What I Bought 11/1/2025 - Part 1

I ended up driving a lot on that trip with Alex. His car, while nice, started to get on my nerves after a while. It would keep flashing warnings on the dash that I wasn't paying enough attention, often based on no criteria I could discern. The kicker was when Alex would unbuckle his seatbelt and it would instruct me, "fasten passenger seat belt," like it was my responsibility. Car, if you think I wasn't paying much attention before, wait until I try to drive and buckle a grown man's seat belt at the same time.

Here's the last two issues of a mini-series.

Runaways #4 and 5, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Elena Casagrande and Roberta Ingranata (artists), Lee Ferguson (artist, issue 4 only), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - Wow, Doombot's riding public transportation. I'm sure it's just a show of solidarity for the excellent Doombus line, but how the mighty have fallen.

So, Nico teleported most of the cast to one of Gert's parents' "getaway cottages," aka, a big, honking mansion Gert and Chase used as a makeout spot. Which feels oddly pedestrian for Gert, to act so typically teenager, but whatever. Nico and Gert try to test Nico's magic, but it only seems to work when she holds Gert's hand. So Nico's a magic conduit and Gert's a reservoir? (We aren't given a conclusive answer.)

Chase, Karolina and Alex show up, because Molly was posting on "Clikclok" and texting Chase their location. Chase immediately starts casting blame at, well, everyone, and starts trying to dismiss Victor's opinion as though he doesn't get a say. At least this time everyone else pushes back instead of the original six closing ranks, but Chase is behaving like a dick to most of them as well, which probably explains it. It's nice to see time in an apparently awful future didn't help Chase mature into anyone I'd find less irritating.

Doombot leaves, feeling it's best for the kids, but the other Doombots are still hunting them for defying Emperor Doom. Except it turns out Doom's magic was powered by the suffering of Latveria's citizens, including the children, so the Runaways' Doombot ain't having that, and comes back, where the kids are basically winning already.

So, end results of this mini-series: Doombot stays. Nico has a new way to magic, and Gert has something going on that'll need to be explained. (Also, it seemed like Karolina was about to tell Nico something about the Staff, but never finished her sentence.) Chase is still grouchy, and Alex is allowed a seat at the table. Again. I'm sure that won't go horribly. Again.

(It's sadly predictable that Alex yells at Nico and Chase they need a plan beyond staying alive, but has no actual plan of his own, beyond "teamwork." He's the dumbest character in the Marvel Universe that acts like they're a genius.)

Three different artists for a 5-issue mini-series. Sigh. I couldn't really piece together a distinct rhyme or reason for who drew what, but nobody's art style is so wildly different that it throws the look of the book off (and credit to Dee Cunniffe for helping maintain a consistent look with a color scheme that felt like it ran heavily to cool or dark colors.)

Ferguson likes circular panels more than Casagrande or Ingranata; there are none in issue 5, but three in the span of 7 pages in issue 4. And the art in that part is less heavily shaded than Casagrande's (who seems to like a thicker line and some hatching across the bridge of characters' noses), but more consistent and detailed than Ingranata (who struggles the most with panel-to-panel consistency and goes much simpler with faces most of the time.) Overall the art is fine, but it's not a selling point of the book.