Rising Stars, Runaways

One more new comic for the week:

Runaways 16

The kids share a Christmas dinner magicked up by Nico’s new bloodless powers.  Still a horrible idea!  Doombot steals the show, with a multitude of perfect one-liners.

Rising Stars 1-10

I’m pretty sure this was my first exposure to J. Michael Straczynski’s work.  Before that, I knew him as the Babylon 5 guy, and I only recognized that show because it was “the show that Neil Gaiman wrote an episode of.”  

113 kids from the same town are born with superpowers.  They discover that if one of them dies, their power is distributed to the survivors.  Things go south. It’s an idea that’s been done before and since. (Unfollow is the one that springs to mind, but with money instead of superpowers.)

Straczynski approaches the story through the “how would this happen in real life” lens, which basically involves a lot of government interference.  It’s a focus that he’ll use again with Supreme Power.

I like how he takes his time developing the story.  He uses the first act, the initial eight issues, to present a wide cross section of the 113 stars - their childhoods, their interpersonal dynamics, and how they developed and used their powers.  He ends it with a flashpoint, setting up for a jump ten years into the future.

It’s an effective start, and I couldn’t help but think about how he’s giving his story the time to develop and finish.  It’s the opposite of all the writers I’ve been complaining about in previous posts.  Past me quit reading after 10 issues, and I don’t know why. I immediately bought the two remaining trades after I put the last issue down.  Looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.

Oh, and I’ve never forgotten the final two pages of issue five, illustrating the powers of a guy who can talk with the dead.  Such a fun use of the comic book medium.

Printed on the same page back to back.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good