Trivia / Runaways

• Accidental Downer Ending: Twice!
  • The third series was supposed to end with an alternate-universe version of Gert joining the team, but the series was cancelled halfway through the final arc, and thus instead ended with Chase quitting the team and then getting hit by a car and ending up in the emergency room, with his teammates having no idea where he is. A later appearance in Daken retconned that Chase somehow survived the accident, made a full recovery, and rejoined the team, and they all just refuse to talk about everything that happened in that arc.
  • After months of dropping sales and with Rainbow Rowell having been tapped to write a new She-Hulk series, Runaways (Rainbow Rowell) ended with a Milestone Celebration. Having only one issue to resolve as many of the dangling plot threads as possible, the series ends with Chase being kidnapped by a version of Gert from the future, Karolina being taken away to space, ostensibly to be healed after losing her powers but unaware that her hosts plan to hand her over to her ex-fiancee Xavin, and the rest of the team feeling demoralized now that they've lost both The Heart and the Team Dad in a single night, while their former leader-turned-nemesis Alex Wilder is secretly monitoring them.
• Technology Marches On: The cell phones are positively ancient compared to today. Molly is given a cell phone at one point and excitedly asks "Does it have Tetris on it?!" Modern cell phones, even budget cell phones, have way more functionality than that.
• Tuckerization: Alex Wilder's evil parents Catherine and Geoffrey are named after the actual parents of Brian K. Vaughan (however, he swears he has no actual issues with either of them.) Also, Molly Hayes is named after his sister, Molly Hayes Vaughan.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The series went through a few changes before publication. One of the big ones was Nico Minoru's source of power. Originally, she found a book of dark magic hidden in a shed in her backyard. Being heavily Christian, she hated it but sacrificed her beliefs to use one of the spells during the first fight with the Pride. Some aspects of this were left, including her being a former altar girl and a comment when she first sees her parents as dark magicians ("This isn't like you, Mom! We go to church every Sunday!") Also, Chase's name was originally "John".
  • Joss Whedon's run on the series was supposed to be longer and involve the team travelling to other parts of the world. Unfortunately, Whedon's schedule caused a lengthy hiatus a few issues into his run, and Marvel insisted that the team had to participate in a Secret Invasion (2008) tie-in, and thus his run was truncated and the series was re-tooled.
  • Kathryn Immonen's run was supposed to end with an alternate-universe version of Gert Yorkes joining the team.