CyberNev discusses Terry Moore’s run on Runaways so far.

Runaways has been a mixed bag for a while now. It was a truly excellent comic under Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona, but once they left, it was wracked with delays under Joss Whedon and Micheal Ryan. Marvel has obviously decided the solution to that was to relaunch the series under Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos. I question this decision, since the series has already been relaunched once in this relatively short run, but hey, I wasn’t at the business meeting.

And Moore’s run so far? It’s not…horrible. I was downright optimistic after issue #2. But issue #3 seems to be teetering on “boring.” The characterization of Chase (for those not schooled in Runaways, he’s the team’s badass normal, and not very bright in contrast to his scientist parents) in particular bothers me. Moore seems to see him as really stupid, prone to random fits of anger and pretty much a flat character. He’s been completely the “big dumb guy” the entire run so far.

And Klara, despite being fresh from 1907 and claiming to “not understand this century”, is already using terms like “yeah” and “uh huh”. It’s a bit jarring.

Not to say there weren’t some cute moments or interesting ideas here. Molly literally carrying Chase to the meeting, Klara and Molly’s friendship, seeing Victor and Nico talk…those were all good things. The idea of Nico’s spells having unintended side effects is interesting (though since that’s never been a problem before, I’m a bit skeptical to it coming up now) as is the Majesdanians out for revenge…though that hasn’t been made very interesting so far.

It’s pretty cliched in fact- they want revenge on Karolina because of something her father did and no logic will deter them. Karolina wants to give herself up, there is discord, the team stupidly can’t seem to form a plan, and in fact just leave their hostage sitting there despite the fact he has superpowers and can easily escape from their measly bonds…which he does.

I actually typically enjoy Ramos’s art, but it was more extreme than usual here, and Chase is friggin’ huge.

So far, Moore’s Runaways lacks the complexity of it’s original run, and it’s turned into a garden variety “teen” comic. Which is a shame, because at one point this was one of my favorite comics.

Here’s hoping for improvement.