. It was easily the most forgettable one from Runaways' comic book history.

Now my particular rant/prediction about Xavin: I am extremely worried with that description for episode 4. Not only they used she/her pronouns to refer to Xavin, which just reinforces my fear that the writers aren't even going to bother to explore the character's genderfluidness out of laziness, but ''Xavin fulfills her prophecy'' sounds... pretty final. And I definitely don't think the prophecy is going to be fulfilled in the way she thought would be, as in, her getting together with Karolina. There's no way the writers would make Xavolina endgame on episode four. Heck, there's no way they would make Xavolina endgame at all, since they are obviously much more invested on Deanoru as a couple (just look at the promo pics for episode 1!). So my prediction is that episode 4 will wrap up Xavin's arc, with her sacrificing herself for Karolina by either dying or taking her place and being taken away by the aliens, as a reference to vol. 3. Needless to say, that wouldn't be nearly as impactful as it was in the comics, since the group and specially Karolina simply don't have the same kind of connection to Xavin as they did in the comics. So we're gonna end up with a Xavin that's not a Skrull, not genderfluid, won't be an integral part of the team, won't be Karolina's significant other, probably won't be that much developed as an individual character, and will be gone by the first part of the final season because apparently the writers only saw her as a roadblock to Deanoru. That's like salt in the wound of Xavin's fans, who already have to deal with Marvel shelving the character for the last ten years in the comics. I know I'm mostly jumping to conclusions here, but at this point it's what I'm expecting. Marvel doesn't give me any reason to believe they care about Xavin. Sigh.

In conclusion: I have mixed feelings on this final season. I'm grateful that they're going to be able to wrap it up without any cliffhangers, but I also think it might feel a little rushed, specially considering how much of volumes 1, 2, and 3 (and maaaybe 5) they seem to be throwing in there. It seems like they knew this was the last season, so they tried to squeeze as much source material as possible, since it was their last opportunity. I guess only Victor Mancha ended up not making the cut, which is a glaring absence. Unless they managed to squeeze him there with a minor, very different role.

[Personamanx]

It would be nice to know more about the book's future. Always feeling like we're one solicit away from cancellation is rough. It makes every misstep a larger reason to just drop away from the book, it's hard to be loyal when you know there's not much of a reward coming. But Thirty-One uninterrupted issues constitutes some kind of success in modern hero comics nowadays. I guess we could bake a cake.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that things are leaking through a bit early. We're only ten days until it drops on Hulu, gotta get those spoiler worriers watching ASAP. Haven't read the spoiler text, but the other stuff doesn't sound the greatest. Might watch it when it airs on Showcase, but I'm not particularly motivated to watch it immediately.

[Drops Of Venus]

I don't even think it was a leak, 'cause SpoilerTV credited Hulu as their source, so I'm guessing it was provided by the streaming itself. They probably realized it was a mistake to release all of those synopsis, though, 'cause I just checked and they edited the article, only keeping the synopsis for the first 3 episodes.