Runaways : Dead End Kids

Runaways: Dead End Kids, by Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan, hardcover, 152 pages, Marvel Comics, list price: $19.99

Five years ago, this group of super-powered children defeated their supervillain parents and headed out on their own. Though they’d prefer to be superheroes, they’re too frightened by the war raging in the Marvel universe over meta-human registration to announce themselves publicly. The Japanese witch Minoru leads her spunky crew of outcasts — Karolina, a girl made of cosmic energy; Chase Stein, who has a mental link with a futuristic dinosaur; Victor, a young cyborg; Xavin, an alien; and Molly, a tiny girl with superstrength — as they pull a heist for an evil mastermind, bungle their escape and end up in the year 1907. Whedon’s wondrously colorful mix of goofiness and morality is ever present. ("How could I know he didn’t have powers?" asks little Molly guiltily after decking the Punisher.) And so is his always irreverent point of view. Suspicious of the adults around them, these independent-minded upstarts want to make their own way in life but, like most kids, they’re prisoners of the ridiculous world their parents have made.