Runaways Appreciation 2022

[Personamanx]

New year, new thread;

Created by Brian K. Vaughan, and Adrian Alphona in 2003 for Marvel's short lived "Tsunami" imprint, Runaways was an interesting book based on a simple idea. "Everyone at some point thinks their parents are evil. What if they actually are?"

Six upper-class teenagers whose families have known each other their entire lives discover one evening that their parents were supervillains, and a part of an apocalyptic cult called "The Pride." Using tools, and abilities inherited from their families the teenagers go on the run to take their parents down, being framed for murder/kidnapping in the process.

While they eventually succeed, they ultimately choose to continue their truant lifestyles, and protect Los Angeles from evil doers as nameless vigilantes. They would later be known more formally as the...

2021 was an interesting year for the series, and characters. The book returned from a lengthy hiatus, and finally reached the Legacy #100 only for that to be the end of book. With multiple ongoing plots cut short, and having been left wanting more it's hard to say what the future holds for the characters. Judging by a recent teaser there might just be something to look forward to, but who knows.

The previous thread can be found here for now.

What was your favourite Runaways moment from 2021?

[Personamanx]

Said I'd make the thread so I did. Don't think we'll have a lot to talk about though.

EDIT: Shoot, meant to make the poll multiple choice.

[Frontier]

Happy New Year to the Runaways and their fans .

[Magnito]

Said I'd make the thread so I did. Don't think we'll have a lot to talk about though.

You never know. They continue to appear despite the odds. And that Timeless teaser could mean something is on the horizon.

[Digifiend]

Yeah - sounds like the Runaways will become the All-New All-Different Young Avengers?

[Personamanx]

Was browsing through some Heroclix out of boredom earlier today, and just noticed that a new Xavin figure was released in the recent Avengers/Fantastic Four: Empyre set. I doubt I'll hunt down a booster in order to obtain them, but if I did I'd have a figure of just about every Runaway. Would probably be easier than tracking down the earlier Xavin figure from the Galactic Guardians set.

[Digifiend]

R_____S... Runaways? Being Chased Like Lightning?

[Drops Of Venus]

R_____S... Runaways? Being Chased Like Lightning?

This makes a lot of sense. The Timeless teaser said a group of young heroes rising to reclaim a stolen name by an apparent group of villains/anti-heroes. Thunderbolts is a name that keeps being passed around quite often, and it's also a name associated with villains/anti-heroes. That first word on the teaser definitely looks like it could spell Runaways.

So, judging by the silhouettes, it seems like we have 3 female and 3 male characters. Chase/Victor/Alex/Nico/Molly/Karolina? I don't think Gert would be left out, maybe she's the team leader or something and will get a separate teaser.

As for Gib and Doombot... I'm not sure if they can survive a rebrand like this, honestly. They are totally the type of characters that I can see being sidelined in future Runaways stories, much like Klara and Xavin were. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

[RadarBlackout]

R_____S... Runaways? Being Chased Like Lightning?

Runaways, Justice Like Lightning?

[super curry max]

Karolina is off world. If that's molly and Klara got a growth spurt.

Or as drops of venus said maybe gett being the leader but from the end of runaways what if its Alex taking up the j squad and maybe he brings them together again.

[Frontier]

So seems like the full Superhero Runaways push isn't over, just now they're using the Thunderbolts name .

[Digifiend]

Turns out that S is a G. Redeeming Justice Like Lightning. There's a Young Avenger there, but this is nothing to do with the Runaways.

[Drops Of Venus]

So we were way off base on our guess. But if that was the team reclaiming a stolen name... then what the hell were those Runaways lookalikes supposed to be on the Timeless teaser? As far as I can tell, none of them are in the newly announced team, so... maybe there's still an announcement to come? It would be weird if they were just pictured there for no reason.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, I'd say there's probably another unannounced project.

[alanyoung909]

So we were way off base on our guess. But if that was the team reclaiming a stolen name... then what the hell were those Runaways lookalikes supposed to be on the Timeless teaser? As far as I can tell, none of them are in the newly announced team, so... maybe there's still an announcement to come? It would be weird if they were just pictured there for no reason.

I'd actually argue that there might be two more announcements yet to come regarding the post-Devil's Reign books.
In Timeless, there was one teaser panel of some of the Runaways (A young generation of Avengers rise...) and another teaser panel of some villains: Taskmaster as Captain America, Batroc the Leaper, Titanium Man (... to reclaim a stolen name.)

Putting this together with the recent Thunderbolts announcement, here's an early theory/speculation on the post-Devil's Reign status quo:
1. Hawkeye and a group of other heroes reclaim the Thunderbolts name from Kingpin's taskforce. (Thunderbolts by Jim Zub)
2. Taskmaster, posing as Captain America, and a group of other villains pretend to be Avengers. (Dark Avengers?)
3. Alex Wilder, as the new Doc Justice, assembles the Runaways and/or the Young Avengers to oppose Taskmaster's group and reclaim the Avengers name. (Young Avengers?)

This theory is literally just based on the fact that a few months ago online scoopers were saying that the MCU was working on Young Avengers, Dark Avengers and Thunderbolts projects, so I figured some of that might bleed into the comics.
Also, Devil's Reign is kind of a spiritual sequel to Civil War + Dark Reign, and Dark Avengers was spawned out of that, so I can see it happening again.

Thoughts?