Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “True Believers (Chapter 5)”

* Part 5 of 6 of the True Believers storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #5 – “True Believers (Chapter 5)”! In the previous installment, we figure out that Victor Mancha’s dad is Doctor Doom!

AAAHHHHHH!!

I think?

Anyway, they still want to kill this kid before he murders the Avengers, they just don’t really know how to do it yet. I suggest a red hot poker through the brain. Gets ‘em every time.

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #5 [JAugust, 2005]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“True Believers (Chapter 5)”

So Victor is talking to Victor von Doom now, and he’s beside himself with surprise. Yes, son, Victor von Doom is your father. He looks like he hasn’t fucked anything in 20 years except maybe a pineapple, so I don’t know how that works either. “Regardless, you will meet me at the McArthur warehouse in precisely one hour,” says Doom. “Call the authorities, and you risk elevating me to the status of your sole guardian.”

All the while, Mrs. Mancha is screaming things like “Victor, stay away!” and “Raawhgnhagh!” until she gets punched.

Gert asks Victor if he really meant Dr. Doom. As in, THE Doctor Doom? The pantswetter whose moniker the late great MF DOOM used? Nice! “I thought that creep died fighting the Fantastic Four or something,” says Karolina. Well, obviously not.

At this point, Victor is begging to be let go. His mom is going to get killed and his father is Dr. Fucking Doom! But Chase, ever the empath, tells him to go suck his own nutz.

Molly agrees. It sounds like this Dr. Doom is family, so if he wants to get back to his family… well… whose side are you on, Vic my boy??

Elsewhere Phil Urich calls the mysterious benefactor to tell him/her that he and his fancy crew of tentative superheroes have arrived at the precise coordinates – a warehouse. It’s always a warehouse. The mysterious benefactor, a man waiting for a flight to L.A. at the airport, thanks Phil for trusting him…

Anyway, the warehouse contains a ship they can all use to scout Los Angeles in style! “She may look clunky, but no one will notice when you’re pushing Mach 8.” Wowzers! That’s, like, super-fast! Yeah!

“Sir, I appreciate this, but I don’t think any of us knows how to fly a… whatever kind of plane this is,” Phil says ungratefully. The mystery man tells Phil that it’s modified to be controlled like his Green Goblin Glider! It should be like riding an oversized novelty bike! So get to it, pissface.

The Excelsior team is a little hesitant to just take this very expensive ship as a gift to their organization, but Phil doesn’t give a shit.

Said every Nazi ever.

Victor has just about had it up to HERE *slashing motion across forehead* with this cockamamie malarkey! “Turn this thing around!” he yells. “I told you, Doom said to show up alone!” Gert corrects him: he just wasn’t supposed to alert the authorities, and a few pimple-faced truants don’t qualify.

Semantics! Doom’s going to kill Mommy unless Victor does everything he says!

Chase is still the voice of unreason. “As soon as we’re in range, this young stud is gonna bring the ‘Frog smashing down on your old man’s ugly gourd.”

Nico reminds Chase that the Excelsior Team of Buttfuck Rejects are looking out for them, among others, and that they need to stay cloaked.

Molly asks Nico if she can just teleport Mrs. Mancha out of the clutches of the Good Doctor, but Nico reminds her that the Staff of One does not like to repeat spells. Maybe there’s a Shut Up spell that she can use for you, Molly.

“Haven’t you guys ever taken a history class?” Victor yells. “How do you think von Doom took control of an entire country? He’s not just the greatest scientist on the planet, he’s also one of the most powerful sorcerers.”

Hey, Buzzkill Jones? What are they gonna do, then? Zap someone with electricity?! Heh heh. Wait a minute, that’s a good idea! Get your cattle prods ready.

Thanks, Mom!

And meanwhile, Dr. Doom tells Mrs. (Marianella) Mancha that he’s very disappointed in how she raised their delinquent, ruffian son. But, lo’, in comes Victor, fashionably late as usual. Dr. Doom is surprised to see him, as dear ol’ Mother told him he had been kidnapped by Hamas! “Where are your abductors now?” Doom asks, quite intrigued. “Unconscious, a few blocks from here,” Victor replies, starting to spark a little bit. The boy is getting tittilated! And Doom, too, because Victor begins to swear fealty to the Almighty Doomness.

“Doom is impressed,” he says, referring to himself in the third-person like an incel. “You may be a half-breed, but your heart is clearly beating my blood. How tragic that this woman led you to believe your father was nothing more than some lowly American combatant.”

Yeah, Victor is disappointed too! Heh heh. Of course, Pops. Whatever you say, sir. “I’d always hoped my real dad was someone important, but I honestly never thought it could be someone as huge as you.” Yeah, he’s huge all right. Swingin’ like a grandfather clock.

It’s at about this moment that Doom realizes that Marianella’s ropes are starting to untie themselves. BRRT! It’s a trick! A ruse! A scam! Chicanery! Chicanery! Doom pulls out a blaster and shoots in the direction of Nico, who was using the Staff of One to thwart him. Not today!

Nico is out cold.

And the rest of the Runaways phase out of invisibility. Molly calls it “indivisibility” because she’s the stupidest 11-year-old on the planet. “What is the meaning of this treachery?” Doom asks. Victor yells for Karolina to get Nico and his mother to the ‘Frog while Plan B is executed. Doom is like “Boo to that! You will all die!”

But then no one dies. In fact, Old Lace bites Doom’s arm. This would cause some unfortunately gangrene later, but right now Doom is like “Boo to that! Die, you prehistoric piece of shit!” Then he shoots electricity into Old Lace’s mouth.

Gert starts choking, obviously connected to Old Lace by the mouth. Or whatever, I don’t know, let’s just make things up as we go along. Victor yells at his father to leave everyone alone as he revs up himself and blasts him with his own brand of electricity. Doom just laughs it off. His puny sparks are no match for Doom’s resiliently armored buttocks! The metal-masked villain soliloquys while Molly sneaks up on him, eyes glowing violet.

Chase with the rebound!

Then she punches him in the gut and hurts her hand. Doom takes this opportunity to try to kill her, but he fails yet again as Karolina shoots him with, I don’t know, stardust? She hits Molly instead, so way to go, idiot. And after Doom throws Karolina across the room, all the girls have been duly rendered incapacitated.

Chase shows up for the kill! But he ripped the laser out of the ‘Frog and Gert reminds him that the lasers have no power if they’re ripped out of the ‘Frog. Dumbass.

But luckily they’ve got a kid who knows how to power things up. Chase throws the laser to Victor, who hits Doom so hard with its green blast that it punches a hole through his abdomen.

With Doom dead, presumably, the kids inspect the wound. But it’s all just wires and circuits and flux capacitors. Where’s the blood and guts, fam? Marianella yells at the kids, says the dude is still extremely dangerous and that they should all run away now before they, too, get disemboweled.

But Victor isn’t scared of this obvious robot.

“Astounding,” says a figure entering the room, speaking in stilted robot speech balloons. “I anticipated your defeat of Doom, yet I was 99% certain you would be unable to damage him badly enough to uncover that he was merely one of my androids.” The big scary figure turns out to be a big scary robot himself. He turns to Victor. “Truly you are my greatest creation.”

It’s apparently Ultron. Eep.

Marianella begs Ultron to leave them all be. Ultron is like “PUNY MORTAL. I WILL EAT YOU.” Then he blasts Marianella with fire and she dies right in front of her wretched son.

“Don’t shed a tear for your birth creature, my darling simulacrum,” Ultron says proudly. “Your mother was a degenerate criminal, nothing more than raw genetic stock for your glorious technological future.”

Ultron’s only regret is that this is how Victor finds out. He was hoping to throw him a surprise party, but such is life. “You see, with my Doombot I had hoped to convince you that your father was human, so that my current plans would continue unabated… but your memory will now have to be erased.”

Victor begs the Ultron-type guy to not hurt his brand new friends!

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt anyone…”