Runaways successfully brings the teen comic book to TV

The A.V. Club

“The beauty of the Runaways concept is that many teens already think of their parents as evil supervillains; for these particular teens, that’s not a metaphor, which gives their acts of adolescent rebellion tremendous dramatic stakes,” says Gwen Ihnat. “Runaways also throws together Breakfast Club-like archetypes—princess, jock, nerd, goth—in a blender and delights in how they collide with each other. The most valuable part of the series is how these not-yet adults somehow bring the best out in each other as they learn how to survive and create their own, vital family-of-choice, a bond that’s only more effective when it’s displayed on a more granular level in the TV show.”

ALSO:

• Runaways is blissfully free of superhero BS — despite its Marvel logo, it’s not a superhero show
• It’s able to move past the usual teen cliches
• The cast is quite good, but there are too many characters “that no one personal journey rises above the rest”
• Runaways is as confusing as it is slow, feeling like a meandering stroll than yet another unremarkable teen drama
• Runaways is like The O.C. of the superhero universe
• Co-creator Josh Schwartz first read Runaways as he was launching The O.C.