Runaways #11 - "Course Selection, Home Schooling: Part One" (Writer,
(Kathryn Immonen, Artist: Sara Pichelli, Color Artist:
Christina Strain)
(jump to last issue)
The Runaways decide to hold their own prom, but disaster's looming, and, as it says on the cover, one will die, one will live again. Well, only one of that happens here.
It's the debut of a new creative team, although the Artist did one of the stories last week. Her work continues to work well with the title, and is even improved over last month's.
So, really, it's the debut of the new writer. And, as much as I wanted to be really pleased right out of the gate, I'm a little mixed. There's certainly a lot of good here, some character moments that really ring true (Karolina's conversation with Nico, and a good deal of the Chase stuff), but a few off moments as well.
And of course, we get the "One will die, one will live again" that's been teased at us since the new creative team was announced. First, to me that's always been a worry sign for somebody taking over a title, when the first thing they do is kill someone off, or bring somebody back from the dead. It smacks a little bit of desperation. Doing it later is fine, but right off the bat? Well, it worries me.
And here's where I spoil the first part of that. Old Lace dies in the issue. No big surprise, considering it's probably the 'safest' one to kill off. It isn't much of a character with development of its own personality, and although it'll affect everybody, the actual dynamic of the team doesn't change much. On the other hand, it's safe in the bad way, and kind of removes one of the charming elements of the series - they have a dinosaur pet.
Moreover, not just the who, but the how, does kind of annoy me. Old Lace has been very underused (to the point of being completely absent from the last issue, and she did very little in Moore's run at all), and she doesn't do much in this issue either beyond being a pillow and dying. Moreover, the death doesn't seem, at this stage at least, organic to the characters or the story. It's the comic book equivalent of a character getting hit by a car while crossing the street. There's no real reason for it, it's a semi-random happenstance. It's not a new or old villain of the Runaways killing her. It's not something from their pasts coming back to haunt them (except in the strictest sense that something one of the Runaways did, unknowingly, precipitated the accident). It's just a death. Shock value. Maybe in later issues it'll serve as a point about the randomness of life, but when it's something that's been hyped for months it feels a little hollow.
So I'm still undecided on the new creative team. Anybody can do shock value, it's what they do with it that's going to make it a good or bad run.
Review: 3.25 stars
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Well, that's it for this week folks. Next week, according to the shipping list, it's a skip week. So we'll probably be back in 2, likely with New Mutants.
See you next time...
Peter Dimitriadis
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