How Hulu’s Runaways took its fresh look at superheroes directly from the comics

Superheroes are a huge part of the 21st century pop culture landscape, but the characters spotlighted in TV and film generally weren’t actually created in the 21st century. Virtually every major DC and Marvel superhero project has been built around characters or teams created before the new millennium. They’re mostly older, well-known properties, which encourages showrunners and filmmakers to stick to old formulas and familiar character points. The resulting products can look fairly homogenized. Netflix’s Marvel series and The CW’s DC lineup have their individual charms, but they don’t deviate much in tone or structure.

But the exceptions have been memorable. When Jessica Jones debuted in the pages of Marvel Comics’ Alias in 2001, she wasn’t much of a hero at all. While she had superpowers, she’d given up a costumed life to be a hard-drinking, self-destructive private investigator. The superhero-tinged crime noir of her comic didn’t need many changes to translate into aTV show, and her distance from the usual superhero conventions makes Jessica Jones a standout of Netflix and Marvel’s partnership. With Hulu’s Runaways, another property created after 2000, Marvel Television makes a similarly smooth transition to the screen. The comic’s guiding principles are at play in the TV adaptation by The O.C. and Gossip Girl’s Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.

The Runaways never reached Avengers or X-Men status in the comics. They aren’t a big-name superhero team, but they have developed a passionate fanbase. Many of those fans came from digest-sized collections, which made the comic easily available in bookstores and libraries. It helped that the series downplayed superhero elements in favor of YA storytelling. Creator Brian K. Vaughan set the comic in a superhero universe, but made his characters feel like ordinary people. They had no preexisting connections to other Marvel heroes, and they were physically distanced from the main action of the Marvel Universe by living in Los Angeles.

Runaways is the most autonomous project in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first four chapters of the 13-episode first season don’t reference events in the Marvel movies, and unlike Netflix’s Marvel shows (Daredevil, The Punisher, The Defenders, and so forth), it’s not part of a larger project that’s planned around eventually forcing these characters into a crossover miniseries. This autonomy is the most important aspect of Runaways’ first story arc, which became the foundation of the TV series. In a superhero comic industry that prioritizes established IP over original concepts, Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona created a brand new group of characters in their own corner of the Marvel Universe.

In the tradition of Marvel icons like Spider-Man and the X-Men, Runaways uses the superhero genre to explore the trials and thrills of adolescence. It puts a fantasy spin on a common teenage feeling: teenagers generally think their parents are awful, but what if they’re actually evil? The concept’s simplicity is part of its brilliance. In the pilot, a group of teenagers runs away after seeing their parents murder a young woman in a mysterious ceremony. As the kids investigate, they discover extraordinary abilities and acquire cool gadgets, mystical objects, and a pet dinosaur with a nose ring.

Vaughan made the jump to television (writing for Lost, executive producing the Stephen King adaptation Under The Dome) after building a strong reputation in comics, and his understanding of both comics and television make him a valuable resource for Hulu’s Runaways. Credited as an executive consultant, Vaughan worked directly with the show’s creators, helping them make decisions that enrich his original story without compromising its vision or spirit. The show makes some necessary changes so it can sustain a series, primarily by giving the parents much more time in the spotlight. By fleshing out the individual family dynamics, the series deepens the central conflict.

Runaways was originally in development as a film that would have been an earlier entry in the MCU. Developing this superhero world over the course of years let Marvel Studios and Marvel Television give the Runaways TV show a deeper connection to other properties, not through explicit story ties, but through genre influences. Narratively, Runaways stands apart from other Marvel films and series, but it still benefits from the framework established by those projects.

The Guardians Of The Galaxy films expanded the MCU’s cosmic landscape, opening the door for Runaways’ alien characters. The crime elements of Marvel’s Netflix shows make their way into the narrative courtesy of Geoffrey Wilder (Ryan Sands), a former gangster turned real-estate mogul. The experimental medicine and technology responsible for characters like Captain America, Hulk, and Iron Man are intrinsic to genius inventor Victor Stein (James Marsters) and geneticists Dale and Stacey Yorkes (Kevin Weisman and Brigid Brannagh), who have a dinosaur hidden in their house. Doctor Strange introduced the magical side of the MCU, and while Runaways is forced to present sorcery as advanced science because of Marvel Television’s “no magic” rule, the existence of genuine magic in the MCU informs scenes like Nico (Lyrica Okano) trying to commune with her dead sister’s spirit.

Marvel Comics stories tend to be set around New York City, and setting Runaways in Los Angeles gave the comic a breezier vibe. The show goes even further into the L.A. environment, making one of the parents the head of a Scientology-like church that preaches a message of light and self-love, but also kills teenagers it pulls off the streets. The setting also gives Runaways’ costume and set design a chance to depart from the Marvel norm. Runaways’ characters didn’t wear superhero costumes in the comic; they had wardrobes tailored to their personalities, and their clothes changed over time. The specificity of Alphona’s fashion design gives the TV show’s costume designers, Meredith Markworth-Pollack and Samantha Rattner, a strong foundation for the characters’ on-screen looks.

That unconventional approach to character design visually distinguished Runaways from other superhero comics. The teenagers’ styles from the comic’s initial 2003 run might feel dated now, so the designers pulled inspiration from more teen archetypes, like having the goth Nico (Lyrica Okano) lean into a Lorde-witch aesthetic rather than her Gothic Lolita fashion from the comics. Gertrude (Ariela Barer) wears a jacket emblazoned with “DO NOT DISTURB ME” on the back,accentuating her antagonistic attitude. And putting a pussy hat on her adopted sister, Molly (Allegra Acosta), is a clever way of reinterpreting her cute animal hats from the comics, while connecting her to Gertrude’s feminist point of view.

Brett Morgen is a surprising choice of director for the Runaways pilot, given that his film and TV experience has been exclusively documentaries (The Kids Stay In The Picture, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, this year’s Jane), but his involvement shows how dedicated the series is to the comics’ grounded point of view. Morgen’s documentarian eye for detail is especially valuable for creating a strong sense of place for the teenagers’ homes —especially their individual bedrooms. Nico’s room is decorated with black furniture, sketches of monsters, and creepy figurines. Church girl Karolina (Virginia Gardener) is surrounded by pink and elegant, clean decor, situating her as a paragon of princess-like femininity. Morgen sets the visual template with the pilot, and future directors follow his lead by providing multiple establishing shots of each location and framing shots to spotlight various environmental details, working with the design team to make these spaces distinct and reflective of the people who live in them.

These individual rooms also help establish the characters’ privileged lifestyle, which turns out to be built on murder and lies. Isolated on the West Coast, these kids don’t have any superheroes to rescue them from their supervillain parents. The Runaways formula requires this isolation, allowing the characters to establish themselves as unique inhabitants of an underexplored area of this superhero universe. It’s why this show is such a refreshing take on the genre. The key to unlocking the deeper potential of superhero media lies in finding new perspectives on the genre, now that other properties have laid the groundwork. The themes of superhero stories can be applied to more than standard costumed showdowns for the fate of the world. And Runaways’ success at trying something new — both in the comics, and on the screen — suggests studios can draw a lot of new energy from current creations, instead of sticking to legacy characters that have been around for decades.