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Gert: What? How is it possible that parents lied to us? Let's see: Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, um, God. "You're the prettiest kid in school. This won't hurt a bit. Your face will freeze like that..."
Alex: "Everything's going to be all right."
Imagine if your parents were superheroes! More than that, imagine that, one day, you and your friends discover that you and their parents were a secret organisation of superheroes! Sure, they don't cry out for attention like The Avengers, but that is okay, right?
Now imagine that, about five seconds after discovering this, you find out that they are actually super villains. Suddenly, you and your friends are in a very different situation. Your parents are supervillains and you are next in line to the family name.
This is how we are introduced to Runaways. Chase, Alex, Nico, Karolina, Molly and Gert are old acquaintances. Once a year, their rich parents meet up and hold a charity meeting, and they are stuck in the family room to play while the parents discuss grown up stuff. But one year, when the parents were having their meeting, Alex discovers a secret passageway which allows them to see what really happens in their meetings. They discover their parents are a secret organisation called The Pride.
After discovering this, the children run away from home and set up a hideaway called The Hostel. During their escape, one by one, they discover powers and abilities that they have inherited from their parents. But will they use these powers to become heroes, or will they follow in their parents' footsteps?
With these new powers, a team of supervillains working for their own mysterious goals, and a large superhero community that is convinced it knows what is best for these kids, these friends are thrown into the Marvel Universe to survive however they can. Even if that means they are on the run forever.
Check out the character sheet to learn more about the individual runaways.
This series provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: The story is an homage to every teen angst film ever made, as all adults are minions or dupes of The Man. Or in this case, the Pride.
- Spider-Man comes off okay.
- As do Cloak and Dagger; presumably because they also started their careers as teenage runaways.
- Spidey was also a teen when he started.. concidence? You decide.
- The X-Men (particularly Wolverine) started off useless, they get better by their second appearance (Wolverine's third).
- In general, if an adult somehow started off in Marvel continuity as a teenage superhero or something similar, they were more sympathetic to the Runaways. Excelsior isn't, however that's probably because they're trying to "be adults".
- Aliens And Monsters
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Xavin loves Starbuck's caramel machiato, refering to it as the finest acomplishment of our galaxy.
- Alien Invasion:
Chase: "Xavin, what is it with you Skrulls invading things? Not cool."
- All Your Powers Combined - In the final battle of the first volume, Alex ends up in control of Chase's fire-blasting gauntlets, Nico's Staff of One, and Gertrude's psychic connection to Old Lace. All of which would have been much more helpful if he weren't The Mole. He had no way to take Molly or Karolina's inborn abilities, but it's still a pretty impressive accomplishment for somebody with no powers of his own.
- Ambiguously Jewish: The Stein family. (The Yorkes are unambiguously Jewish.)
- Ancient Conspiracy: Well, not that ancient; twenty-five years, at the most.
- And I Must Scream: Happens to Gert's parents, who are cursed to know everything that will happen to themselves and their daughter, up to and including the deaths of all three of them, and witness it all while being unable to change their actions.
- And Zoidberg - Victor early on.
- Arc Words: The references to James Dean.
- Badass Adorable: Molly
- Bad Ass Normal: Gert, Chase and Alex have no real powers, but still manage to have their place on the team.
- Big Bad
- Big No: Played entirely straight on numerous occasions, but also probably the only instance of a robot (Ultron) shouting "NOOOOO10100101!" upon defeat
- Black Cloak: The Minorus... or rather, Crimson Cloak)
- Buffy Speak: Tons of it, especially when Whedon is writing.
- Cassandra Truth: No-one believes them when they say that (in famously meta-crime free LA) their parents are a cabal of supervillains.
- not strictly speaking, there are people who believe them, but they are either working for the baddies, or are too incompetent to do anything about it.
- Changeling Fantasy: "Evil real family" subversion.
- Chess Master: Alex Wilder. He gets it from his father.
- Children Are Innocent: Used and Averted. The kids had no idea of their parent's activities, but were understandably left fairly bitter by the aftermath.
- Code Name: Subverted; they made them up, but hardly ever use them.
- Competence Zone: Anyone over a certain age is useless, even super heroes. Spider-man managed to get a cool big brother spot, though, and Cloak and Dagger have some competence (because their backstory is that they were also runaways). This is subverted with Molly. Everyone treats her as naive and weak, needing protection, but she is really powerful and knows a lot more than she lets on. For the most part, her weak little girl persona is an act to hide her real intentions. She fools almost everyone, but a few characters, like her parents see through it. In one battle with Alex's father, he confronts her with it.
Molly: Please, mister! Don't hurt me!
Wilder: Skip the waterworks, kid. Your cloying Rudy Huxtable routine is just an act you put on to get attention from your older friends. Why don't you behave like the bright young woman we both know you are?
Molly: Fine. Your son took after you, you know. He was a total frickin' failure.
- Continuity Porn: Hey, did you know that during the 90s Rick Jones wrote a book called Sidekick? No? Well they did!
- The fact that they brought in the good Green Goblin may also count.
- CPR Clean Pretty Reliable
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Each character has their own, at one point or another, even if no two fans can agree on which point it is for each. Some are more obvious than the others, such as when Alex reveals he was the Mole and brandishes the combined powers of Nico, Chase, and Gert after having also neutralized the Pride and the Runaways, but they are all epic (I do not believe it is possible to top seeing The Punisher get cold-cocked by the cutest twelve-year-old girl you will ever see in a hat).
- Cute Bruiser: Molly is the Cute Bruiser, in that her code name is "Bruiser" and she is adorable.
- Cross Over: Runaways has its own plotlines, but it seems like it is also open house for every other Marvel character to appear.
- Day In The Limelight: Molly once had an issue revolve around her and some kidnapped children.)
- Deadpan Snarker: Everyone, but mostly Gert and Nico.
- Deal With The Devil: Well, with the Half Human Hybrid descendants of fallen angels.
- Depending On The Artist: Especially striking with recent Chase.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil Seriously. Victor using a neighbour's unprotected Wi-Fi to pirate music may or may have not caused a plane to crash into the Malibu house killing Old Lace, though Chase survived.
- Discontinuity: Right after Joss Whedon starts or right after Moore does - your choice.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The original Hostel was an entire mansion underground, though some of the Pride facilities are more standard versions of this setting.
- Everythings Better With Dinosaurs: Old Lace
- Face Heel Turn
- Fish Out Of Temporal Water: Used twice. Happened first with Geoffrey Wilder but made moot at a later point of the story because his memory was erased. Now current withKlara who still adjusting.
- Fun With Acronyms: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. That is all.
- Gender Bender: When Xavin finds out Karolina is a lesbian, and that is why they can't be together, he nonchalantly informs her that Skrull can change that as easy as they can change their hair and shapeshifts into a woman.
- Green Lantern Ring: Nico's spells. Except the ones she's done before, and that's only in theory. In the original series, before Cloak and Dagger found them out looking for bad guys to fight, she used "Burst!" to pop paint cans, and in Secret Invasion: Young Avengers / Runaways, she uses "Pop!" to pop force fields. On the other hand, in Young Avengers / Runaways: Civil War, she asks the Vision to give her some help with new words for her spells, implying that only the actual one- or two-word incantation (on one memorable occasion, five: The show must go on.) can't be repeated, which should really let her do a lot more things.
- Hand Wave: The logistics of living as runaways (where do they get food, etc.) are mentioned every now and then, but usually just gilded over. Though it is implied that as they start using abandoned Pride bases as "The Hostel" that these places were already fully stocked with supplies, and possibly money, should the Pride themselves need to hide out there.
- Hellfire: Nico casts it at least once.
- Heroic BSOD: The "blue screen of death" is referenced by name.
- Also a more literal example than most cases, as Victor is actually a cyborg.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Gert, when drawn by anyone other than Adrian Alphona.
- Ho Yay (Les Yay): Nico and Karolina's on-again off-again UST. Mind you, Karolina has expressed her feelings for Nico.
- How Dare You Die On Me: Gender flipped with Chase's reaction to Gert's death.
- Human Aliens: Majesdanians in their powered-down form look just like H. Sapes. Powered up, they look like humans in a particularly overlit nightclub.
- I Am Not Shazam: "Runaways" is NOT the name of the team. Their book is called Runaways because they are runaways. The kids themselves do not have a team name, to go with their total lack of codnames and costumes. Even some writers have forgotten that detail.
- They do have codenames for a time, but have since abandoned them. As for costumes, Molly makes herself one in one issue, but it fails to catch on. As of "Rock Zombies", she's still trying to get the gang into spandex, to no avail. She's even written a theme song...
- Idiot Plot: A fully Justified Trope in this case — both the Runaways and the Pride make some very dumb mistakes because they're fighting their family.
- Irony: Early on in the series, the Runaways encounter a vampire who dupes them into thinking he's in the same situation as they are. When he gets Nico alone and tries to turn her, he gets stabbed through the chest with her staff. When she seems surprised that he hasn't dusted, he tells her "Whedon got it wrong," and that the only thing that would kill him is sunlight. Joss Whedon, of course, later joined the writing staff.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Chase, Xavin
- Just A Machine: Victor gets this a lot especially from Xavin early on.
- The Kid With The Remote Control: Gert
- Killed Off For Real: Alex and Gert
- And Old Lace. It looked as though Chase had died too, but he turned up OK (if traumatised) in the following issue.
- Someone who looks rather a lot like Gert shows up in Vol 3 #14. Judging from one panel, she might have her own Lace, too.
- Kiss Of Life: Gert and Chase's first kiss is one of these.
- Knight Templar Parent: All of the Pride could be said to fit in this category, in that they're planning on giving the reward they earn for their Deal With The Devil to the kids. Not everyone is planning to honor this arrangement. And being a Knight Templar Parent does not necessarily translate to being a good or bad one in everyday life: the parents range from being informal and friendly (Karolina's) to outright abusive (Chase's) and everywhere in between.
- Lampshade Hanging: When the kids stop the robbery of a convenience store, the masked thieves scream "It's Power Pack!" If you're happy with a loose definition of repeating tropes, you might take the following as more examples of Power Pack Lampshade Hanging on the creator's part:
- 'Alex' is the leader of the team. He seems pretty useless, but has his moments when you can believe other kids would follow him. He later turns into a douche looking out for himself.
- Kids alone at night fighting crime. It occasionally sucks when they witness death and stuff, but they usually kick ass.
- Aliens come to Earth to chase the kids around for a while, before getting their asses handed to them despite being big bad alien conquerers and the kids being puny human children.
- Their superhero names are pretty lame.
- The little girl is the most powerful and dangerous of the group.
- The team features a teenage girl with powers of alien origin that revolve around flight and manipulating light who later turns out to be a lesbian.
- The kids have a pretty cool spaceship to get around in. It can talk.
- Cloak and Dagger team-up.
- Wolverine teams up with the littlest member for an adventure together.
- Laser Guided Amnesia: To preserve their secret, the Pride wipe memories from Cloak and Dagger. At least they use telepathy, legitimizing the trope. But then Cloak regains his memories after a swift smack on the head from Luke Cage, and this is played totally straight.
- Literal Genie: The "Staff Of One"
- Logic Bomb: Poor Victor; justified in that it's a deliberate failsafe. And the logic bomb itself (and the reset switch) are hilarious.
- Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places: Nico has a track record of badguy boyfriends and failed relationships.
- Love Makes You Evil: Chase goes off the deep end after Gert dies. He gets better.
- Mad Scientist
- Magnificent Bastard: Although he was ultimately killed (probably) Alex Wilder played both sides of the field so well that both sides were completely unaware he was working for the bad guys. Things got out of hand, but he did pretty well for a seventeen-year-old.
- The Mole: Key part of the plot for the comic's first year and half
- Mons: Old Lace
- Motive Rant
- Mundane Utility: Nico using powerful ancient magic to renovate a freakin' condo "Ocean View!" indeed...
- Nakama
- Nerds Are Sexy: Played straight and subverted.
- Nice Hat: Molly's collection of adorable hats. At one point, she puts one on the team dinosaur.
- No Biochemical Barriers
- No Periods Period: Averted not once but twice, first as a mention of how convenient those days are for Nico to use magic as she doesn't need to hurt herself to use the staff, second time as she and Karolina once went shopping for supplies.
- Not So Different: Many, many sly moments where one of the kids acts just like their parents without realizing it.
- Not Wearing Tights: Mostly. Molly once wore a self-made Civvie Spandex costume. It failed to catch on.
- They get costumes in the non-continuity story "What if the Runaways Had Become the Young Avengers, which runs as a 5-part backup story in the 2008 series of What If?
- The Nothing After Death (though it's suggested that it's only for teenagers/children)
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Molly acts like a six-year-old most of the time, but every once in a while she reveals herself to be much, much smarter. Her father (who, remember, is telepathic) claims that she "acts childlike to lower people's defenses" but actually has "a ferocious intellect".
- Off Model: Runaways 3...good grief, Runaways 3. It slowly gets better, but at first it was as if the artist had never seen a non-white person.
- Opposites Attract: Gert and Chase
- Our Vampires Are Different : Lampshaded with a smug reference to Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon - and how he "got it wrong". Ironic, since Whedon eventually ended up writing the series.
- That comment was likely more of a friendly joke. Around the same time Whedon took over Runaways, Brian K. Vaughan took over writing the Buffy comic. They traded.
- Perky Goth: Nico
- Personality Powers: Used straight, subverted, and doubly subverted. Goth girl Nico is a dark witch whose powers are activated by spilling blood...and it annoys her. Valley Girl Karolina is a walking light show who isn't as perky as she looks. The smallest of them has super strength, and the dumb jock is in charge of all the wonderful toys.
- Put On A Bus: Xavin, and Karolina before that Though she came back surprisingly fast for this trope.
- Reinventing The Telephone
- Reverse Mole: Towards the end of the first volume, a few members of the Pride start wondering if one of them is on the kids' side, turns out it's just a Red Herring
- Rubber Man: Xavin, amongst his other Super Skrull powers.
- Screw The Rules I Have Money: The Pride have admittedly bought out most of California, allowing them to do pretty much whatever the hell they want.
- Secret Legacy
- Secret Project Refugee Family (After running away, the kids adopted each other as a new family)
- Shipping: Honestly, what doesn't?
- Shout Out: Three characters are named after creator Brian K. Vaughan's family. In addition, The Who get a shout or two: the "hope I die" quotation from Alex, as well as one of the story arcs being called "Teenage Wasteland."
- Not to mention Molly's affection for Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.
- This troper noticed quite a few shout-outs and references to old British rock bands.
- Notice in the first appearance of Karolina in the Teenage Wasteland storyline, she's wearing a boob tube with a Union Jack on it - though for some reason it's colored grey.
- When asked what he was dreaming about, Victor answered 'electric sheep'.
- Don't forget Gert's codename and her dinosaur's name.
- Not to mention Karolina's nickname.
- Also, one of the story arcs is called Pride and Joy, which may be a reference to a Stevie Ray Vaughn song.
- Sixth Ranger: Victor (Codename: Victorious (Future self)), Xavin, Klara
- Soaperizing
- Small Reference Pools: Subverted. This troper expects that very few teens would know the lyrics to Guys and Dolls songs.
- Well, it's a popular choice for high school plays, so maybe. Now, as for the Arsenic And Old Lace reference...yeah.
- Even in-story, Gert was the only one who really got that reference until Victor joined.
- "I'll know when my love comes along, I won't take a chance..." This teenage troper needs to catch up on her issues, if there are lyrics from "Guys and Dolls" in it.
- speak for your self, This troper's highschool did BOTH Arcenic and old lace and guys and dolls in the same year,and loved the refferences.
- Spirit Advisor: In one arc, Alex anonymously gives the Runaways a few vital clues from The Nothing After Death
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: A mad scientist named Victor Stein.
- Strangled By The Red String: Arguably Karolina and Xavin and/or Nico and Victor.
- Summers Family Tree: Victor's mere existance causes this with some characters outside of the team. As Ultron's son he is: Vision's Brother, Wiccan and Speeds's Uncle, and Hank Pym's Grandson.
- Super Serum: Cloak and Dagger's backstory.
- Supervillain Lair: Multiple Pride lairs have been re-purposed as "Hostels" after the original was destroyed.
- Temporary Love Interest: Topher
- The Power Of Love: In the recent Dead Wrong arc
- Throw Away Country: Karolina's Doomed Home Town homeworld Majesdane was nuked by the Skrulls
- Time Travel
- Title Drop: Pretty frequently
- Tonight Someone Dies: Twice so far. The first was the good way to execute this trope—lots of twists and turns before a really meaningful death. The second was more gimmicky and Dropped A Bridge On Him. (Protip: the best way to do this is if the death happens near the end of the arc, rather than the beginning.)
- Totally Radical
- Try Not To Die: The Team Motto, and also the Trope Namer.
- Tykebomb: In a manner of speaking, the entire core cast.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: None of the kids ever seems to wear the same outfit twice.
- UST: By the frogload.
Gert: Sexual tension. Gross.
- Values Dissonance: To the characters in the comic, because they grew up a century apart. Karolina is shocked at abuse Klara deals with, while Klara freaks out when she sees Xavin (who chooses to be black in human guise and chooses to be a woman for Karolina and Karolina kissing.
- You know, the whole black/white aspect never even crossed my mind. I just thought, based on her reaction, that she was being religious and referencing that part of the Bible that may or may not say that homosexuality is wrong.
- This troper believes the homosexuality aspect was the main cause of panic but Klara also does refer to Xavin as "the negress" at the time so yeah...
- Speaking of Xavin, (s)he is a Proud Warrior Race Guy who doesn't seem to understand why the others think it's weird whenever she just randomly changes shape and gender.
- Vancian Magic: Short of - the Staff of One can perform each spell once and only once.
- Wangst: They're teenagers after all
- What Measure Is A Non Human (addressed and occasionally slightly subverted with Victor, whom Xavin at one point refers to as "the house android" because he doesn't understand Vic's relationship with the others at that point, which has actually gotten pretty comfortable and Xavin, the Skrull Gender Bender)
- Whole Episode Flashback
- The Woobie: Everyone.
- Wolverine Publicity: Much like the original Marvel teen hero, a majority of the series revolves around them encountering B-villains and having teamups. Many of Marvel's most popular heroes have made cameos in the series, most of whom have some idea about what is best for the teens. When Wolverine himself made an appearance it was only a brief one, but was lampshaded by Iron Man (Who was also cameoing) who commented that it was the third time this week the two had run into each other. Soon afterwards, Wolvering was beaten up and thrown through a church door by Molly after a series of comic misunderstandings and a request to be allowed to touch his hair (Hey, Molly might be smarter than she looks, but she is still a kid, and he is Wolverine. You would want to touch his hair, too).
- The Worf Effect: As mentioned above.
- Xanatos Gambit: The mother of all Xanatos Gambits, actually... two of them.
- You're Insane
- Your Vampires Suck: Ironically aimed at Joss Whedon, who later ended up writing for the book
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