Running to the Next Superhero Show

Welcome to spoilerville.

Marvel’s Runaways has brought yet another comic book to life. The show follows Alex, Gert, Molly, Chase, Nico, and Karolina finding out their parents are not as old and boring as most teenagers see their parents as. The six of them, naming themselves Runaways, have to figure out what their parents are up to and if they want to turn them in.

So far the first season is out on Hulu, and I have watched every episode. However, whilst watching the show, I was not very sucked into the series or the characters. I just had it as background noise while doing other things or watched it when I was bored. It was not until the last few episodes that I was invested in the characters and that was unfortunately because of the romantic relationships–between Gert and Chase, and Karolina and Nico (but they were not very satisfying starts to relationships) and when Karolina was kind of kidnapped by her alienish father, Jonah.

It did not feel that the plot had any transitions, which is something you would expect from a superhero movie, not a superhero television show–creators, just watch Supergirl, Gotham, or even Smallville. This made the show especially fast. I do not understand why. They had ten episodes and all were about fifty minutes each. Maybe I do not fully understand the restraints of what a show can and cannot do within fifty minutes but Gotham is doing pretty fine at around forty-three minutes (minus the pilot, running at forty-nine minutes, and the last episode of the third season, running at one hour and twenty-five). The whole thing sort of felt like ‘oh, this is needed here, but let’s not explain why’.

The pilot was pretty good. It set the mood for the rest of the season–thrilling and dark. I also liked the filming and effects–though Gert’s dinosaur is still up for debate in my mind because it does not fit the coloring or something of the characters,–like Karolina when she takes off her bracelet and begins to control light.

I wish the friendship dynamic was explored a little more. The group starts out as not being friends because of them turning different ways–Chase is popular jock, Gert is an outspoken feminist, Karolina is the churchgoing, good girl, et cetera. When Alex asks them over, they, at first, do not show up–and you see what they were doing instead–and then they all show up at Alex’s.

I did like the sister-sister relationship of Molly and Gert. Molly is not biologically related to Gert or Gert’s parents, but was adopted because of her parents dying in a fire–later, we find out that it was caused by Karolina’s mother. The two girls really get along and even have a few sisterly fights.

The ending left watchers at a really good place. The Runaways have gotten Karolina back and are trying to catch a bus that is leaving town when an APB is put out for the kids because someone has led the murder of one of their parents’ victims back to them (which they had nothing to do with). Someone at the ticket office sees the APB, and then, the kids and they all runout and away, making the team’s name–Runaways–take on a literal meaning. Kind of cheesy but overall satisfying.

So I will be waiting for season two and hoping that I can get my hands on the ongoing comic book that is currently being written by Rainbow Rowell.