(Some of the best modern comics do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sideways, glossing stories we already know: It is a thrillingly wised-up medium now.) What would you do if you learned your dad was Lex Luthor or Dr. And the plot - six kids discover their parents are a Legion of Doom-type supervillain squad controlling Los Angeles, and so take off - is brilliant, if you like comics or have any anxieties about Southern California.

OK, the art in Volume 1 (by Adrian Alphona, who can make a corner mailbox look nostalgic and deeply cool) is also pretty great. Runaways is full of real-life moments like that - stuff I turn to non-word-balloon genres for. A female villain turns to a female hero with irritation: 'That's why we're not running the world, huh? 'Cause when women see a younger version of us, it just makes us angry.' 11, ) of Runaways, a male hero and villain realize they're a lot alike and can stop trying to pound each other. (This is my pep talk, part of how I work through the guilt of thinking Vaughan writes the most crackling dialogue in the pop world.)Īn example: In issue 29 (OK - Volume 2, No. This was in a way a superhero story: one man bringing lightness to millions. Vaughan left the final year (haunted by an aspirational ghost: It wasn't his own show), and the comedy got lost with him. He's what made Seasons 3 through 5 of Lost so terrific. It's going to be a movie soon, at which point I will feel slightly less guilty. More specifically, BKV's - his fan name - brilliant graphic novel (OK, all right: his comic book) Runaways. My guilty pleasure is one which culture keeps telling me I can drop the guilt about: comics.

Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan