Warning: mild spoilers for Runaways #33!
Despite the size of Marvel’s world – a fictional setting which encompasses magical realms, alternate realities, and entire alien civilizations – it can be difficult to give characters the space to do their own thing. Inhumans encounter mutants encounter Eternals, and a big enough explosion instantly raises the question of how long it’ll be until Iron Man swoops in for a team-up. For the Runaways, this issue has always been at the forefront, given the group’s core conceit is a team of young heroes who can’t – and don’t – trust the adults around them, even when those adults are heroes like Wolverine.
Raised by the Pride – a group of villains who ran LA from the shadows and planned to sacrifice Earth to their otherworldly patrons – the Runaways broke free and eventually brought down their parents, but when straight-laced heroes like Captain America began talking about splitting them up, they lived up to their name, ditching Marvel’s mainstream to live their lives in the shadows. In their latest series – helmed by writer Rainbow Rowell – the team find themselves in an underground base, trying to figure out life as the demands of growing up begin to exacerbate their different viewpoints and goals. Of course, the world doesn’t wait for you to grow up, and the X-Men’s enforcer is about to throw a spanner in the works.
In a Marvel Comics preview of the long-awaited Runaways #33, the X-Men’s Wolverine teleports into the Hostel with teammate Pixie, immediately picking a fight with the reprogrammed Doombot who’s currently crashing with the team. Though Wolverine SNIKTs rather than explain himself, it’s likely he’s here for Molly Hayes, the group’s mutant member, since the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa means that she’s now entitled to move out and join the rest of the mutant race in a fair approximation of paradise.
While Molly has vehemently refused to leave the team in the past, things are a little more complicated this time. Recent events have left Molly craving a place in the world, with multiple promises of connection and stability ripped away by adults more obsessed with their own plans than her wellbeing. Likewise, in a world where the Pride’s organization has survived its leaders, the Runaways’ efforts to stay off the grid have cost them a lot of creature comforts, even as the maturing members begin pursuing new projects of their own.
There was a time when the Runaways’ response would have been clear, and Molly would have done anything to stay with her family, but in this new status quo, it’s possible that Wolverine’s arrival could tempt Molly to go live in the mutants’ island paradise. More than that, without Molly to bind them together, it’s possible the group could fracture, pulling in different directions with common problems but no common goals. Still, Logan is Logan, and that he re-enters their lives with claws bared offers some hope that Wolverine will opt for the hard sell and accidentally guarantee the group stays together. But with Rowell promising that this one won’t end as fans assume, and Pixie in the background as Wolverine‘s ride, is it possible everyone’s looking in the wrong direction, and the Runaways may be gaining a member rather than losing one?
