Writer: Rainbow Rowell / Artist: Kris Anka / Marvel
This is the issue that shows me that Rainbow Rowell is playing for keeps. She wants to be the writer for 3 dozen Runaways issues, not just a limited run. Kris Anka continues to be a wizard on the panels. Every single issue is drawn and colored like a dream come true.
In Runaways #4, after failing to convince Karolina to leave her awesome new college life and amazing girlfriend, recruiting Molly becomes our team’s priority. Unfortunately, our resident kid sis has found a great new situation herself. That is why I found it quite interesting to see Molly take a bit of a back seat to both Victor and her own grandma for a portion of this book.
On one end of the spectrum, we have Victor who has not revealed his active state to the gang, for good reason. They believe he’s on standby mode, but in reality, he’s biding his time before having to return to this wild wild world of the Runaways.
The other end of the spectrum is much more mysterious. Last issue alluded to the feline creatures at grandma’s being Hydra spies of some sort. This obviously makes the reader skeptical of everything surrounding Grams, but how could anyone suspect such a sweet granny of plotting against our squad?! This grilled cheese making matriarch couldn’t be deceiving them, could she?
Rowell caught me completely off guard by making this “getting the band back together” business a lot more difficult than expected. It’s a testament to her literary strengths of building relationships between her characters. She seamlessly made us remember how much we loved this group of dysfunctional kids. You give a fuck about them. You’re invested in seeing them back together. After the first 2 issues, my hype levels went from 0 to 100 and all I could think about was which villainous bastard was about to show up to give our squad problems. You don’t hear me doe. It’s deeper than that. Some of these kids have found their niche. They’ve become soccer teammates with new friends, enrolled in sunny colleges, and are just happy to have a steady home. You don’t throw that type of security away, even for your old best friends.
Reading Runaways? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.
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