Marvel's Runaways

It’s off to an incredibly compelling start, thanks to Schwartz and Strange’s confident storytelling, and should it keep moving forward at its current pace, it could become a truly addictive hit. As it is, it’s one of Marvel’s most promising series to date.

The Breakfast Club meets X-Men with a splash of Stranger Things thrown in, Marvel’s Runaways is the richest, best-realized Marvel drama of the new TV season.

There’s a deep vein of dark comedy here, a satire of point-one-percenters that deepens the more recognizable superpowered-teen melodrama.

While Runaways can still feel like a show written about teens by adults (here’s looking at you, #blessed selfies and rando man at a rager peddling pills by asking girls if they “want to party”), for the most part, Runaways demonstrates empathy for its characters by allotting them time and consideration beyond their most basic descriptors.

It succeeds by providing a fun mix of whimsy and gravitas that pays respect to its source material while also being compelling television.

So no, this Runaways isn’t a literal recreation of a beloved comic. But it works in its own right, and feels more fun and durable than a lot of its Marvel TV counterparts.

Runaways is no phony teen drama, and although the first episodes somewhat falter when trying to merge awkward angst and fascinating mythology, when it succeeds the show is as effective as any of Marvel’s other big-screen genre mash-ups.

It’s a cheeky, splashy and addictive coming-of-age adventure that feels at once fresh and comfortingly familiar.

Runaways maintains an appealing balance of accessible familiarity with a savvy sense of surprise, augmented by a strong cast. Most of all, it’s fun without being weighed down by the sense of self-importance that sometimes surrounds Marvel shows.

It remains to be seen where Runaways will go when the show really establishes what the powers of these teen heroes are--in these early episodes, it’s all the producers can do to simply sketch in the personalities of what is, when you add in the parents, a very large main cast. Right now, there’s a nice tension here between the ways adolescents often tend to isolate versus the ways they’re forced to come together as a team.

What Runaways has going for it is being better than the fall's other new Marvel shows.

The first two “Runaways” episodes offer an organized introduction to the kids — from jock to religious zealot — and their more intriguing parents in an entertaining enough fashion to make the show recommendable to anyone who hasn’t overdosed on comic book-based series already.

The problem is that series seems to take itself a bit too seriously. It could use a side of humor or an over-the-top quality. But these teens are mostly awkward, and while that could be charming, here it isn’t. Runaways doesn’t necessarily make you want to run away. It’s watchable enough, though not compelling.

Runaways has a deliberately enigmatic narrative that serves as a strong selling point as well as a frequent source of frustration.

Sometimes the sheer number of characters gets a bit unwieldy, and the interpersonal drama is less thrilling than the prospect of colorful superhero action (which goes mostly unfulfilled in the first four episodes). But the teen characters are likable and grounded, and worth watching even when they aren’t tapping into their superpowers.

Runaways could be great if it dug into the question of whether it’s possible to be a bad person and a good parent, a different take on leading a double life than is standard in superhero fare. But this first part of the season, at least, doesn’t seize that opportunity to stand out. Like most teenagers, Runaways just wants to fit in.

The series attempts to transpose ordinary pubescent strife onto an extraordinary framework, using relatable teen struggles to temper the plot's absurdity. But the resulting incongruity, between the magnitude of the teens' discovery and the playfulness of their subsequent detective work, leaves us waiting for these young people to realistically process what they've witnessed.

Unless you’re already a fan of the Marvel’s Runaways comic books, don’t expect to understand what’s going on here, or why you should keep watching Hulu’s singular take on an over-explored franchise.

Ultimately, Runaways seems a little too tentative for its own good--which is weird, given that the drama is about wielding power, for both good and ill.

A lot remains to be seen about Runaways, and it feels as if it may take a whole season just to set out the convoluted premise. By the end of Episode 4, no one’s even run away yet.