A quick look back at the Julie Power/Karolina Dean romance

[kevinroc]

With Avengers Academy over and the status of Julie "Lightspeed" Power and Karolina "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" Dean in comic book limbo (as well as their relationship), let's take a look back at their relationship.

Let's actually start with Julie and Karolina meeting in the Runaways.



(Ha ha! Molly for the block!)

We don't really see Julie and Karolina interact for a long time. Something actually addressed during the guest appearance of the Runaways in Avengers Academy (which had since become the title Julie appeared in).



After this, there's a little magic spell where everyone is able to relate with everyone else. Julie is very sorry about Karolina losing Xavin and Karolina is kind of fangirling over Julie's history of awesomeness.



So the two agree to go on a date.



We never actually see this date on panel. But given what Julie says later, we can assume it went well.



(Although I'm not wild about it when they're actually called the "Runaways" in-universe.)

And now with Avengers Academy coming to an end, we'll check back in on Julie and Karolina one last time and see how things are going.



Things seem to be going well for these two. A shame they're both probably either going into character limbo or searching for their missing friends in Avengers Arena.

Their relationship never got a whole lot of attention but I must admit they're cute together. I don't know if their relationship will ever be brought up again or if it will quietly end off-panel.

Comments

[majingojira]

If I've learned anything of late, it's that Limbo is sometimes preferable to being used.

Nice Retrospective, though I wish you included her and Brandon talking about their sexuality stuff.

[kevinroc]

Understandable. My feelings were there's quite a bit more regarding Julie's sexuality than just the conversations with Brandon and it could use a retrospective all its own. (Including material from the Loners mini.)

[leoboiko]

Better limbo than fridge.

[salinea]

though I wish you included her and Brandon talking about their sexuality stuff.
Look to the archive, it's been posted already!

[majingojira]

Figured, but having a repeat showing here I thought would be thematically appropriate.

[q99]

Limbo is where you build up, "Hey, we haven't seen that character in awhile, wouldn't it be cool if...?" stock.

[practicalcat]

Except in today's comics, that sentence generally ends with "we did something horrific to them and killed them off"...

[blunderbuss]

Ugh, being in limbo is better than this OOC bullshit. :P

[mrstatham]

Having never been entirely fond of Xavin (really, really disliked the attitude at times and couldn't stand the whole bit where she disguised herself as Nico), I was interested to see if this was going to go anywhere when it first came up in Runaways. It's actually quite weird to see something have a resolution like that after a good number of years.

I also know that some people aren't entirely fond of it because of what it does to Karolina and Xavin's relationship, but surely, given the sheer amount of stuff Gage was juggling, it's possible that, behind the scenes, Julie and Karolina have agreed that if Xavin ever makes it back home, then they'd go their separate ways and/or figure it out in a grown-up manner?

[kevinroc]

I think it would be best, dramatically speaking, if Julie and Karolina did continue their relationship. And as things are really going well, Xavin returns.

Alas, the odds of anything like that happening are astonishingly low.

[mrstatham]

Again, as bad as it sounds, I would just never be able to root for Xavin if that story ever occurred. I just never found the character appealing, and feel that Karolina accepting her hand in marriage so quickly was one of the few missteps Vaughan made during Runaways; And yet there was an odd sense that it worked, given the nature of Karolina's character and taking the age of the characters into account. But.. Yeah. Just never been fond of Xavin.

[long_silence]

I've always thought it was a bit of a stretch to say that that first page from Runaways was proof enough that Karolina and Julie were interested in each other.

I just never really thought of that as flirting. Girls tell each other they're pretty, they compliment each other.

And neither Julie or Karolina ever never got much development Avengers Academy, their relationship was just so thin, there's like 6 panels of interaction between them.

[kevinroc]

Marvel started playing around with Julie's sexuality around the time of her Runaways appearance. The Loners mini really went to town with it. It wasn't until she joined the Academy that Julie finally came out as bi.

A book like Academy (that already has a large cast to begin with) can make it difficult to develop a relationship between a main character (albeit one who came in about half-way into the series) and a guest star.

Since their relationship didn't get much focus, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they quietly break up off-panel.

[big_daddy_d]

I also hope for more Laurie!

[theflames]

Awww this is real cute.

But it also reminded of that terrible over-convenient thing they had Nico do in the Avengers' Academy/Runaways crossover to have everyone understand everyone else in a few panels. Lazy. And no one called them out on it here surprisingly.

Anyway, if you're lucky they may pop up in Avenger's Arena as part of whoever rescues those poor kids.

[mrstatham]

Yeah, but.. Nico's middle name might as well be 'terribly over-convenient'. With the upgrades that got slapped on the Staff of One that she uses to make it the Witchbreaker Staff during Whedon's run, it basically made it a big ol' piece of Deus Ex Machina. It's basically a plot-solving device. Always has been. Gage used it no different than when, during the need to escape the first Hostel in Runaways, Nico brings the entire place down with an earthquake.

[theflames]

Really? I'm not that familiar with the Runaways, and every time I see them, Nico is somewhat pushed into a mid-level usage. But if that's how the staff is generally played, then that's just bad gravy, maybe even a little frustrating to read.

To Quote Bruce Timm in B:tBatB....

[silverzeo]

Meh.

So are the PowerPack here from the orginal 80s series or from the one-miniseries from a couple of years ago?

Re: To Quote Bruce Timm in B:tBatB....

[kevinroc]

The original. The minis from a couple of years ago are in their own continuity.

[blunderbuss]

Holy mother of god this makes me want to punch things.

Xavin is gone because she loved Karolina so much that she willingly took her place in order to face charges of war crimes and probable execution at the hands of people who hated her. I couldn't even imagine the fate they'd have in store for her once they figured out she was the heir to the Skrull empire.

And yet it's JULIE who is actually reacting in a sane manner about it, NOT Karolina. 'But I'm single now.' Yeah, because your girlfriend is possibly being publicly executed on your behalf. That could NOT be any more out of character. She repeatedly went along with the wishes of her people to stop the fighting, and she would be devastated to know that someone was suffering in her place.

I mean, I could get it if Karolina just desperately needed a shoulder to cry on, or needed some loving to get away from the guilt. But this 'lol I'm single' is just horrible writing. Even if I didn't ship Xavin/Karolina, I'd be aghast at this bullshit.

(And if anyone has some X/K fanfics they could recommend, I'd like them, because goddammit. ;_;)

[mrstatham]

Except Karolina comes from a series where the answer her best friend had to the death of another friend was to sleep with the hot robot boy of the group. Given the limited amount of page time Gage has to deal with, I think simplifying it down was probably the best option - and Karolina probably wouldn't want to talk about it; The Third volume of Runaways was already enough of a clusterfuck as is, given even Terry Moore didn't have Karolina acting that distraught over Xavin's absence, and then it ended on the note that it did with Chase being hit by a truck or whatever, and here, he's fine.

So you know, the guy who originally put together the plotline where Xavin was put on a bus did about as much to deal with the aftereffects as Gage. There's maybe two pages where Nico talks to Karolina on the beach and then that's it. Saying she's 'single' is probably the easiest way for a teenager, of all people to try and simplify things down without dredging things up that would otherwise leave her a wreck.

[blunderbuss]

Except Karolina comes from a series where the answer her best friend had to the death of another friend was to sleep with the hot robot boy of the group.

Except that was Nico, whose character flaw is the fact that she uses intimacy to cope with stress and it was implictly stated to not really be healthy. Karolina, on the other hand, really is not that kind of person.

Given the limited amount of page time Gage has to deal with, I think simplifying it down was probably the best option - and Karolina probably wouldn't want to talk about it.

Simplifying is fine. Writing her out of character is not. There are a million different ways you could quickly address the issue in only a few lines. 'But I'm not ... 'with' someone right now.' And when Julie mentions a no-pressure date, she could say, 'Thanks. I really do like you but I need a bit of time.' There. Some simple lines that tells us that she's single but emotional allusion to her situation.

As for how other writers handled it, I'm missing a few issues so I can't fully comment on that. But even in the Xmen tie-in she said she wished Xavin was there, which is another simple line.

[kevinroc]

Here's the real question. Is Karolina supposed to thrust all of her problems onto a girl she didn't know very well (especially at the time)? Sure, she was attracted to Julie, but that doesn't mean she'd just open up about everything all at once. The only reason Julie knew at all is because Nico's group therapy spell let her know what was going on.

(This also asks how long has it been since Xavin left? Even taking comic book time into account, it's still probably been "months.")

Is Karolina not "allowed" to date someone else? Because a lot of objections look like they can be boiled down to that.

[nefrekeptah]

Relationship smelationship - the part that ticks me off, besides the old "Runaways was the comics' name, not the team's name" chestnut, is how they get Karolina's powers completely wrong.

Well, okay, to be fair the powers do work like their supposed to (except when has Kar even been a speedster?) but someone needs to Google some Karolina pics and show them to the artists, because that is not how she looks powered up.

It's supposed to be her entire body that's lit up and glowing, not just her hair. It's supposed to be a sign of how she's not human. That's the part that ticked me off more then anything else.

[mrstatham]

Yes, well, again, this is what happens when you don't have the awesome and amazing Christina Strain doing colours. She doesn't get nearly enough credit.

Also, I'm not getting the implication you seem to that K is somehow presented as a speedster here; If you're talking about the page with her and Julie flying together, then it's reasonable to assume that maybe Julie is controlling her own speed to allow K to keep up.