The Loners
Using less of your powers does not make you powerless.
— Tagline
The Loners was a Marvel Comics miniseries written by C.B. Cebulski and drawn by Karl Moline.
Spinning off from Runaways, it tells the story of Excelsior, a support group for former teen superheroes, as they deal with a handful of supervillains and their own personal problems.
Originally planned as a twelve-issue series, it was cancelled after just six issues.
This series contains examples of:
- Bad "Bad Acting": It's implied that Julie can't act to save her life.
- "The Breakfast Club" Poster Homage: All the covers are homages to John Hughes films, and the first one has the characters pose like the poster of The Breakfast Club.
- Blood Knight: Darkhawk is constantly itching for a fight.
- Call-Back: The mini-series references Mattie's guest appearance in Alias, the events of Civil War (2006), and the death of Hornet at the hands of a brainwashed Wolverine.
- C-List Fodder: Played with. The entire team is made up of characters nobody else was using, and Darkhawk and Mattie nearly get killed by Nekra Sinclair, one of Spider-Woman's old enemies.
- Collateral Angst: Julie gets brutally stabbed by Hollow for no other reason than to give Johnny something to angst about.
- Cute Mute: Hollow actually does speak at one or two points during the miniseries, but is otherwise mute.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Mattie Franklin was horribly, horribly exploited by an ex-boyfriend who harvested her for MGH.
- The Ditz: Julie has worked hard to make herself appear to be an airheaded wannabe actress.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The series opens with Phil Urich pleading with Julie Power not to jump...
- Drama Queen: Julie Power does constant drama as a way of making people less curious about the things she'd rather not talk about.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Lightspeed almost blurts out that she'd totally do Turbo if the opportunity came up.
- Former Child Star: The main characters are all former teen superheroes. Some of them miss it badly, particularly Lightspeed, who's never really known any other kind of life.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Julie gets brutally stabbed by Hollow and ends up in the hospital, which is not good for her because she doesn't want her family to know what she's up to. Luckily, she manages to heal quickly enough to flee before her family is contacted.
- Japanese Politeness: After the team runs afoul of Fujikawa Industries (which has been harvesting Mutant Growth Hormone from former superheroes and supervillains), Mickey, who is of Japanese descent, uses Japanese Politeness with Fuyumi Fujikawa to prevent her team from getting their asses kicked by Fujikawa's mooks.
- The Mole: Mattie Franklin was hired to spy on Ricochet and find out what he knows about Dusk's disappearance.
- My Greatest Failure: Ricochet is haunted by his decision not to back up his best buddy Hornet on what sounded like a wild goose chase... and ended up being a fatal encounter with a mind-controlled Wolverine.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Julie's apparent ditziness is all an act to cover up the fact that she's having a lot of problems adjusting to life on her own.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mattie delivers one to the whole group at the end of the miniseries, informing them that they're all so determined to avoid using their powers that they've basically forgotten what it means to be heroes, before walking away in disgust.
- Robot Girl: Namie the Red Ronin.
- Shout-Out: All six of the covers are based on movie posters from the 80's (all written and/or directed by John Hughes):
- Issue 1 = The Breakfast Club
- Issue 2 = Ferris Bueller's Day Off
- Issue 3 = Weird Science
- Issue 4 = Pretty in Pink
- Issue 5 = Some Kind of Wonderful
- Issue 6 = Sixteen Candles
- Spin-Off: The miniseries is a spinoff of Runaways.
- Stalker with a Crush: Phil Urich, towards Mickey.
- Starts with a Suicide: Played with. The first issue opens with a distraught-looking Julie about to jump off a building, but it turns out that she just really, really wanted to fly.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Excelsior basically functions as one of these, with suiting up or using your powers being the equivalent of "falling off the wagon".
- Villain Reveals the Secret: The comic ends with Phil Urich, having made a complete Face–Heel Turn, revealing that Mickey had made a deal with Fujikawa Industries to allow them to harvest MGH from the members of Excelsior at some point in the future.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Both Chris and Phil are slowly being driven crazy by their respective power sources.
- Younger Than They Look: Julie is only seventeen, which may explain why she doesn't want her family to find out where she's living.
