Publisher: Marvel
Released: October 12th 2005
Received: own
This is an older review that has been edited and ported over from my other review site, Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks (of Books)
After a brief gap, the Runaways are back for volume four. Because of the events in three (you know, stopping their villain parents from taking over/destroying the world), there’s a massive power vacuum in Los Angeles, and the Runaways are determined to make a difference!
Runaways roll call (because it’s always changing – this may be considered a spoiler, so you’ve been warned): Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, Chase Stein, Gertrude Yorkes (with Old Lace), Molly Hayes, and Victor Mancha.
As mentioned above, a ton of villains and villain wannabes have started to invade and create havoc in Los Angeles. Being stubborn and optimistic, the Runaways decide to take on these new villains. Luckily for them, they mostly come across B-list villains or lower (which is good because I’m not sure they would have survived fighting anybody tougher at the moment, as evidenced by a fight later on in the volume).
Along with fighting lower-level villains, the Runaways come up against a team of…well…I guess you’d call them recovering sidekicks? They want to stop the Runaways before they get hurt (they’ve been there, and they don’t want to see a bunch of kids go through it again). Unfortunately, it just causes more mayhem and destruction.
The Runaways get clued in to a future villain that will eventually kill Gert (looooong story) and decide to go after him before he hits that point. The trouble is? He’s just a kid like them. You can see the moral dilemma this caused (for everybody minus Chase, that is – not only does he have an emotional reason for protecting Gert, it’s also unlikely he thought out the consequences of what he wants to do).
In true Runaways style, it’s revealed that the future villain, Victor, is the child of a villain himself. Since he sincerely doesn’t want to hurt anybody, the team couldn’t really just leave him like that, or worse, kill him. And thus, a new team member is added!
I will say I was really happy with Victor’s plot for one main reason: we got to see Darkhawk kick Ultron’s butt. I can’t think of many things more satisfying than watching Ultron get one-shot-ed by an ex-retired superhero.
Can’t wait to see what volume five (Escape to New York) brings us. What are the odds that the team will remain the same across the entire volume? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
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