Runaways (vol. 10): Rock Zombies

I wasn’t really blown away or fearsomly disappointed by writer Terry Moore’s first volume of “Runaways,” but I’m not sorry to see him depart the series three issues in to this volume.  What we have here is a bog-standard superhero plot where an evil DJ and his voodoo-priest buddy turn everyone in L.A. who has had plastic surgery into zombies.  It’s certainly not the worst plot I’ve heard, but it needed someone with a keener understanding of satire like Warren Ellis or Joss Whedon (who, incidentially, has written a volume of this series) to really make it click.  Ultimately we get some decent scenes of the kids being kids, and some fairly dull fight scenes that not even artist Takeshi Miyazawa can energize.  I’ve read worse, but this series has been so much better in the past that it’s hard not to come away disappointed.

Speaking of disappointment, the final full-length story in this collection (which is followed by a forgettable short by James Asmus and Emma Rios) has Molly going off to join the X-Men on Utopia.  That’s a good way to start the story, but her tenure on the island has her acting like a spoiled brat while the X-Men are too befuddled to know how to properly handle her.  Writer Chris Yost has done some good “X-Men” stories in the past, but this isn’t one of them as Molly’s tenure with the team turns out just about as you’d expect:  bad guys show up, Wolverine does his thing and has a nice tender moment with Molly and she learns an important lesson about life.  I can imagine Joss Whedon banging his head against the wall over the potential wasted in this issue, and I don’t blame him.

Finally, this collection of four issues will run you $15.  Like a lot of stuff I picked up at Comic-Con, paying half-price for this helped mitigate my disappointment.