Runaways Volume 1: Find Your Way Home
written by Rainbow Rowell
illustrated by Kris Anka
The Runaways are a group of five (give or take) superhero teens that discover that their parents are super villains and must then "runaway". But all that was a long time ago, before Gert was killed and the team went their separate ways. Now years later, Chase travels back in time to keep Gert from ever being killed, but only succeeds in bringing a dying Gert back to his present where he, Nico, Karolina, Molly, and Gert are given a second chance to become the Runaways once more.
I first heard about the Runaways when a TV show with the same team and title aired on Hulu, and I was enraptured by the unique quality of their personalities and powers. Chase, has technological savvy and wields weapons called the "fistigons". Nico is a witch spell casting with the Staff of One. Molly, the youngest of the group, has superhuman strength that rivals the Hulk himself. Karolina is from an alien race that can fly, shoot laser beams, and glow rainbows. Which I'm totally jealous of. And then there is Gert with no apparent powers save for a psychic link to a genetically engineered dinosaur named Old Lace.
These are some angsty teens worth knowing, but upon a deep dive into their fictional wikipedia pages, I realized that their comic book story lines had, in my opinion, gone utterly wonky. Gert dying was only the start of a horrible downhill slide for these five (six, counting Old Lace) ending in a fractured team undergoing progressively stranger trials, ultimately disconnecting from what I believed made them special and unique: being a team of very different people who each lost their family, only to find a new one in each other. So when this new start to the Runaways was announced, all I remember thinking was "how are you going to dig the story out of this weird hole?" (paraphrased from Bo Burnham).
The answer is Rainbow Rowell and a time machine. The first wrong is righted when they bring Gert, the heart of the team, back. Then when a new adversary presents itself the team rallies once more in what promises to be a fantastic comic book series that I can't wait to read more of. Why else do you think it's called "Find Your Way Home"?
Explore the characters more in this little slideshow compilation of the Runaways teaser posters!
