MyPokerShirt said:
I honestly expect another death within the next 2- 3 years. Possibly Xavin, although apparently certain things are "coming to a head" soon, so maybe Vaughn will have something set up that'll make me feel otherwise.I think Vaughn set the book up to show the harshness of life for runaways and young heroes as he thought it should be and i think death was an integral part of that. Weigh in the fact that a team of young runaways HAS to change sooner or later (unlike the avengers) due to its aim being to show young heroes and five years down the line CHase should be considered an adult (not that this means he has to leave, of course, it's just the same characters cannot go on forever in a book like this) cos I think he's... 17 at the moment? correct me if im wrong
2-3 years of issues is 24-36 issues so of course expecting something like that is common for a lot of books. I could argue most team books, especially nowadays, easily have some sort of major death within 36 issues. If they even last that long. Even (and especially) Ultimate books.
As for character ages, I wouldn't worry about it; Marvel Time passes way slower than "real time". I mean, Franklin Richards was born at the end of the 60's and he's not even 12. Peter Parker was introduced at 15-16 and no writer would DARE claim he's older than 26 now (because any character over 30 is downright ancient and needs to be either bald, immortal, or have gray at the temples). Most of the Power Pack have been around for over 25 years and have maybe aged 10. So I wouldn't worry about any of the Runaways "aging". If they're around for 5 more years, I doubt they'd be more than a year older. Characters only see large jumps in ages when they're off the stage for some time and then "speed grow". Kind of like soap operas. The kid'll "go off to boarding school" and then return 10 years older.
I think people are panicking talking of cancellation. It's well-known that many higher-ups plug this book. Theyre obvously fans. Why plug books you like, especially ones that can benefit from civil war tie-ins and new creative teams?
We're paniccing because the creator who launched it is also an incredible talent that we don't want to leave, although the news that he "picked his successor" is good news. Plus, Marvel has historically mistreated even HOT books with shakey creative changes, much less books hovering in the Top 90's of the sales charts. The tiniest of transfer slip-ups or drop offs can spell curtains for the book.
Just because Marvel's writers, editors, etc like a book doesn't mean it can be spared the axe. Hell, I'm amazed MTU made it 25 issues. I still think that was some sort of payback to Kirkman for MARVEL ZOMBIES.
In my case, RUNAWAYS has been something of a rock for me at Marvel; whenever other books sucked or were late, or whenever the editorial decisions blew, it was always there, on time and always great with terrific characters and twisting stories. A change of creative team means that status could change, which naturally makes people nervous.
Colossal Spoons said:
I hate th relaunch scheme. I want to see my titles reach high numbers as it adds some history to it. I know the last arc ended in a kind of "Rebirth" kind of way but there was no need to relaunch.
True, and for many longtime ongoing titles, a relaunch and renumbering works on sales for the short term but after enough time it just reverts back to it's old sales anyway. For instance, IRON MAN is selling about the same as it was 5 years ago now, when they had the old numbering. But somtimes when the issue is some hot "number" like issue #100 or #500 under the old numbering, they switch back. I see it as one of Marvel's many tactics where they attempt to have it both ways.
