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With the posting of our Best Ongoing Series of the decade list, I was maybe most upset about the lack of inclusion of Runaways. Okay, maybe not all of the series, but the parts where Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona created one of the most original and fun youth oriented comics around. While it is a well known and well received title, it deserves so much more.
Check out after the jump to see why.
Runaways is a series created in 2003 by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona that was aimed at younger audiences, and its concept is clearly designed to be relatable to those audiences. The question behind the series is this: what would you do if your parents actually were evil? Six kids of varying ages – Alex, Chase, Gert, Nico, Karolina, and Molly – witness their parents (aka The Pride, a sort of Los Angeles based criminal covenant) sacrifice a young woman as part of an evil plot to eventually rule the Earth. They run off and from there try to stay free of their parents reign and attempt to acquire things to protect them (for example, Gert acquires a mind controlled pet Velociraptor named Old Lace).
The first arc takes them through the ramifications of this realization and the final showdown with their parents, and eventually leads to 42 total issues written by Vaughan, the bulk of which Alphona illustrated. While it has since continued on with luminaries like Joss Whedon, Terry Moore, and Humberto Ramos contributing, this title has never been the same since the co-creators left the title.
But when it was going, it was one of the most fun, creative, and original series on the market. While it was aimed at children, Vaughan never once catered his writing towards them or assumed that he needed to dumb it down for them. This led to a title that incredibly readable across all demographics, as proven by the fact myself, my 19 year-old nephew, and my 12 year-old niece all adore this comic. Most of this is because of the characters they created, as all of the main cast (an ever expanding number) are incredibly likeable and relatable. While the character that generated the most fan support has been the young mutant Molly Hayes (aka Princess Power), I find myself liking all of the characters equally.
Adrian Alphona’s art work is as important to this title as BKV is, which is incredible in itself. His artwork is very realistic with a bit of manga flair, and his ability to never sacrifice substance and storytelling by getting too bogged down by style is what sets him apart from other manga influenced artists. The work he does on this title is exceptional, which makes his odd departure from comics since this series ended such a sad thing. His work is some of my favorite over the past decade, and it’s a shame to think that his talen isn’t being shared. Well, at least it isn’t being shared with comic fans.
If you haven’t read this title yet, you owe it to yourself to catch up. The best news about this for you newbies is that part of the reason it became successful (and became un-cancelled after the first series ended after issue #18) was the production of this series in the smaller and more affordable digest form. You can get six issue arcs of this title for just $7.99 (like vol. 1 here). You can’t get much better value out of a comic than that.
