BATTLEWORLDBATTLEWORLD

ROUND 2, BATTLE 7

Follow the bracket here!

MARVEL ZOMBIES #1-2

VS

RUNAWAYS #1-2

At this point in Battleworld, old-school Marvel readers have come to the conclusion that none of the 48 spin-off titles mean a damn thing in the overall narrative. Is this a big deal? To most Marvel readers, maybe. Your average Marvel fan is still probably buying at least a couple Marvel titles month after month that they don’t really enjoy because they fit in somehow to the overall Marvel universe. If they thought about it for a second, they would agree that this isn’t the smartest use of their time or their money, but it’s the way they (we) were raised, and we’re used to it. It’s probably the same reasoning that half of the people who saw Ant-Man last weekend used when they bought their tickets. “This looks stupid, but I’ve seen the other eleven movies, so what the hell.” There’s something nerdily cool about being in on a shared universe. It’s the same reason you love all of your family members, even though some of them are the worst and you would never be acquaintances with most of them if you just met them today. But it’s your shared universe, and you appreciate the fact that you have one. By removing the universe that we’re used to, and then throwing 48 shared unshared universes at us with Battleworld, Marvel has officially taken that away from us, forcing us to just focus on each team of storytellers, and the stories they tell. Imagine if there was no such thing as a sequel to a movie, but every movie had to at some point mention D.W. Griffith, someone whose work the characters appreciate, despite the fact that he was probably evil.

But, judging stories individually, as opposed to how they push a giant overarching narrative forward, isn’t the end of the world, even for comic book readers. We’re no longer looking to see how the characters are different from the ones we already knew and tolerated, but instead making sure that whatever we learned about them in the first issue stays consistent in the second. If I was going to argue why Battleworld was great, and not whine about another two months of it keeping me from my 616, I would say that this feels more like reading non-mainstream miniseries. Instead of asking myself whether or not I should buy the next issue based on how much its ripple effect could change the universe as a whole, I have to admit that it won’t, and decide whether or not I just want to know about this particular story. This story and no other one. Just the one I’m holding in my hands. That’s something that many Battleworld titles have mishandled so far, coasting on mediocrity because they know people will buy spinoffs no matter what. Unfortunately – no, wait – FORTUNATELY I have a bit of a problem on my hands, because I’m tasked with choosing from two titles who place GodDoom and his Battleworld in the background, and tell stories that I need to finish.

Marvel Zombies was a trendy book a decade ago, about Marvel zombies for Marvel zombies. It was Marvel’s Rock Band video game: take a surprise hit, churn out countless sequels, make it so nobody ever wants to hear about it again. Runaways was a hit of a different nature. Marvel let Brian K. Vaughn create his own team in the 616, that way he could fuck around with them however he wanted, and fuck with them he did. He did it so well, in fact, that when he left, not even the God of the Nerds himself could keep the train rolling. For reasons both good and bad, both books are very “of their era,” and repurposing them for today’s audiences, and today’s giant crossover, would seem difficult. It would take two writers closing their eyes, realizing exactly what was important about those books, and about Battleworld, and trashing the rest. And that’s exactly what happened.

Marvel Zombies #2 (the first issue destroyed Mrs Deadpool and the Howling Commandos in Round 1) continues the story of monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone and a crying little bald child who worries about everything, as they make their way back home after getting lost outside of the Shield, a barrier that keeps the zombies away from the “normal” people who live in the million different worlds of battle. Their dynamic is basically Lucy and Charlie Brown, if Lucy somehow became an adult while Charlie Brown didn’t, although Elsa isn’t quite the horrible asshole Lucy is. Lucy sucks so much that she’s essentially Peggy if there was a King of the Hill Babies cartoon. Elsa’s not that bad. She’s a little rough, but she’s working on it, and she had a mean dad, so lay off. Charlie Brown is the perfect foil, because his incessant bitching (now I’m starting to sound like Elsa) allows us to see the person Elsa is, and the person she wants to become. In the meantime, zombies and Doom and Angel and Shield and blah blah, but we’ve already accepted that nobody cares. The only thing that even has a chance of earning the reader’s feelies is how Elsa makes it out of this mess. Elsa Bloodstone, a character that is unimportant in the 616. Elsa Bloodstone, a seemingly unimportant character in the grand scheme of Battleworld. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how shit is supposed to work.

Runaways, on the other hand, has to do this not just with one character, but with seven or eight. Impossible to do in two issues, no? Well, writer Noelle Stevenson doesn’t bat a thousand, but she does go six for eight or so, and in two issues of a story that doesn’t matter, that’s impressive. There’s a couple ways to go about making sure readers care about an entire team of kids.

POWER BOXES

I don’t know if these have a technical name, but that’s what I’m calling them here. Boom. One panel. One power box. We know the character’s name, where they came from, and what their powers are. Easy peasy.

NEW FRIENDS

Most of the people who will eventually become our Battleworld Runaways know of each other, but they aren’t close. Getting them together seems like an extra step that the story may not need or have time for, because now they all have to meet each other, and then the action can start, as opposed to just hitting the gas immediately. That’s true, but this way we get to know the characters as they get to know each other. Stevenson is very clearly trading some action for some character development, and if you chill, it’ll make the action that much sweeter. Trust me. Fine, don’t trust me. But trust Noelle Stevenson. I mean, hell. She writes Lumberjanes.

There’s a green character with snake hair that has been given nothing to do. And another character dies in the second issue, which will force the reluctant leader to take his or her spot at the helm. Those two aside, you’re left with the jock, the nerd, the weirdo, the princess, and the rebel. And Molly from the original Runaways. And the jock is a Hulk. And the whole first issue details how they met in detention. Score.

If the first issue is The Breakfast Club, then the second issue is Battle Royale, because these are the steps that kids need to go through to understand things. But through it all, the creative team knows that although the action and the twists are important, the team dynamic is what matters.

Molly is on the team, and it is a bunch of kids on the run, but the main attachment between the Battleworld Runaways and the 616 Runways is the overarching theme, that the last part of growing up is finding out that your authority figures are fallible. In both cases, very, very fallible, but such is comics. That’s an attachment that doesn’t require you to know anything about the original Runaways. Stevenson didn’t throw a slight twist onto already established characters. She grabbed the heart of the original and then created her own thing. Her Runaways is to Vaughn’s Runaways as the Fargo television show is to the movie. She created her own characters and story, but kept what was important, not what original readers may or may not have demanded. The first issue of Runways had a lot on its plate, and barely beat Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo’s Weirdworld in Round One of Battleworld Battleworld. But the second issue makes the first one shine in ways it may not have appeared during the first read. Elsa Bloodstone and Charlie Brown have a tough road ahead of them, and I’ll be with them every step of the way, but it’s the Runaways of Battleworld that are moving on to the sweet 16, where they will be taking on either E is for Extinction or Squadron Sinister.