Review: Runaways Volume 1: Pride & Joy

Runaways Volume 1: Pride & Joy by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Started off well ...at least, the introduction was good. I enjoyed it less and less though as it went along. Didn't particularly like the style of the artwork but I could have forgiven that if the story had kept me more engaged.

Some nice ideas (this time, the teens have good reason to hate their parents) but there were many things that were handled poorly. For example: the repeated, and unchallenged, use of "gay" as an insult; the use of what I assume is supposed to be teen-speak like "'rents" for "parents"; and the flip-flopping of Chase between dumb jock and the quick-thinking go-to guy who gets the team out of trouble. I think what annoyed me most though was the criminally underused genetically engineered dinosaur. To add insult to injury, I picked up five volumes and every one of them fell apart as I read it.

I'll mark the next section as containing spoilers since what follows are some comments on all five volumes and I'm not going to be particularly careful about what I say!

***SPOILER ALERT***[As villains, the Gibborim were rubbish! Their motivation for setting up an earthly paradise is less then clear. Their choice of murdering criminals to populate this paradise is questionable. The decision to only let half of them to progress to this "paradise" is bizarre. And they were stupidly easy to kill in an all too short showdown against the Runaways. (Assuming they are indeed dead - this is a comic book after all.)

Alex Wilder as group traitor? Why? I didn't buy it. And I especially thought that the secret messages to the Pride saying there was a traitor but not revealing himself were stupid. I didn't like this at all.

And am I the only one who finds the idea of a teenager using self-harm as a means of unleashing her powers, disturbing? More than disturbing. Deeply distasteful. (hide spoiler)]
***Stop reading now to avoid spoilers***
*
*
*
*
*
As villains, the Gibborim were rubbish! Their motivation for setting up an earthly paradise is less then clear. Their choice of murdering criminals to populate this paradise is questionable. The decision to only let half of them progress to this "paradise" is bizarre. And they were stupidly easy to kill in an all too short showdown against the Runaways. (Assuming they are indeed dead - this is a comic book after all.)

Alex Wilder as group traitor? Why? I didn't buy it. And I especially thought that the secret messages to the Pride saying there was a traitor but not revealing himself were stupid. I didn't like this at all.

And am I the only one who finds the idea of a teenager using self-harm as a means of unleashing her powers, disturbing? More than disturbing. Deeply distasteful.


View all my reviews