Vaughan, Brian K., and Adrian Alphona - Runaways, vol. 02-06

[oyceter]

Ooo, I am now fully into this series. It doesn't seem to have giant plot arcs; there are plot arcs, but things (gasp) actually get resolved within a chunk of issues. Mostly I like watching the kids interact with each other, make snarky comments about the superhero-populated world they live in, and watch Vaughan have tons and tons of fun bringing in as many random Marvel characters as he possibly can. The best part is that even though some of the kids are superpowered and they all fight crime (for once, said in truth), they act a whole lot like kids as well. And not just when they're hanging out -- when they're fighting villains and sort of saving the world as well.

Spoilers

So I knew about the Alex thing, thanks to trying to wiki people's names. I'm still surprised that he knew from the start, though that does make sense in retrospect. I'm not happy that the black kid turns out to be not only evil, but also dead. Le sigh. And the thing is, I am pretty sure it is unintentional. Vaughan and Alphona seem very intent on including POC in the series, from Nico and Alex in the beginning to random characters of other ethnicities and the introduction of Victor (Hispanic). But I do still wish that there were more POC in the core team itself, and in the surrounding universe.

The other Asian kid is also Japanese, but I suspect that's because Vaughan has to draw on Marvel continuity. I'm halfway through the list of Asian superheroes provided by Wikipedia, and the majority of them are Japanese, as I had expected.

Also, I totally called Karolina being gay and having a crush on Nico! Yay! I like Karolina a lot, especially after she's come back from whatever alien world she was on. And using the Krull shapeshifting to give her a female fiancee was awesome.

Chase has been growing on me, largely because of how he loves Gert, whom I also love. She has a dinosaur! A telepathic dinosaur! I still can't get over that.

I am hanging on to the belief that Gert is not dead, largely because I don't want Gert to be dead because I like her.

And I think my absolute favorite part was when the kids went to New York and met Spiderman and all these random superheroes showed up, because you could just tell that Vaughan was having an absolute ball with it.

ETA: Oh, also, I am faintly bewildered by how Nico seems to kiss everyone. And I want more Victor story to see what happens with him and his cyborg powers.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I'm still getting this series from the library, but the plot just isn't sticking in my head. I think I read volume 6, but I am just not sure.

Oh, I bet you didn't read the Yuletide Nico/Karolina story that had me rolling on the ground laughing (http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/30/dothe.html)! Do so straightaway!

[oyceter]

I didn't, thank you for the link! Also, yay for femslash!

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Hee! I think you've now gone further than me, because I'm only up to volume 5.

Was the other Asian kid in volume 6? I am totally blanking.

The racial politics: I was kind of sad when Alex was revealed as a mole. For one non-race related reason, he was the only one of them who was non-superpowered. I mean, Chase wasn't, really, either, or Gert. But Chase had the glove and Gert had her dino, and Alex's power was his *mind.* I liked the ordinary (but smart!) kid still having a place. But also, I was saddened when the black kid was evil and bought it. (Actually, it started with the flashback to their parents, where the white people got "the intellectuals" and "the time-travellers" and the black couple got "the criminals," which...uh, okay. I sort of raised my eyebrows at Nico's parents being the mystic sorcerer types too.)

That said, I do like that Vaughan and Alphona do have a racially diverse universe, and I can also see where there would be problematic racial politics almost any way you sliced it. (That is, if they'd made Molly or Karolina POC, for example, you end up getting into POC-as-mutant or POC-as-alien undercurrents.) Still, it niggles.

[oyceter]

I think the other Asian kid I remember was the Japanese girl who was heading the New Avengers, or the New Teenage Avengers, or That Group of Kids Hunting the Runaways at Some Point.

Yeah, I was pretty irritated about Alex's parents being the criminals, and especially Alex being evil. I liked that he was smart and wanted to keep his name and not be a superhero. I think I decided to be a little more forgiving of the Minorus as sorcerers just because someone else looked more "ninja-like" than them, heh!

I can see Vaughan and Alphona trying so hard to have a racially diverse universe that it's hard for me to want to yell at them! But I think they get a little stuck on the tokenism bit; there only seems to be one significant Asian, one significant black, one significant Hispanic and etc. I get the feeling that if more of the runaways were POC, you'd slice and dice and get problematic racial politics, but you'd also find more counterexamples.

I think the thing that annoys me about the evil black people is that right now, there aren't any very significant counterexamples, with the possible exception of Cloak. And he's more a guest start than a regular.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

>the New Avengers, or the New Teenage Avengers, or That Group of Kids Hunting the Runaways at Some Point<

...wow, totally remembering this through a big haze of vagueness.

>I think the thing that annoys me about the evil black people is that right now, there aren't any very significant counterexamples, with the possible exception of Cloak. And he's more a guest start than a regular.<

Right. Yes. And the kids outwit him in the first arc, so he doesn't come across as the most super-effective person either.

[oyceter]

Yeah. Also, did you get to the false-accusation-of-Cloak storyline? Whoa problematic racial imagery! I mean, I do not think it was implied, again, and naturally you know Cloak gets cleared, as he is a starring Marvel superhero, but still.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

I did read that! And yet I have little memory of it, so I will take your word for it...man, I should reread what I've read and track down the rest.

Also, fortunately or unfortunately, I've heard that Whedon is taking over...which really doesn't give me much hope on the POC front, since everything I've read of Vaughan indicates to me that he tries (and sometimes fumbles), whereas Joss just has that huge blind spot.

[oyceter]

Oo yeah, it had him being (falsely) accused of beating and/or savagely raping (I couldn't tell from the graphics) his smaller, white female partner.

Hrm. Yeah... Joss sort of has that blind spot...