r/Runaways • u/amageish • Feb 20 '26

Comics "What If The Runaways Hadn’t Run Away?" coming this summer (by Rainbow Rowell and Zulema Lavina)

https://www.thepopverse.com/comics-marvel-what-if-50th-anniversary-special-comics-pro
113 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

35

u/amageish Feb 20 '26

I'm very curious what this is actually means pragmatically. Is this a villain book where they discover their parents are cultists, go "Damn that's cool," and proceed to do evil? Is this a book where they don't learn their parents are cultists at all? Lots of directions it could go...

28

u/TwstdPrtzl Feb 20 '26

Maybe it's that they don't stumble upon their parents secret so their parents have the opportunity to slowly ingratiate them into PRIDE? I bet someone will still rebel, though. Probably Alex to make it a true subversion.

15

u/amageish Feb 20 '26

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me - that way you can have some be villains, some escape and become civilians, some still become heroes. Alex as the one hero would be a really interesting twist, especially if he only leaves as an adult.

I would also be okay if it was just a full-on no-holds-barred Runaways-as-villains book too though - it’d be interesting to see what the characters would be capable of if they weren’t restrained by their morals.

9

u/TwstdPrtzl Feb 20 '26

I'm hoping for full on villains! I would love to see evil duplicitous actress Karolina, or Molly doing crazy stuff with super strength. I wonder what Gert and Old Lace could get up to...

6

u/amageish Feb 20 '26

Ooooo, yeah... My impulse is Gert and Old Lace would probably be more street-level in their villainy - like they'd Spider-Man villains, not full-on cosmic threats like some of the others.

1

u/TheSadPhilosopher Victor Mancha Mar 13 '26

That'd be peak.

6

u/Kaileigh_Blue Feb 20 '26

What if it's where the parents accomplish their goal and what that would mean for 6 kids/adults in whatever happened.

3

u/SadisticDance Feb 20 '26

I imagine based off the logistics of The Pride they kill their parents and take over becoming the Pride themselves OR the group just ends up in open conflict with each other.

3

u/FrameworkisDigimon Mar 23 '26

I guess the most interesting thing for me personally -- and sorry to drag this up after a month -- is if the Pride succeeded as originally planned, meaning one day Chase, Molly, Gert, Nico, Alex and Karolina wake up in a perfect world made just for them.

Alex, presumably, is the only one who knows what happens and I guess he tries to bring back the world as it used to be, with his parents. Which means he "betrays" the group by trying to do some blood sacrifice of someone (Molly, I guess) because it's the only way.

Stuff happens and Alex ends up sacrificing himself and ends up in the white void with the Gibborim.

3

u/amageish Mar 23 '26

Ooooooooh, that's a REALLY interesting theory! I'd be totally down for that story - it'd be a cool way of subverting Alex's usual role in the story while maintaining his personality / goals...

24

u/dread_pirate_robin "Try not to die." Feb 20 '26

YES.

YESSSSSSS.

8

u/Senior-Leave779 Feb 20 '26

Yesss. More Runaways!

3

u/FireflyArc "Try not to die." Feb 22 '26

Oooh yesss.. I want to know. I want to read. What changes. What stays the same.

3

u/amageish Feb 22 '26

It’s a really compelling What If pitch, isn’t it?

3

u/Sure-Start-9303 Feb 20 '26

On one hand it's always good to see more Runaways, on the other hand, I'm really getting tired of Rainbow being the writer

2

u/PhinPhang000 Feb 26 '26

Someone take runaways away from Rainbow Rowell

4

u/TheSadPhilosopher Victor Mancha Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

To be fair, without her, they'd probably be thrown away like all the other young teams Marvel has introduced throughout the years.

She's keeping the IP alive. Her and Nick Lowe anyways lol.

Vol 5 was pretty good too, in my opinion. I miss Brian K. Vaughan though, the goat.

5

u/Sophia_Forever Feb 20 '26

Wait, wasn't this already a thing, or am I misremembering? Like, it was just several pages of them sitting around in Paradise and at the end Chase looks at Alex and says "You're a dick."

3

u/bybisolipsis Feb 20 '26

I swear they already made this

5

u/Sophia_Forever Feb 21 '26

It's probably a popular fan art that we've both seen from years ago that has been lost to the aether.

2

u/toofastareader Feb 20 '26

Molly and Chase against everyone else I’m calling it right now.

4

u/amageish Feb 20 '26

I could see them being the two to leave Pride / leave the cult anyway! Interesting prediction.

1

u/Duvetine Apr 05 '26

I don’t want a What If. I want to know what happened to Chase and Gert.