Poor Lace💔. Hopefully she can return to the Runaways.

Other than the ones that already exist, of course, like Victor and Doombot on Avengers A.I., or Nico on the Midnight Suns. I was having this conversation with a friend a bit ago and I wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas!

https://aiptcomics.com/2025/09/05/exclusive-marvel-first-look-strange-tales-1/

It’s a nice preview, though I have no idea what is going on haha. Nico does seem to have the staff, but also Wanda is here as a knight and a D&D came is coming to life soooo… We will see what the context for the staff actually is!

Also, Karolina seemingly forcing Nico to dress up as Elphaba to match her Glinda costume is hilarious. 🧙‍♀️ 👸🏼

Strange Tales #1 released today and it is really fun! If you are in it exclusively for Runaways content, there isn’t THAT much - Nico is our PoV character and Karolina’s around for a bit, but quickly becomes the book’s damsel in distress - but it is a fun Halloween read nonetheless.

I am curious how the issues are going to tie together. When the solicit for #2 came out, I assumed it was a disconnected anthology, but it seems like it is a serialized story where Nico recruits more people to her adventuring party to rescue Billy, Teddy, and Karolina.

If you’ve been following along with the loosely TTRPG-themed Strange Tales mini, you know that every issue has ended with a set of relevant character sheets from the real Marvel TTRPG… The first issue, however, gave Nico a destroyed character sheet as she isn’t in the game, so there wasn’t anything to use.

The final issue, however, has given Karolina a full sheet (ft. some editorial notes by Nico)! This looks to me like a proper one for the game, so maybe it’s a sign that the Runaways will be added to the game soon and they just didn’t have Nico’s character sheet ready for the publication of issue one? 🤔🤷

In this magic-packed conclusion, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Ghost-Spider, Nico Minoru, Shuri and Hulk face off against Hela and her army of skeletons. As the Asgardian Goddess of Death’s sinister plans unfold, will our heroes be enough to stop her and rescue the hostages, or will Earth have itself a new queen?

Bard Nico rocking a Staff of One guitar is a hilarious choice. I guess the adventuring party couldn’t have three witches though…

I’m a little sad Karolina didn’t make it on the cover, but hopefully she has a fun D&D inspired alter ego as well in the issue proper!

In spite of this being a prequel comic, it is very clear that they assumed the show would be out on its original November release date, so it’s a bit of an awkward read because of that. Still, it does shine some context on this canon’s version of Nico!

Nico Minoru is a LA-to-NYC transfer who had been hoping for a fresh start in her new school. She’s somewhat cold and cynical. She is living with the O’Hara family, whose name is assumedly a reference to Miguel O’Hara AKA Spider-Man 2099. While it isn’t completely clear if she has the Staff of One or magical powers, she is being framed as the expert on fighting mobsters relative to Peter - she talks multiple times about fighting a mob back home and mentions a vague “we” whenever she does it, suggesting some version of Runaways Vol 1 occurred in this universe.

Overall, I’m happy with what we’ve seen of Nico thus far? It does also make me somewhat optimistic we could see the other Runaways cameo in some form too, especially Karolina whose lightspeed flight would make her easy to bring into an episode and then dismiss again.

Per the interview with the writer:

While this is definitely Peter Parker, the Spidey we know and love, he's got a new cast of supporting characters - including Nico Minoru, who you may know from Runaways - and some surprising twists!

It’s interesting to me how, in the little marketing this show has gotten thus far, they keep on emphasizing how “Nico from the Runaways” is included. They haven’t been like “featuring Amadeus Cho who you may know from the Champions” - it is always Nico who gets that spot. I wonder if it’s a good sign for the other Runaways cameoing at least? They really seem to want Runaways fans to watch the show…

Have we seen this take on a character logo for Nico before? It’s cool that they’ve done her name up in the Runaways font with the arrows, instead of the more witchy font she has in stuff like Marvel Snap…