The Runaways in Daken Dark Wolverine 17

[long_silence]

Daken has come to LA and hooked up with an actor, Marcus Roston, who has gotten him addicted to a new designer drug called Heat (which has turned off his healing factor). It turns out that Roston is a telepathic shapeshifting crime lord whose been manipulating and framing Daken with a series of crimes.

Daken hires a former SHIELD chemist to analyze Heat and discovers something about it's origin.









I'm kinda disappointed that the Runaways themselves only showed up on the last page of the issue, but I guess there's still three more issues in this arc to look forward to.

Comments

[kd_the_movie]

When they'd start calling themselves the pride.

[kd_the_movie]

i mean when they'd start calling themselves the runaways?

[long_silence]

They've done it a few times actually. Mostly in volume 3, by writers other than BKV.

[thanekos]

Majesdanian blood is (part of) one hell of a drug?

Makes sense.

(It's either that or Roston's; the latter would fit his modus operandi, and be more than a little kinky too.)

[thatnickguy]

Not only does Molly look far too serious...but she suddely seems about the same age as the rest of the group.

This is not Runaways.

[long_silence]

Well to be fair she was always only like 3 years younger than Gert. But writers have a tendency to infantilize Molly, having her act like a 5 year old instead of a 12 year old.

Molly "acts" like a 5 year old

[blue_bolt]

I remember that there was a scene in Runaways where a villain called Molly on her whole innocent girl act and pointed out he knew she was acting substantially more naive than she was. Molly isn't naive. She's a good person, but she's hardly stupid and she prefers that people underestimate her so that they don't a) see her super strength coming, and b) so they think she's all brawn no brains.

Her "Calm down, I got this," is the 'real' Molly where she's not pretending to be 5 years old.

Re: Molly "acts" like a 5 year old

[long_silence]

All true and one of my favorite aspects of the character.

But most writers don't really convey it very well that she's pretending to be naive, most of the time she acts like a pre-schooler without any of the hints that she really is the smartest person in the room.

[lieut_kettch]

She's 12 at the start of the original mini, so she could be around 13 or 14 by now. She's due for a growth spurt.

[tzipwich]

So I guess Chase is alive?

[unicornicopia]

and I guess Gert still isn't? :(

[pyrotwilight]

I'm guessing since they want to leave the actual Runaways story for it's own book if it were to return that they'll just say Gert's been in the Leapfrog for any of the team's appearances as potential backup.

[thehood]

Assuming Gert is alive, She's probably still gone.

[darkblade]

Anyone else bothered by the fact that the art gives Molly more of a chest than Nico?

[long_silence]

Her mutant powers finally kicked in.

[akodo_rokku]

To be fair, Molly is at a very "show your boobs" angle, while Nico is at a very "hide your boobs" angle. And practically wearing a pregnancy dress, for that matter.

Another Juno?

[blue_bolt]

Why Akodo Rokku!?! Why did you have to say "pregnancy dress?"
Now I can't stop wondering whether that's true or not.

P.S fellow 'special fans': I finished my Logan-Scott fic, PM me if you want a copy.

[halloweenjack]

I'm more bothered that she's straddling Daken.

[eyz]

So they will be the ones to finally kick Daken's ass and put him in his right place?
GENIUS! :P

[manicferret]

Oh believe me, Daken has been nothing else the past issues other than get his ass kicked. It's been rather pathetic actually. Only thing keeping him up is revenge for said ass-kickings.

[kirke_novak]

The first half of this issue is Daken getting his head, ass and kidneys kicked in.

[eyz]

Alright, I'll be picking this up :P

[salinea]

He got his ass kicked a lot in the issue before that one, too.

[eyz]

You 'trying to make me buy more Daken? Well, I'll be getting his last finale TPB at least :P

[salinea]

Yes! :)

[jar]

To be honest any joy you might take from his firmly booted butt will probably be drained by the painfully shitty writing that goes along with it.

[whitesycamore]

Actually, Rob William's run on Daken has been quite glorious good fun.

But apparently Marvel is run by people with similarly boring tastes to you and they have decided to cancel, so fuck 'em.

[jar]

I'm actually really sad Marvel is cancelling Daken's book, since it's the only current Marvel book I was keeping up with. Daken's one of my favourite characters and there's so much that COULD be done with him the fact they've basically condemned him to cameos is really sad, and also just stupid of them. Rob Williams writing, though, is lazy, badly paced and full of plot holes, and while I do agree it had moments where it was fun I don't actually feel like Rob Williams understood Daken's character the way some previous writers did.

So clearly we disagree, and if you think you can judge my 'taste' on something as subjective on that, uh. Good luck to you.

[blackruzsa]

Them and Marcus Roston, a few odd bodyguards, X-23 in Madripoor.... let's just say it's been an off year for him.

[thehood]

They team up, so probably not.


Besides, it's his book, do you go around saying Batgirl should get beat up in her book, no.

Besides, he has gotten beaten up plenty and if you don't like Daken, why are you here?

[eyz]

I wouldn't really compare them up. I mean, guy's got regenerating abilities. I also like watching Wolverine or Deadpool get beaten up in his own title, so :P

I actually like Daken, when well written and witty.
I don't like when they just turn him into a younger, more badass Wolverine. (I 100% disliked "Dark Wolverine" for example.)

Do I feel a bit of animosity towards me in all your recent answers or...?

[kirke_novak]

Once upon a time the last page would have been a shocking cliffhanger. But no, even the cover spoils it for you.

[newnumber6]

For just a split second I thought, "Wait, Gert's back, and she's wielding the Staff of One for some reason?"

[greenmask]

Never just you.

[newnumber6]

Oh, and something's a little fishy about the DNA-analysis scene. May mean something, may just be slightly sloppy writing.

Without having read the issue, I suspect it's being set up that the drug is actually made of one of the Runaways' blood (Molly or Karolina, given the name, Karolina being the most likely). Except, in either case, the DNA probably wouldn't say "It's a member of the Pride". You can say it matches characteristics of a non-human member of the Pride, but the DNA wouldn't be the same (similar, but not the same) as the Pride member itself. Now, you might rightly say that in reality DNA comparisons don't compare ALL the DNA, so a preliminary test might read the same for a parent and child, but that's not usually how it works in fiction, particularly in a place with some amounts of super-science such as the MU. If you can analyze the DNA, and have a whole superhuman DNA database that contains the Pride members, then you'd think that kind of mistake wouldn't happen.

So, maybe it actually IS the blood of a member of the Pride (of course, there are other issues - where did they get the DNA samples if the Pride died under the ocean, but you can say they combed their homes afterwards and such and got it from hair, etc... but that just makes Daken stupid for suggesting maybe it was a member of their cabal who was travelling in Europe - because if he wasn't one of the ones the feds knew about, they wouldn't know about them enough to have their DNA, but I digress...), which could mean something like "Karolina's parents had stockpiled their blood for medical emergencies and now that stockpile's been raided"

(Also I just remembered I did toy with Karolina's blood having special, medically useful properties in my series Runaways alternate volume 3 + beyond issue outlines, but never got to the point where it would pay off, and now I almost want to write more to do my own take on it. :P)