Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #12 – “Lost and Found (Part 2)”! In the previous issue, The Pride learns that some idiot lieutenant hired other superheroes to find their kids. Unhappy with this, they shoot the guy in the kneecap and decide to take matters into their own smelly hands.

Meanwhile, the kids have decided to venture outside to look for some real crimes that they can do-good about, but then they get hassled by Cloak and Dagger. Cloak absorbs four of them in his cloak – Alex, Nico, Karolina, and Chase – and detects no actual blood on any of their hands. Then Gert and Molly show up to tear Cloak and Dagger brand new b-holes. The finest b-holes in town.

Let’s get those b-holes torn up.

Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #12 [April, 2004]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“Lost and Found (Part 1)”

Van Nyus, California – 12:26am

“You know, it says a lot about my life that this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Dagger says as Gert and Molly stand there with Gert’s snarling dinosaur. Gert calls Dagger’s outfit “slutty”, to which Dagger readily admits that she has no self-respect. But she DOES have these bright sticks that she can fling and whatnot. Check it out! *fling*

One of these hits the dinosaur, which mostly just sends it into an irate tizzy. It appears that Dagger’s powers have no effect on the likes of prehistoric-type creatures! THWAP! That’s the sound of Dagger getting a torso full of dinosaur tail, sending her flying into a flagpole. “Easy, Old Lace,” says Gert. “She’s just a skinny little thing. We don’t want to break her in two…”

Cloak threatens death upon anyone who harms the skinny little thing. Molly cries for everyone to stop REIGNING BLOWS upon each other. “Just let our friends out of your ugly cape,” she yelps, tugging on it. Cloak warns that trying to pull it off is a futile exercise in stupidity and/or time-wastefulness plus maybe a little bit of arrogance and also MISPLACED FORTITUDE. “Not even a god has the strength to rend it from my–”

Whoops, it comes right off like a bedsheet. Cloak screams as blackness emanates from his chest, his arms, his eyeballs, and every orifice imaginable. Even the brand new b-hole.

Cloak looks like a total nerd now, stuttering, sweating in his denim.

GUH! GUH! BUH! BUH! Where’s your inhaler, loser?

Molly apologizes to the guy; she didn’t know he wasn’t a monster. Cloak has reverted to the complete twerp he was before wearing the cloak in the first place. Please give it back to him. Please? He won’t actually kill anyone! Pinky promise!

“My mommy is a speech therapist. Maybe she can help you!” says Molly.
“Bruiser, your parents are psychotic supervillains,” Gert reminds her.

Dagger wants Gert to elaborate on this mumbo-jumbo. Gert thinks that their folks sent Cloak and Dagger after them. Dagger corrects her, it was the po-po. Whatever! They’re all in cahoots anyway!

After about fourteen seconds of talking, Gert convinces these two bounty hunters that they’re the good guys and their parents are the bad guys and now four of their friends are stuck in the fuckin’ Darkforce Dimension. What a drag!

The Darkforce Dimension – Beyond Time

“HOLY %*$#! WHERE THE #&@* ARE WE?” Chase yells eloquently. It sucks to be in the Darkforce Dimension, I can tell already. It’s all dark and cold. They can see their breath. Holy %*$# indeed, Chase. Holy %*$# indeed.

Alex maintains his obnoxious stoicism and claims that there must be a reasonable explanation. “The Cloak guy must have teleported us to… to Siberia or something.” Yeah, that doesn’t sound like any reason to be alarmed, I guess. In the middle of the coldest area of Russia? Across an entire ocean from L.A.? Good luck getting back, punk. Putin will never let you back out.

Maybe this is the LSD dimension. My hands are so huuuge.

Nico deliriously comments about how “her knives” have shown her “her sins”. Chase’s magic gloves are too busted up to make a fire. Karolina’s powers don’t work. Wherever they are, they don’t have their powers! Their powers!

Suddenly, a loud “WHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO” pierces the air. Well, I guess a sound like “WHOOO” doesn’t pierce, necessarily. It kind of just lumbers through the air like an obese man lumbers toward a delectable cherry pie.

Oh shit, it’s demons. Demons have arrived. I guess they’re fucked. What are Gert and Molly up to right now?

“What do you mean they’re lost?!” Gert yells. It means they’re lost, dimwit. Molly ripped off Cloak’s cloak and the severing of Cloak’s cloak doesn’t allow Cloak to connect to the cloak’s Darkforce Dimension portal anymore.

Cloak.

“This guy’s outfit is like the mystical equivalent of a portal to the internet, but the server crashed, so before we can perform a search, we have to find a way to get it back online…” says Gert. “Right?”

“That was the worst analogy I’ve ever heard,” Dagger responds. “But it gives me an idea.”

I don’t know what about what Gert said gave Dagger this idea, but she wants to pump Cloak full of her light sticks in order to repair his link to the Darkforce Dimension. It’s a long shot, but at least it’s an idea, right? Maybe Burger King will help too. Or Koosh balls. Anything is worth a try, I suppose.

So she shoots him with light. He goes “GAH!”

In the Dragonforce Dimension, the demons have scooped up Chase and are preparing to eat him or fornicate with his butt or something equally unseemly.

Don’t be melodramatic. Besides, Hell is hot, idiot.

Mr. Optimist Alex now thinks they won’t get out of this alive, so he tries to tell Nico something important… but then Dagger’s light thing works and Cloak’s cloak is back on and the four missing children fall right onto the Los Angeles pavement. The best pavement in the country. Good ol’ hard all-American City of Angels pavement. Why am I talking about pavement? What the fuck is my problem? You know what? Just click that “x” in the top right corner of your browser. That will be the best for both of us.

Dagger is sweating profusely, likely making hella pit stains in her perfectly crisp and clean white uniform. She asks if everyone is ok, and every is pissed off. So, yes.

Twenty-nine Minutes Later

Everyone is now all caught up. The kids have told their whole story up to this point, and Cloak and Dagger are now sympathetic to their wretched plight. “I’m good friends with the Black Widow,” Dagger offers. “I’m sure she could put you in touch with Captain America and those guys, maybe send them out here to clean house.”

Captain America? Yeah right, how’s he going to help? What’s he going to do? Pick his nose?

Alex would like this drooling doofus to help, though. That sounds awesome! In the meantime, Cloak offers to take the lot of them back to New York in his Cloak. Chase replies that he’d rather spend an evening at Neverland Ranch than step inside there again. Nico agrees. So, perhaps they’ll just lay low in Chase’s hideout until some superhero types come knocking on the door.

Chase is, however, verrrry suspicious of these two. Even after all the information they gave, he doesn’t want to give anymore information! Gert tells him to cool his fucking jets, brah. “[Cloak and Dagger] can assemble a posse in Manhattan, and we’ll go back into hiding until our ‘rents are in the slammer and the coast is clear.”

Karolina feels like a coward, but Dagger assures her that she and Cloak ain’t known nuthin’ when they ran away. Hell, they tried running away to McDonald’s! You can’t sleep in a McDonald’s! Not even in a Burger King!

The two teams part ways. “It was awesome to meet you, Cloak and Dazzler!” says Molly, which got an lol out of me. Dagger is less than amused. lol

Panorama City, California – 1:23am

The kids are driving back to the Hostel in Chase’s rape van. The group thinks they should celebrate with some food even though Alex “Wet Blanket” “Bedwetter” “Blanket Is Wet Because of Pee” Wilder is hesitant to spend anymore of their barely-earned money. I don’t know why at least one of these kids wasn’t able to steal some dough from their millionaire parents. Horrible runaways. Just pure crap.

Karolina reminds Alex that they’re going to be RESCUED, so they should all eat to their heart’s content. Molly agrees. Alex changes his mind! A harbinger of bad tidings to come…

Let’s find an orgy!

UCLA Medical Center – 1:34am

Flores is holed up in a hospital bed with a giant case over his knee. An unknown call gives his phone a little ringy-dingy.

“Lieutenant Flores?”

“Speak up, kid. You’re mumbling. I can barely understand–”

“You’re the dork who sent Cloak and Dagger after us, right? I’m surprised our parents haven’t killed you yet.”

“Who… who is this?”

“Right now, I’m the only friend you’ve got.”

Yeah yeah yeah, you see where this is going? The rat tells Flores that Cloak and Dagger are hanging out in Van Nuys right now and they know about the Pride. So you’ve got a giant mess to clean up, sir. “Do something…” says Alex or Molly or Gert or Chase or Nico or Karolina, “or the next bullet will probably be to your brain.”

Van Nuys, California – Twenty-five Minutes Later

Cloak and Dagger are ready to head back to NYC. They feel stupid for being duped, but at least they have each other! And–

KASCHOWW! That’s the sound of a group of nogoodnik parents showing up to give them the business. Bound in a magic vortex, Cloak and Dagger are asked where the sniveling little children are. Molly’s mutant parents have scanned their memories; the duo hung out with the kids for a bit, but they have no idea where they went.

Well, instead of executing them on the spot, Mr. Stein suggests using that mind-wiping power that the Hayes mentioned earlier. Kind of a trial run! See if they melt in a pile of sticky goo or start listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or something equally upsetting. “Hold them steady, Frank,” says Dr. Mr. Hayes. “If we cause one incorrect synapse to fire, we could lobotomize them both.”

PURPLE! PURPLE!! NOOOO!!!

Cloak and Dagger collapse in a heap, so the mind-wiping was likely a success. Or they’re dead! Either way is a-ok.

“I don’t get it,” says Mr. Dean after the NYC superhero threat has been neutralized. “If one of our runaways is really loyal to us, why not call us directly? Or at least tell us where they are?”

Very good questions, I think. I know a good question when I see one.

“Yes, who in God’s name is our mole?”

My money is on the dinosaur.

Final Thoughts

The end of yet another storyline. Only six more issues left of this particular run of Runaways, which I’ll probably get to sooner rather than later. For now, maybe I’ll hit up all those Marvel comics where the Hulk humps a telephone pole for 700 issues straight.