Marvel’s Runaways review, episodes 1-3: Marvel’s best show yet?
By Thomas Bacon
Reviewing the first three episodes of Marvel’s Runaways.
The first three episodes of Marvel’s Runaways are out, and it’s time to find out – have Marvel created a faithful comic book adaptation? Some of Marvel’s recent shows have struggled (Inhumans and Iron Fist spring to mind), but this time things are looking good for the House of Ideas.
Episode 1: Reunion
In 2003, Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona launched Marvel’s Runaways. Set loosely in the Marvel Comics universe, Runaways told a tremendous tale of intergenerational conflict. Hasn’t every teenager had moments where they believe their parents are evil? In Runaways, a handful of teens discovered that their parents were actually super-villains, conducting dark rituals and making arcane human sacrifices.
Marvel and Hulu have partnered together to create what promises to be a phenomenal adaptation. The first episode subtly changes the Runaways story. Here, Los Angeles is home to a cult known as the Church of the Gibborim. The Dean family run the Church, and while they claim to be beneficent, they’re also very dangerous indeed. As in the comics, the parents’ evil is revealed when the kids stumble upon a sacrificial ritual.
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Marvel’s assembled an absolute dream-team, and the characters seem very true indeed to their comic book likenesses. In another twist, the series positions the kids as old friends who’ve gone their separate ways after tragedy struck. Rhenzy Feliz’s Alex Wilder is the only one who’s willing to admit they’re all struggling to process their grief after one of their number, Nico’s sister, died. As a result, he’s the one who coaxes the teens into getting together. Feliz plays the part with skill, acting as the emotional lynchpin of the series. His confession to Nico is a touching scene.
Speaking of Lyrica Okano’s Nico Minoru, this is a version of the teen who somehow combines a hard shell with a fascinating degree of vulnerability. As a massive fan of the comic book character, I’m delighted to see how she’s been adapted. There’s already a magic subplot running through the first episode, but it’s played against expectations, with Nico wasting her time in empty magic. I can only wonder how her plot will change when she gets her hands on the Staff of One, a mystical artifact that we briefly glimpse in the episode.
Ariela Barer’s Gert Yorkes is just as tremendous, albeit even more cutting and sarcastic than the comic book version. She’s been described as a “riot grrrl” and a social justice warrior, and Barer plays the part well. That’s blended with an entertaining sub-plot in which Gert’s still making eyes at Gregg Sulkin’s Chase Stein, and the interaction between these two actors is perfectly on-point. You really wind up caring for Gert when Chase stands her up. Chase has ditched her to go to a party, launching him into a sub-plot where he crosses paths with a rebellious Karolina Dean (Virginia Gardner).
This is the episode’s only off-note, with Karolina standing at the center of an awkwardly attempted rape. It’s effectively done, but it simply feels unnecessary, as though it was added just to create tension in a character-rich episode. It also risks turning Karolina’s ‘coming-out’ plot into a typical teenage rebellion trope, and she deserves better.
Finally we have Allegra Acosta’s Molly Hernandez, whose character and powerset have been switched up a little. In the MCU, Molly’s parents died years ago, and she’s been adopted into the Yorkes family. It seems likely her parents’ deaths will be tied to the formation of the Pride, adding another layer of mystery to the series. Molly is the main character in this episode to actually get a super-power plot, although clearly she can’t be a mutant as she is in the comics (Marvel don’t have the TV rights to use mutants). That arc is really entertaining, and she flexes her muscles in a scene with a van fans will recognize straight away.
This is everything the first episode of Runaways should be. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s character-driven. The young actors are all performing well, suggesting that Marvel has been perfectly on-point with their casting. What’s more, the soundtrack is tremendous, creating a real sense of youth and vibrancy in so many key scenes.