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Runaways (2025) #1
Runaways (2025) #1
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BREAK A FAMILY? Superstar writer Rainbow Rowell (SHE-HULK) returns to the Runaways with visionary artist Elena Casagrande (BLACK WIDOW, BLADE) for a new chapter…but Marvel's best and scrappiest found family has seen better days! Nico Minoru has lost her girlfriend, her best friend and her magic. With Karolina, Chase and Alex all out of the picture, Gert's doing her best to shake the remaining Runaways out of running on autopilot. But when Doctor Doom tries to reclaim one of their own - Doombot! - it's time to start running…
32 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 11, 2025
2 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Rainbow Rowell
138 books141k followersRainbow Rowell writes all kinds of stuff.
Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS, LANDLINE, SLOW DANCE).
Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK, FANGIRL) .
Sometimes — actually, a lot of the time — she writes about lovesick vampires and guys with dragon wings. (THE SIMON SNOW TRILOGY).
Recently, she’s been writing comics, including her first graphic novel, PUMPKINHEADS, and the monthly SHE-HULK comic for Marvel.
She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
More at rainbowrowell.com.
Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS, LANDLINE, SLOW DANCE).
Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK, FANGIRL) .
Sometimes — actually, a lot of the time — she writes about lovesick vampires and guys with dragon wings. (THE SIMON SNOW TRILOGY).
Recently, she’s been writing comics, including her first graphic novel, PUMPKINHEADS, and the monthly SHE-HULK comic for Marvel.
She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
More at rainbowrowell.com.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 12, 2025
My Runaways have come back to me!!! Rainbow Rowell’s Runaways are the best. I wouldn’t even be into comics today without them. I really wish they were sticking around for more than five issues (Marvel please please pretty please I am begging!!).
July 19, 2025
Rainbow Fucking Rowell killing it again with Marvel Comics. Another great issue from this ragtag team.
September 29, 2025
I will admit that I have not read any of the Runaways. I have heard nothing but good things and I am really enjoying this Doom event so I said now is the time. Man, I see why people love this series. I was immediately sucked in. The writing is so good and I laughed several times. Glad that I am finally seeing what all the hype was about.
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August 17, 2025IN RAINBOW ROWELL WE TRUST!!!!! Marvel please make this an ongoing, I can’t handle a miniseries…I NEED THEM BACK SO BAD!!!!!
June 12, 2025
The only characters in this I’m familiar with are Doombot and Victor Mancha due to their appearances in She-Hulk, and an alternate universe version of Nico Minoru created by Peach Momoko… kind of a weird introduction to the Runaways, I knew they existed but I didn’t really know what their deal was. I only bought the comic because it’s written by Rainbow Rowell and I liked her run if She-Hulk. They seen cool though, like they have a wonderfully complicated and spotty 22 year history of publication since their debut in 2003. I might dive down the rabbit hole and make it so I actually care know and care about all these characters on this beautiful variant cover I got, done by W. Scott Forbes.
June 21, 2025
I don't think Rainbow Rowell can recapture the magic of the original run of Runaways. Sure, part of the problem is that we're dealing with a different generation of readers, now. The original run of Runaways was more than 20 years ago. Maybe 25? I could look it up, but I'll move on.
It was a mistake to pair Nico with Karolina. There was more value to depicting a queer person crushing on a cishet person. Years later, having Nico change her mind and decide she wants to date the lesbian alien after all was just... somebody's wish fulfillment. It didn't make sense in-universe (Nico had only been attracted to guys up until that point), and it didn't serve a broader narrative purpose. I was a queer person who crushed on straights into my twenties, so I appreciated having that dynamic represented in comics. Making Nico miraculously queer after all isn't realistic. My teenage, and then early 20s, crushes did not suddenly become gay for me, just because I wanted them to.
The current team is a bit too ragtag. Nico doesn't have her Staff-of-One anymore. Chase left, Karolina left, and Alex is dead (and evil). Then we have some newer additions that everybody only has mixed feelings about. Doombot is literally a machine, and it is a little unclear to what degree he is sentient; he is kind of just the same joke over and over again. He is a robot, and even knows that he is a robot, but he loves to shout "I am Doom." Gib is a particularly frustrating character, representing the gods that the original Pride made deals with, but Gib himself hardly ever uses his powers and spends most of his time insisting that all he can eat is a sacrifice. Victor Mancha has been with the team so long, he is practically one of the original members, so he is the best new recruit of the lot.
The team is just feeling really down on itself after losing some of its key members and some of its magical firepower. Which makes it all the more galling that there are still SOME superhumans living in a cave, minding their own business, not particularly affiliated with any brand of crimefighting.
A lot of the pathos of the original series is gone, and it's bad. One of my favorite scenes from any comic, ever, was from an old comic when Molly asked their sentient car (long story) about where Gert was (at a time when Gert had recently been murdered). Initially, the machine told Molly that Gert's body was buried six feet beneath the earth behind the Hollywood sign. When Molly protested that she meant Gert's soul, not her body, we saw the machine decide to lie to Molly. It gave a correction, saying that Gert's location was determined to be: Heaven.
It was sweet and sad and meaningful.
... And, now, Gert is back. Her meaningful death was undone through time travel shenanigans. In fact, there were two Gerts. One is a younger version, now alive and well and living with the rest of the crew, while an older Gert from the future claimed Chase and took him to the future with her.
If you love Gert, maybe that's great. You get more Gert for your buck. But if you loved the bittersweet story from 20 years ago, this is worse. Now we're just dealing with some kind of imitation group of Runaways, even with some of the original cast still in the mix.
It was a mistake to pair Nico with Karolina. There was more value to depicting a queer person crushing on a cishet person. Years later, having Nico change her mind and decide she wants to date the lesbian alien after all was just... somebody's wish fulfillment. It didn't make sense in-universe (Nico had only been attracted to guys up until that point), and it didn't serve a broader narrative purpose. I was a queer person who crushed on straights into my twenties, so I appreciated having that dynamic represented in comics. Making Nico miraculously queer after all isn't realistic. My teenage, and then early 20s, crushes did not suddenly become gay for me, just because I wanted them to.
The current team is a bit too ragtag. Nico doesn't have her Staff-of-One anymore. Chase left, Karolina left, and Alex is dead (and evil). Then we have some newer additions that everybody only has mixed feelings about. Doombot is literally a machine, and it is a little unclear to what degree he is sentient; he is kind of just the same joke over and over again. He is a robot, and even knows that he is a robot, but he loves to shout "I am Doom." Gib is a particularly frustrating character, representing the gods that the original Pride made deals with, but Gib himself hardly ever uses his powers and spends most of his time insisting that all he can eat is a sacrifice. Victor Mancha has been with the team so long, he is practically one of the original members, so he is the best new recruit of the lot.
The team is just feeling really down on itself after losing some of its key members and some of its magical firepower. Which makes it all the more galling that there are still SOME superhumans living in a cave, minding their own business, not particularly affiliated with any brand of crimefighting.
A lot of the pathos of the original series is gone, and it's bad. One of my favorite scenes from any comic, ever, was from an old comic when Molly asked their sentient car (long story) about where Gert was (at a time when Gert had recently been murdered). Initially, the machine told Molly that Gert's body was buried six feet beneath the earth behind the Hollywood sign. When Molly protested that she meant Gert's soul, not her body, we saw the machine decide to lie to Molly. It gave a correction, saying that Gert's location was determined to be: Heaven.
It was sweet and sad and meaningful.
... And, now, Gert is back. Her meaningful death was undone through time travel shenanigans. In fact, there were two Gerts. One is a younger version, now alive and well and living with the rest of the crew, while an older Gert from the future claimed Chase and took him to the future with her.
If you love Gert, maybe that's great. You get more Gert for your buck. But if you loved the bittersweet story from 20 years ago, this is worse. Now we're just dealing with some kind of imitation group of Runaways, even with some of the original cast still in the mix.
July 21, 2025
rowell does not disappoint when it comes to writing good and realistic dialogue between characters
i didn’t realize runaways was from a pre-existing series so i lost a lot of context reading this alone, despite researching beforehand. i’ll definitely be continuing to read since i did enjoy it but maybe i need to go back to the older series also 😅
i didn’t realize runaways was from a pre-existing series so i lost a lot of context reading this alone, despite researching beforehand. i’ll definitely be continuing to read since i did enjoy it but maybe i need to go back to the older series also 😅
June 13, 2025
So glad this series gets another volume from Rainbow Rowell. She set up so many great plot points in her pervious run that never got to resolve.
June 15, 2025
i enjoyed this but also feeling like maybe i need to have read previous runaways books to understand exactly whats going on…
June 19, 2025
ecstatic to see my friends again :')
September 16, 2025
So great to have the Runaways back, especially with Rowell at the helm :-)
September 17, 2025
4.25
Good start! Glad Rowell is back.
Good start! Glad Rowell is back.
September 23, 2025
Estoy muy feliz por tener a mis Runaways de vuelta <3
September 28, 2025
Delightful.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews