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I just finished reading the first three volumes of Runaways by Brian Vaughan, published by Marvel comics. It was mentioned on an io9 blog post I linked to in a previous post, and Joss Whedon did/is going to be writing for it. I sort of looked for it in the store and didn't spot it, but then I stumbled upon it at the library. I should've grabbed all 6 volumes. Now someone's got 4-6 checked out. Grr!

Anyway, below the cut, find some of my thoughts on the first three volumes, which will no doubt contain spoilers.



I don't read a lot of comics. My experience is pretty much limited to a bunch of Trek comics in the late 80's-early 90's, a few volumes of Sandman, like one X-Men collection thing, and manga manga manga.

This means there may be conventions I'm not familiar with, and there's definitely in-jokes and things with the Marvel universe that I'm not getting. That aside...

The Awesome:

-Cool premise, with enough secrets and backstory and surprises to keep you guessing.
-Interesting characters, with enough secrets and backstory and surprises to.. yea.
-More girls than guys in this superhero team.
-Lots of literary and geek culture references.
-I actually laughed a couple times.

The Lame:

-Molly acts way too young. Yea, okay, she's the youngest, but she's freaking 11, not.. 6.
-Lucy or whatever her real name is with the bracelet. They keep snapping her bracelet off and several of the links break. Then they put it back on with no problem whatsoever. A few pages later, SNAP, it's in pieces again. What the heck? Is this a magic alien bracelet?

The Whaaaaaa?:

-Vaughan has been taking lessons in timelines from Rowling. And failing. First, a day has passed, then an hour later, two or three days have passed. At the start of volume 3, it's been a week. A few pages later, it's been a few weeks. A little later on, but not really all that much later, it's been months.
You want a lot of time to have passed? Fine, but actually put that time in. Don't keep revising it up and up and up when only a few minutes or hours could possibly have passed in the scenes themselves.
It's so ridiculous that I almost think it's deliberate. But I can't think of a scenario where this sort of deliberate time manipulation makes any logical sense. Not with time travel, not with hallucinations.... okay, maybe if it's all a dream. Time goes wonko in dreams.

Don't Make Me Think:

Mainly as a result of the time-passing problem, I started thinking about things waaay too much. Not enough hand-waving going on, so now I'm paying too close attention to what the magician doesn't want me to see. So here's some further issues that now cause me trouble.

-If they've been in the cave for months (even if this was a verbal exaggeration, it was still weeks by some reports), then what are they eating? They ran out of money after the first few days.
-More importantly, what're they feeding the freaking velociraptor?
-One of them complains the clothes smell funky. No wonder, if it's been months! Does this cave have running water? Did they buy any toothpaste? Shampoo? Deodorant?
-Even if they stole supplies, which you wouldn't expect them to do, how did they get gas for the van?

-The kids can't go to the police because ohnos, The Pride totally has people in the police. The kids can't go to the media, because The Pride totally has people in the media. All media. Everywhere. Which made me wonder why they didn't just go to their myspace page and start blogging about their horrible parents. There's no mention of The Pride like totally owning teh Interwebs.

-Our first introduction to this story is Alex roleplaying online. As a superhero. As a real life superhero. That's like going online to rp as George W. Bush with someone else across the world rping with you as Condi Rice and another in the next town playing Dick Cheney. Only, perhaps, slightly cooler than that, because Bush-tachi don't get to wear those cool outfits.

Summary:

I do want to read more, because there's some good stuff in there. And I'd like to see what Joss Whedon does with it.. and maybe he has a clue about how an 11 year old talks and how to keep track of time.

My favorite character was Alex though, so I'm a little leery of the next volumes.

If you leave a comment below, please don't spoil me!

(no subject)

Date: 2008-07-12 02:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swanjun.livejournal.com
The second series (at 24 issues) is a bit longer than the first part. So, actually, there's 4-7 still to go. The 6-issue Joss Whedon arc (called "Dead End Kids") just came out in hardcover but the paperback volume 8 won't be out until next January.

I don't remember noticing all the timeline problems when I read this. I'm trying to think of something that might excuse this lapse, but I'm coming up blank.
Edited Date: 2008-07-12 02:15 am (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2008-07-12 02:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] julieandrews.livejournal.com
Hrrrm. Library doesn't have 7...

(no subject)

Date: 2008-07-13 12:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swanjun.livejournal.com
My library didn't either, so I just read it in the bookstore.

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