YMMV / Runaways (Rainbow Rowell)

• Abandon Shipping: The nascent Molly/Abby ship died a quick death after it was revealed that Abigail is way older than she looks.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • "That Was Yesterday" takes a relatively straightforward story (the Runaways having one week to prevent the end of the world) and pads the Hell out of it, with half an issue devoted to a silent story about Old Lace, another issue being taken up by Nico discovering the origins of the Staff of One, and a Christmas story. Possibly explained in that Rowell and Anka were unsure if the series was going to be renewed for another arc.
  • The "Cannon Fodder" arc dragged on for 8 issues (the conclusion of "You Can't Hide" setting up for it, then the arc with a proper 7 issues), ending with what many saw as an unsatisfying conclusion.
• Badass Decay: The team went through this in order to justify Doc Justice needing to be their mentor. In the Vaughan run they protected Los Angeles from named villains like Swarm, Moleman and the Demolition Crew, and could stand their own against other teams in crossovers. But then at the beginning of the Cannon Fodder arc, Nico and Karolina fail against three nameless mooks.
• Broken Base:
  • The series' treatment of the second-generation Runaways has created some controversy:
    • The revelation of Victor's fate post-Vision (reduced to a mere disembodied head in a box) angered a lot of fans who were already pissed off over his previous treatment. On the other hand, the following issues see Victor revived and restored, which has annoyed some Vision fans because it undermines a major plot point from that series.
    • When the series opens, Klara is revealed to have been sent off to foster care sometime after the events of Avengers Arena. Rowell promised fans that she fully intended to address this once she was assured that the series would be ongoing... only to reveal in a flashback, almost a year later, that the Runaways had, in fact, tried to rescue Klara shortly after they rescued Molly, but she had been Happily Adopted and didn't want to come back. There are some fans who are okay with this, as at least Klara is still alive and is arguably better off than the rest of the team. Other fans see this reveal as incredibly mean-spirited, and think Rowell deliberately misled fans in a cynical attempt to deflect the criticism of Volume 3.
    • Rowell promised that Xavin's absence from the franchise, which has been a sore point with their fans for almost a decade, would be addressed if the series lasted long enough. To her credit, she kept her word - Xavin was finally revealed to not only still be alive, but also having won their and Karolina's acquittal from the charges that caused them to be hauled off into space - but this came in what turned out to be the final issue, and is all relayed secondhand; Xavin themselves only appears in literally the last panel of the entire series. Much like with Klara above, there are some fans who think Rowell did the best she could in the face of the series' cancellation, creating a hanging thread that future writers could pick up. Others accuse her of deliberately misleading Xavin fans in order to keep the series alive long enough to claim the Milestone Celebration (these fans note that Rowell only made her promise to address Xavin after the series returned from hiatus, when it became clear that the series was at risk of cancellation.) On the other hand, nearly everyone agrees that Xavin's new look, designed by Kris Anka, is a vast improvement over their past appearance.
  • The revelation that Nico's powers came from a spirit enslaved by her ancestors has been divisive, as has the renegotiation of her powers. On the one hand, a lot of fans hate the implication that Nico's powers were borrowed, and really don't like the notion of her having to pay for them with her soul. On the other hand, other fans hope that the new limitations will help reverse the blatant Power Creep that Nico has experienced ever since the events of Avengers Arena, and also like that her powers are no longer derived from cutting herself, which has always been a controversial aspect of her powers.
• Character Shilling: Many believe Gert is getting this treatment, due to the series playing her up as The Heart of the Runaways, which they believe make far more sense for Chase or Molly to be described as. Granted, Gert tends to share that opinion, calling herself "the appendix."
• Die for Our Ship: There were an alarming number of fans who wanted Julie Power to die so that Karolina will be free to either be reunited with Xavin or get together with Nico. And they kind of got their wish when the writer broke them up, effectively removing her from the board and allowing for Karolina and Nico to become a couple.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Molly's grandma to a degree, as many readers have felt she makes for a much more interesting and sympathetic antagonist and character than the members of the Pride were, due to her deceptive nature and her well-intentioned but ultimately twisted desire to have her family back.
  • Van (the girl Chase runs into while shopping) has been very quickly embraced by the fandom thanks to her distinct design and personality and her Meet Cute with Chase.
  • Gib became an instant fan favorite for his kindness toward the Runaways, with people clamoring for him to join the team. He would go on to become an unofficial member.
• Epileptic Trees: Molly's grandmother insists that Chase has powers, despite him never being shown to have any. This has lead to rampant speculation on what exactly Chase is, and what his powers might be, if he has any. Given that Dr. Hayes is a geneticist, this might suggest that he's a mutant or something similar.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In A-Force, Nico seemed to be getting her life back together after the events of Arena. This series reveals a dark side to her personal recovery; in her absence, the team lost custody of Klara and Molly and fell apart, and it's clear that this did a number on Karolina's self-confidence, as she was the one left holding the bag when things collapsed.
  • Klara being condemned to foster care seems like a far less benign fate in light of recent reports about the children of undocumented immigrants being lost in the US foster care system. Fortunately, Klara is Happily Adopted and doing quite well.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Issue #11 was already loaded with Queer Colors, being an issue that introduced Klara's new gay foster parents, but it managed to stumble into even more queer coloring with the arrival of the "Super Hell for Gay Crimes" meme in 2020... which included a red-and-white flag. Red and white also happen to be Klara's colors, and the issue ends with her permanently leaving the team to be with her foster dads.
  • During a crossover with the X-Men, Nico bonded with Pixie, finding common ground with her because they'd both lost parts of their soul. In Midnight Suns, Nico ended up on a team with Magik, the girl responsible for stealing part of Pixie's soul.
• I Am Not Shazam: Lampshaded by Gert in the first arc, whose last appearance in Vaughan's original run was when the Runaways pointedly did not have an official name of any kind;
  Gert: I hate that name [The Runaways]. Who started calling us that?
  Chase: I think maybe Captain America?
  Gert: We didn't need a stupid super hero team name.
• Jerkass Woobie: Some consider Gert this: on one hand, she has genuinely suffered hardships, as her unexpected resurrection has left her watching as most of her friends have grown up, and Chase is now too old to resume their relationship. On the other hand, her method of coping with these changes was pushing them to reunite, even though some of them had little reason to.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Some people became interested in the series after it brought back Doombot, Avengers A.I.'s resident Ensemble Dark Horse, for the first time since that series ended.
  • There are also a lot of fans who admit that they only read the series because it canonized Nico and Karolina as a couple.
• Narm:
  • The characters and narration referring to the events of Runaways volumes 2 and 3 (which were published between 2005 and 2008) to have happened just two years ago. Usually ends with quite a few fans making jokes how many disasters and alien invasions happened in Marvel Universe in such a short amount of time.
  • Rowell likes to pepper the series with references to pop culture that have been accused of feeling too forced, like Chase mentioning that he realized that he loved Gert while the team was watching a bootleg of The Hangover or gothy Nico singing along to Carly Rae Jepsen.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: There was a particularly ugly fight between Deanoru shippers and Karolina/Julie shippers, as it is clear that the creative team favored pairing Karolina with Nico. Those who paired Karolina with Julie insisted that the relationship between Nico and Karolina seemed extremely forced and that the creative team is only pushing it for the sake of synergy with the Hulu series. Deanoru shippers argued that Karolina's relationship with Julie was forced, Karolina's been in love with Nico from the beginning and Nico was heavily implied to be attracted to Karolina since Vaughan's original run. Xavolina shippers also got involved, some siding with Deanoru shippers because they resented Julie for "stealing" Xavin's fiancee, while others sided with Julie fans because they feared that Deanoru becoming canon in the comics meant that Xavin will never come back. Much of this died down when Julie broke up with Karolina and Kar and Nico started dating.
• Squick: In Issue #5 it's revealed that Molly's parents are incestuous adopted siblings. Legally, it's not blood incest, because Gene had different biological parents from Alice, but considering that Gene was injected with some of his adoptive mother's genetic material in order to grant him a facsimile of her powers (making them share genes/DNA with each other), it's pretty damn close.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Dr. Hayes was built up as being a new threat to the team on par with the original Pride, thanks to having Mind Rape powers, a small army of psychic cats, a background as a geneticist, and a good reputation with child services. And then the team manages to take her down by feeding most of her cats to Old Lace. According to Molly, she was immediately captured by the Avengers and won't be getting free anytime soon.
  • A common complaint about Issue #11 is that it finally moves Klara beyond her reputation as the token homophobe and Broken Bird, and even gave her the series' only gay couple as foster parents, only to write her out of the series more or less permanently.
  • The conclusion to "Cannon Fodder" left Doc Justice as one. While it's not really a surprise that a guy that seemed like a positive role model for the kids would turn out to be a villain, many readers didn't like the reveal, found the motivation either confusing or pretty ham-fisted.
  • A lot of fans were excited about the introduction of Van, as they felt that Chase was long past due for a new love interest and she displayed some excellent chemistry with him. Such fans were left disappointed when it turned out that Van was nothing more than a Romantic False Lead.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • At the start of the series, Karolina is revealed to have gone off to college and established a life outside of the Runaways, complete with a girlfriend and responsibilities as a board member of a charity run by her parents. There were many fans who were curious about how Karolina would balance her various commitments, but sadly the answer turned out to be she doesn't — in "Best Friends Forever," Julie dumps Karolina due to her constant absence both physically and emotionally, while in "But You Can't Hide" Karolina returns to campus, only to learn that she's under review because she missed the exams, with the implication that she's probably going to either drop out or get expelled. Additionally, her work for the Dean Foundation is only shown briefly in one issue, and seems to have been little more than a pretense for her and Nico to dress up and go out on a date.
  • The aforementioned "Best Friends Forever" arc was billed as an exploration of Molly's changed perspective after spending time away from her friends and living a "normal" life with her grandmother. While we did get more details about how much Molly loves school, her relationship with her best friend Abigal and quite a bit of Lampshade Hanging on Molly's role as the Kid-Appeal Character, some felt we hadn't gotten enough. After that, she was sidelined for the bulk of "That Was Yesterday" — though she did get a solo issue with her and Alex as well as a subplot in "But You Can't Hide."
  • A lot of fans loved the concept of "Cannon Fodder," with the Runaways finally getting back into superheroics after nearly a decade of inactivity. These fans have ended up extremely frustrated, as the actual arc takes place mostly from the perspective of Gert, who was rejected from the J-Team and is instead hanging out at Doc Justice's mansion and trying to convince the others to leave. Those fans would have liked more on-panel superheroics, and many found the arc's ending controversial, at best.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Downplayed, but still a subject of criticism. Much of the run centers on the personal strife and failures of the cast, particularly with Gert and Molly’s issues as the youngest members of the team, Chase’s inability to let go of the past of the Runaways, Nico and Karolina’s commitment issues, and their collective unwillingness to openly discuss or confront their flaws long-term. As the cast’s problems build without any solution to their existing emotional stumbling blocks and even their attempts at superherodom being relegated to a brief arc, it becomes difficult to enjoy the cast’s lack of long-term growth and development
• Toy Ship:
  • Molly and Abigail, her new BFF in the middle school, seriously◊. At least until The Reveal.
  • While Molly and Klara's relationship is not quite as close as it was in the old series, their reunion does end with Klara giving Molly an absurdly large bouquet of roses, and Molly takes it very hard when Klara declines to return to the team.
• Unexpected Character: Absolutely nobody was expecting the return of the Light Brigade.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Gert herself. While we're supposed to sympathize with her because her friends have changed radically in her absence and she appears to be afraid of being abandoned, she has not yet acknowledged or confronted these insecurities.
• The Woobie:
  • Gert was resurrected unexpectedly, and now finds herself in a world where all her friends grew up and have their own lives. She feels horribly out of place and can't even take comfort in being reunited with Chase because he's now too old for her.
  • Molly was taken away from the team by her grandmother, who spent months performing medical experiments on her and gaslighting her so that she would convince herself that she was in a loving environment. And then the Runaways showed up, and Gert invited herself to live with Molly and Dr. Hayes, forcing Molly to confront her grandmother in order to protect Gert from being experimented on. And then she discovers that her grandmother was cloning her parents, leading to Molly having to watch as her friends fight a clone of her mother, and resulting in Molly having to go on the run again. And then the effort to recruit Klara goes wrong. And then Molly's new friend turns out to be evil. And then the Hostel gets bulldozed, causing her and the others to have to go on the run again... Molly is having a rough year.

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