3 out of 5

Bryan K. Vaughan writing a youth book seems like a great match – he has the pop culture skills to rival meme-soaked teens, plus his witty fact recitations should work well with the want-to-know-it-all / I-already-know-it-all mentality.  I mean, is there that much difference between snotty chitlins and “adult” comic readers?  Not much.  Just tone back the swearing and sex and you can pretty much write the same books.  Oh, and make your lead characters all age-appropriate.  Ready?  Cue: Runaways.

It’s a cute spin on the rebellious teen, because this gives them a real reason to rebel, when a group of youngsters whose parents get together once a year (kids in tow) discover that the folks are all actually super villains in a group called ‘The Pride,’ and that, furthermore, said villainy extends to such thou shalt nots as *gulp* murder.  The kids band together and (wink) run away, discovering, in the process, that they share powers that match their parents’ – super intelligence, science prowess, magic, strength, flight, and for the one powerless child, the stolen benefits of thievin’ time-travelin’ folks.  The Vaughan charm rings true in bringing all of these voices into the fray, and the growing-pains disputes come across more naturally here than they did in Vaughan’s X-Men run because he can sculpt things from a starting point, which seems important in Brian’s character-driven storylines.

The trade collections of Vaughan’s ‘Runaways’ run were also pretty snazzy, packaged in Marvel’s youth format, a Kindle-sized edition with thin, flippable pages that nonetheless show off the fun colors and swooping art that Adrian Alphona brought to the title, the obvious anime influence of which – the exaggerated forms and angles – make more sense in light of the wiki page’s explanation that ‘Runaways’ started on Marvel’s short-lived ‘Tsunami’ imprint, which was meant to give a manga look to things as a bid to attract younger readers.  Since the book has since continued after ‘Tsunami’ folded, I dunno if further collections are being re-printed in that format, but regardless, is this a book I would gift to a young friend or relative?  Absolutely.  There’s a reason Y the Last Man works as an intro to comics gift – Vaughan is entertaining as hell, his factoids are informative and fun, and he tends to work with ‘clean’ artists who panel and draw in a way that reads easily to the virgin comicers eye.  Would I recommend Runaways to someone exploring the Vaughan library?  Sure, but with a caveat, and it’s the caveat that would prevent me from recommending it otherwise – don’t look for much meat between the pages.

Youth books are totally a different breed.  I read my fair share of them; I love the different levels on which good youth fiction can function.  And yes, some of it is pure popcorn, backed by energy and creativity alone.  I suppose what curbs Runaways from even fully falling in that category is that Brian does his job too well in writing for teens – he suffuses it with teen problems, which aren’t meant to be solved, just vented.  The capers our group goes on are cool, they run across a cool cast of characters, and Bri even tosses in an impressive amount of back story, but overall, Runaways ends up feeling sort of empty.  In order to humanize everyone (and not just teach the lesson that parents are straight evil), although there are life and death stakes involved, Vaughan straddles the fence on a lot of things – it’s never too fun, or too dramatic, or too scary, or even too funny – because he’s going for the teen vibe, where every enjoyable moment is undercut by some Current Crisis, and then he’s layering that behind some comic book distractions.  I enjoy reading ‘Runaways,’ but I don’t thirst for the next issue, which, to me, is generally a sign of something.  I think the series absolutely can do / did its job of attracting a younger reading audience, and I think that was the main drive behind the direction and tone of the writing.  It wasn’t really meant to do much more.