Some thoughts about Runaways #1

Can Runaways save one of their closest friends?

Nico has been lost for a while after her bad luck with teams. Now, that luck could get even worse once that Chase arrives with someone who everyone thought was dead.

First of all, you must know I absolutely adore the Runaways. Created by Brian K. Vaughan, the team consisted of a group of teenagers who turned out to be the children of supervillains and decided to rebel against their parents and become superheroes. The book was pretty unique for its time since it tried to present basically normal kids getting superpowers without becoming superheroes per se. Now this book is getting a relaunch written by Rainbow Rowell, how does it fare?

Well, not so well sadly.

This is not a SPOILER by the way since this is presented in the damn cover but they're bringing back Gert, one of the main characters who died at the end of Vaughan's work in the series. This is not bad per se since these are superhero comics and nobody stays dead forever and Gert has always an enjoyable character. The thing is that the book played with such realistic scenarios and themes that it gets a bit against the original premise, not to mention that her dead was so well executed that is a bit disappointing that they're going this way.

That being said, let's take this story by its merits but even considering that, this is still not the best beginning. For one, new readers will feel immediately lost since this is pretty much dedicated to fans who know about the history of these characters and doesn't offer much backstory to anyone else so I assume it will be hard to follow by a new audience. Second, the issue doesn't offer much content beyond the resurrection of Gert, not even the rest of the cast aside from Nico and Chase is present here which makes this relaunch kinda underwhelming.

The writing is not bad, the dialogue flows well enough but doesn't compensate for how little it actually happens here.

Kris Anka's artwork seems pretty appropriate for the tone of the book with a vibrant and energetic style that creates beautiful characters and scenes.

That being said, I'm not feeling this so far and is a shame since I really want this to succeed. Hope the next one is better.