I’ve read every issue of Runaways.  I’ve read almost everything Joss Whedon has written, including every issue of his Runaways run.  If anyone should be able to tell you what’s going on here it should be me.  I should have been ready for this.  I should have been prepared. 

I failed you all. 

I was not really excited by the idea of transporting the Runaways into the past, but I trusted Whedon.  I mean he brought back Colossus and made me enjoy a Hellfire Club story nearly twenty years after the concept had run its course.  He made me like a blonde teenager named Buffy who slew vampires.  So him + Runaways was bound to be great no matter when he set the story.

The trouble comes with sticking every character in period costumes, nearly doubling the cast of the book and then having the book come out nearly quarterly.  Not only do I not really have any idea what is going on, I’m starting to wonder who is who.  Oh I remember the Runaways, but they’ve all paired off with kids their own age from their current local.  Who are these kids?  Maybe I’d know if I read the trade but at this point I don’t know who is good and who is bad. 

The sad thing is Whedon clearly loves these characters, and he knows them well.  He’s writing the heck out of them and I’d read a book by Whedon where the Runaways and Kitty Pryde all sat around in someone’s rec room cracking wise.  Instead we get this, which makes no sense to me.

I’m sorry Joss, I failed you.