Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 1) Issue #2 – “Pride and Joy (Chapter 2)”! Join me as I continue to try to fill my Brian K. Vaughan Paper Girls void. In the previous installment, we learn about six rich kids and their families: gamer Alex, smartypants Gert, jock Chase, preppy pretty Karolina, young preteen Molly, and goth Nico. Thinking their parents are having a business meeting, the six eavesdrop and discover that their parents are some sort of supervillains with an unclear agenda. Gert, Chase, Alex, and Nico witness Alex’s father murdering a young woman while Karolina had Molly squirreled away out of the corridor.

SUSPENSE! Are these kids going to Run Away?! Time will tell!

Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #2 [August, 2003]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“Pride and Joy (Chapter 2)”

THE WILDER RESIDENCE – 9:47pm

We pick up exactly where we left off. Shortly after Daddy Wilder kills the woman, Nico screams. Shortly after Nico screams, the parents all turn around to look at the one-way mirror. “The catacombs…” Mr. Wilder says, knife ready. He refers to his home as his “lair”. Dr. Mrs. Hayes tells everyone to relax. “I was probably just psychic residue from the sacrifice.”

Fine, maybe. Check the tunnels anyway, there may be rats running around. Mrs. Wilder is going to check on the children…

Eep! Gotta get back to the game room and play Donkey Kong! Go go go!

“God help us if those kids saw what we did,” says Dr. Mr. Hayes, who appears to be dimly glowing purple. “We always knew they’d find out sooner or later, Hayes,” responds Mr. Stein (the guy who likes to punch his child). They’re not supposed to know about The Pride until they’re at least 18! It’s what the Abstract dictates! Whatever that is. Everyone turn their Abstract bibles to page 47. It talks about age of consent.

Mr. Wilder glares at the fourth wall, looking right at you. “I’m sure our young ones are fine.”

UPSTAIRS – 9:51pm

Mrs. Wilder finds the kids playing hell of Twister, but they’re all thankfully clothed. “And you thought Vice City was dirty,” Alex tells her, pointing out that Twister is one of her old games.

Haha! OKAY! You kids play nice, you hear? No accidental penetrations, please. Bye bye, now!

PRETEND TO BE HAPPY

After Mrs. Winters leaves the room, Alex comments that he’s about to puke. Nico wonders if she bought it, but it’s unclear. Probably. Twister IS a fun game for hormonal teenagers, so everything checks out.

Karolina and Molly are confused! They just started playing Twister! “What did I miss down there?” Karolina demands.

Heh heh. OK… uh… hey Gert, take Molly out of the room. It’s your turn to shield the 11-year-old from the horrors of reality. Maintain innocence for as long as possible and all that. Gerts asks why, and she and Alex start whispering to one another.

“So we can fill Karolina in on what happened, okay?”

“But this involves Molly’s parents, too! She deserves to know the truth!”

“She’s just a kid!”

“She’s old enough to know her parents are evil!”

Molly butts in and tells the both of them that she knows they’re talking about sex. Gert looks defeated and agrees to take her to the bathroom.

Look, kid. You’re asking too many questions related to sex and urine, ok?

“What the heck is going on?” North Karolina asks. “You’re scaring me.”

Pfft, you have no idea do you, sweetheart? You think you’re parents are just hanging out with Alec Baldwin? We have news for you: Alec Baldwin is a murderer! Oh yeah, and so are all the parents. lol?

Nico and Alex try to soften the blow, but Chase pipes in from the couch. “Alex’s dad just killed some chick.”

Alex and Nico are understandably upset with Chase’s jocky bluntness. Karolina is beyond confused. Chick? Some chick? Killed some chick? Just killed some chick? Alex’s dad just killed some chick? Sorry, it still doesn’t make any sense. Let’s rearrange some words. Some chick just killed Alex’s dad? Wait, that’s way off. Let’s try again. W–

“It wasn’t just my dad!” Alex yells. “It was all of our parents! You saw!”

“We have no clue what we saw, dude!”

“They stabbed an innocent girl in the heart!”

Karolina is starting to get it, but I suppose if I were her I’d still be like “my mom is a pile of plastic surgery, why would she kill anybody?”

“Well, we don’t know she was innocent… right?” Nico hazards.

“Are you guys high?” Alex gasps desperately. “Our parents are supervillains!”

They talk amongst themselves to try to piece things together like a three-piece jigsaw puzzle. Something about “The Pride” and… yeah, there’s not much else to go off of here. Anyway, they must be stopped! Maybe? But how? “You expect us to get a few shotguns and go all Menendez brothers on ‘em?” says Chase. Nico agrees with Chase’s sentiment. Plus, they might kill them all if the kids try to stop them.

“Hey gang!” It’s Mr. Wife-Beater Stein, hair looking choppy as shit. “Don’t worry, the old-timers are finally packing it in for the night.”

A couple of parents are carrying a very large chest out of the house. Mr. Yorkes claims it’s full of antiques. Alex and Nico volunteer to help carry it. Nico flexes a puny bicep.

Tuba players are notoriously horny! Get it?!

“God, is this what I think it is?” Nico asks Alex as they carry the chest out to Yorkes’ car. “Maybe,” says Alex. “Feels about right, doesn’t it?”

So now what? Pretend everything is fine? Everyone goes home acting no one was murdered in front of them tonight? Fat chance, poopypants! Alex suggests gathering up each other’s email addresses because iPhones don’t exist in 2003 and they’ll all meet up sometime tonight for further deliberation. And pizza and punch.

THE GRIFFITH OBSERVATIONS – 1:03am

Alex, Chase, and Karolina are already at the meeting place: The James Dean Memorial! Chase said this was a stupid meeting place. Karolina says it was her idea. Chase, wanting to bone that, grimaces hugely and tells her “just kidding heh heh”.

Nico had to stop and pick up Gert, so they ran late. Obviously, Molly is too much of a CHILD to hear that her SHITTY PARENTS are complicit in MUUUUURDER. Anyway, was everyone able to sneak out without a problem? “Yeah, my parents were practically unconscious,” says Gert. “Satanic rituals must really wear a person down.”

Karolina is having a hard time with this, especially since she didn’t actually see anything! For all she knows they could be pulling a fast one on her! Their parents were probably doing nothing but having pizza and punch!

So now what? Become Runaways? Check the title of the comic book, Alex. Y’all gotta run away at some point.

Not yet, I suppose. Alex suggests calling the cops. Karolina still doesn’t believe that they’re actual supervillains, especially since she tried Googling them and couldn’t find anything but her mom’s sex tape (which would’ve been quite hilarious if true). The last thing she wants to do is smear her parents and get them blacklisted in Hollywood if it turns out they’re not criminals. Chase is starting to think that it was all a “lame performance piece”. Yeah, for no audience, right? Chase is dumb.

Gert has no hang-ups about calling the police and throwing all these motherfuckers in prison. Alex agrees.

Uhhh… where’s Molly? Whose bright idea was to keep Molly home and away from the voting booth?

Nico is conflicted. Her parents aren’t monsters… at least they never were to her. I mean, they never tried stabbing her in the heart as far as she was aware! On the other hand, maybe they need to try figuring all out this on behalf of the stabbed girl. Avenge her death, maybe? They can be the Avengers! Is that name taken?

“Weak!” Chase yells. “You’re just voting that way ‘cause you want to suck face with Alex.”

Someone needs to get punched in the face! When Nico denies that, Alex just stares with an tinge of hurt on his face. It passes quickly and he calls the police.

PARKER CENTER, HEADQUARTERS OF THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT – 1:07am

Alex stutters his way through trying to report a murder. All such as “my parents and their friends are part of ‘The Pride’” and “my parents and their friends are dark wizards and mad scientists”. Needless to say, this doesn’t end the way Alex wants it to. “Guess we’re on our own,” he says, rubbing the back of his head.

Nico doesn’t want to give up. If they bring evidence, such as a whole-ass dead body, the police would have to believe them! So where’s that big chest at? Gert’s house, right? Let’s go check it out!

SANTA MONICA FREEWAY – 1:59am

“I ran away from home, and now I’m running back there?” Gert groans in the back of Chase’s van. Alex assures her they’ll just be in and out.

THE YORKES RESIDENCE – 2:43am

Goin’ in the basement lookin’ for dead bodies. The room is loaded with artifacts and antiques that probably all cost millions upon millions of dollars. Gert’s parents likely killed a whole horde of children for that stuff. Just slaughtered them all in a line.

During their search, Karolina takes interest in a security keypad. Only the numbers 3, 4, and 7 look like they’ve experienced some wear from regular use! So, with a five-digit security code, using each number at least once, that’s just… 150 unique combinations! That will only take, like, three hours. The body won’t even be decomposed by then.

Alex knows what it is right away: 77433. If it’s like a touchtone phone, then that spells “Pride”. Boom shakalaka. Gert, get out of the way. No one cares if this is risky and it may open up your folks’ sex dungeon. That’s a risk we all have to take!

So they punch in the code.

And on the other side of a secret wall that opens up is a HISSING DINOSAUR of uh some sort. I guess.

Final Thoughts

What a weird ending! This is what you get for meddling, you meddling kids! Go meddle somewhere else, your parents are going to be way better at this. Trust me, they’re supervillains!