Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ continue to live up to being ‘a hulu
original’. Period. They also continue to be a soap opera, which is only loosely
remains tied to the original comic plotline. That is no problem either, as
Marvel comics have made ‘Runaways’ their new darling in place of the previous
favorites – ‘the Defenders’ and ‘the InHumans’, and ‘the Defenders’, at least,
are a mess.
Spoiler alert – read on at your own risk.
True, they know in which general
direction they are going – to an eventual confrontation with Kingpin, Wilson
Fisk, who became the mayor of NYC in the past comics, but the details? They are
a mess. Blade, Deadpool, the Hood – they come and go without contributing much to
the general plot; ‘the Defenders’ seem to be largely about, well, the Defenders
as they try to prevent Diamondback from becoming the new Kingpin of crime,
(since they don’t know that he’s being actually backed by Fisk here, it seems)…and
getting nowhere fast. They seem to be defeating Diamondback on a regular basis,
but the man just comes back – and he already beat the stuffing out of the Punisher,
(who seems to have his own agenda and be a bigger jerk than he normally is),
and shot the Black Cat, (and in a different universe the Black Cat is teaming
up with Silk to take down the Goblin King and co., so there’s that). ‘The Defenders’
just don’t know how far they want to go and how they will get there and how
fast…
On the other hand, ‘Runaways’ don’t seem to have this
problem – but then, this incarnation
of the series is a TV/Web TV series, and have figured the problem of pacing
beforehand. Of course, so has AoS for S5, (hopefully), but so far they aren’t
doing so good – they got some of the lowest numbers ever so far, and the fact
that after this week they are taking a mini-hiatus isn’t going to help them either
– ‘Lost Girl’ (LG) had a stronger standard and history than AoS had, in
proportion, but it still ended on a whimper, rather than a bang. True, LG
played hard and fast – unnecessarily so – with its’ backstory, but AoS…has done
the same thing, though not to the same extent, as it was discussed earlier. And
the ‘Runaways’?
And the ‘Runaways’ have it easier – they have a baseline
from the comics and they continue to do their own thing. Like the dinosaurs
from the JP-franchise, they are a hybrid, and not unlike the I-Rex from the
first JW movie, they appear to be quite successful – and there is no
metaphorical Rexy to challenge them, no TV (or Web TV) canon. There are ‘Runaways’ comics, but while Marvel
isn’t as bad as the Archies franchise is, their canon is often fragmented and
revised itself…but it is different for comics than it is for TV (+Web TV) or
the movies.
Yes, this is a reference to the latest SW movie. SW7 was
designed as a rework of SW4. This is more of a rework of SW6, and now the plot
of the future SW9 movie is hanging in the air. On one hand, this is good – SW7
was one of the weakest movies of the SW franchise; on the other – the fans,
(and to the lesser extent, the critics) are divided about whether or not SW8
was a good movie or a bad one, and while the SW franchise still has enough
momentum from its’ past achievements to weather this, this really isn’t where
it wants to go, (and the news suggest that it has problems of its’ own) – but that
is a story for another time.
And as for the ‘Runaways’ they keep on going and they remain
strong. Good luck to them. See you all soon!
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