Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got sic new comics:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

”Runaways” Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Alphona and Mike Norton

This volume reprints “Runaways” issues 13-24. It’s been sitting on my shelf for a little over three years now so I figured it was about time I got around to reading it. I read the first two volumes, ages ago, and thought they were okay so that’s what I predicted I’d think of this one. I think that predictions was accurate. It’s okay.

The original concept of “Runaways” was that a bunch of teenagers and children found out that their parents were super villains who wanted to take over/destroy the world. So all the kids ran away from home to become a band of super heroes with the aim of stopping their parents. That was the story of the first two volumes. Now we’re at the third volume and what do they do? Theyfind a way to resurrect that same story. It’s a bit repetitive.

The artwork on this volume is alright. It’s the no line weight style that I’m not too fond off but it’s well drawn. The coloring can get a little too dark but mostly it’s okay too. I don’t really have much to say about the artwork beyond that it’s not my cup of tea. I don’t hate it but I don’t find it resonates with me either.

Most of the problems I have with this volume are story related. There doesn’t seem to be much of it there. A lot of the story is about the kids’ interpersonal relationships and I didn’t find them very interesting. They also leave a lot out. If this is your first time reading any “Runaways” you might not even know what the kids’ powers are. They aren’t really explained and there doesn’t always seem to be a logic to how or why they use them. It can be confusing since it’s assumed that relationships that were established in earlier volumes are known and clear. I didn’t remember everything that happened in volumes one and two so I was lost at times when I should have been involved.

There don’t really seem to be super hero fights in this book as much as there are confrontations. Rather than having the characters battle there are plot twists instead. Instead of one character getting the upper hand in a fight they get the upper hand because the circumstances of the battle change. I found it all a little un-involving.

I think “Runaways” always had a bit more style than substance in my eyes and in this volume that split got wider. The idea of super hero kids running away from their super villain parents got stale since there was no real story to come out of it. It ran out of steam. It’s still not bad though. After all it has a bit of style and that is better than nothing.