Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #8 – “Teenage Wasteland (Chapter 2)”! In the previous installment, the parents have regrouped and assessed the full situation with their hooligan children and now are looking to come up with a plan to either murder them or frame them for murder or murder themselves and frame them for it. It’s unclear at this juncture, but I’m excited to see what creative ideas they come up with!

The kids are out of their league. After deciding that they shouldn’t starve to death while out on the lam, they scrape together about 18 bucks to go buy some shit at a convenience store. Shame that it was getting robbed at the time, though, but after chasing away two of the robbers, the third one was like “no please don’t I’m just like you” and Alex is like “ok” so now this kid is joining their team.

Right? Right.

Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #8 [January, 2004]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“Teenage Wasteland (Part 2)”

Los Feliz, California – 1:49am

“Wait, you guys are superheroes? Like the Avengers?” This kid that they tackled in the convenience store has a very large eyebrow ring because this is 2004.

“Yep!” answers the floating, ethereal Karolina Lucy in the Sky.

“No,” answers the frowny, petulant Chase Talkback.

“Sort of,” pipes in Alex Dorkus. Sister Grimm points out the inconvenient fact that their asses are busted if the police show up, so time to grab some food and book it. The new kid is named Topher, and although Alex invites him back to their hideout, Talkback talks back. “Hey, who said this punk could come back to my hideout?”

Alex tells him that it’s not his hideout anymore. It’s the Runaways’ base. And they should extend a helping hand! Talkback argues, and rightfully so, that this fucking asshole just tried to rob the store. He says this as he grabs a bunch of snacks, eager to rob the store.

Nope! The other two robbers were Topher’s parents. They made him come! And he wants to get away from those jerks. Anyway, there’s no more time to argue, anyway. Here comes the fuzz! Cheese it!

“Hold on,” Topher says as Sister Grimm grabs his arm. “All of your parents are evil, too?” So now there’s some exposition dialogue where Lucy in the Sky catches Topher (AND YOU, THE DEAR READER) up on the 411. I’m not going to do it here because, from my very informative posts, you should have every single detail memorized.

The group piles into the van. Talkback drives away. The fuzz are hot on their heels.

Get me Hamm on 5, hold the Mayo.

Sister Grimm uses her magic staff to create plumes of crimson smoke from the back of the van. The two cop cars SKREEEE-KERASSSH into each other, hopefully killing all of the cops brutally! I kid, I kid. Or do I?

“She’s pretty hardcore, huh?” Lucy in the Sky says to the impressed, poorly-named Topher. “Sister Grimm is actually the daughter of two sorcerers. What kind of bad guys are your parents, Topher? Androids? Demons? Android demons?”

Neither. You see, they work at a power plant and then something happened in the power plant and now they’ve got Super Power Plant Powers. And they went crazy and nuts and got fired, so now they rob stores for cash. Cool, huh? “They said they’d kill me if I didn’t help them.”

Sounds aces, sir. Looks like you’re a liability, then! “kicks kid out of the van*

Sister Grimm is empathetic and offers Topher Grace to crash at their pad until the heat dies down, you dig? Radical.

The Wilder Residence, Los Angeles, California – 2:13am

Mr. Wilder is searching through HotBot or whatever people used in 2004. Mrs. Wilder comes in with a bundt cake that the neighbors left on the porch as a “sorry your kid was framed for murder” gift. Mr. Wilder will eat some hella bundt cake later, but right now he’s been sent surveillance footage from the convenience store. It seems that ALEX *points to screen* whipped out his penis at 1:39am *points to screen* and peed on Chase *points to screen* and then, also, we know where they sort of are.

Mrs. Wilder is wild with incredulity! “They kids are still in California? I thought they’d be halfway to Canada by now!” Right? Kids are stupid. Anyway, if they’re looking to play superhero, then they’ve got another think coming. Yes, the term is “think”, not “thing”. Learn something once in a while.

Anyway, they’ve got to find them before some other asshole villain does…

Don’t make me drop a meteorite on your ass.

”The Hostel”, Bronson Canyon, California – 2:24am

The kids return from whence they came. Topher is about to jubilate about how positively tits their hideout is when the Resident Dinosaur attacks! Arsenic tries to stop him, but he won’t listen to her thoughts! Thoughts like “stop it!” and “I don’t really mean it lol!”, perhaps.

Then Bruiser walks in all like “I got this” and picks the dinosaur up like it was a sack of flour without any flour in it. “So, you guys bring back burritos?” she asks, eyes still glowing violet.

Topher is like, shit, you guys have a dinosaur too? I ain’t got a dinosaur! That’s tits!

“You have an earring in your eyebrow,” Bruiser points out. “Are you in a band?” Molly/Bruiser must not be used to, um, alternative lifestyles. We’re talking piercings and tattoos and mittens pinned to sleeves. She will, however, grow up to marry Wolverine so you better keep your mouth in check if you know what’s good for you, Tophy.

So Alex continues to introduce Topher to the team. Arsenic is also less than happy that there’s a new kid on the premises, but hey, maybe they can run a refugee camp for whiny teenagers. Sister Grimm offers Topher a tour, and Alex wants to join, but Sister Grimm tells him to butt the fuck out, son. Alex is left thinking that they’re probably going to bone, which is funny to me because Alex sucks and this Topher kid seems way cooler. He’s got an earring in his eyebrow.

Lucy in the Sky puts her diabetes wristband back on and assumes her less-than-incandescent human form. She encourages the group to keep a tight lip on her whole alienness around Topher lest he freaks out even more. Maybe she has a thing for Topher too, since the eyebrow piercing makes him a Bad Boy. “If he says anything, just tell him I’m a mutant.”

K. Let’s see what Topher and Sister Grimm are up to…alone…

You said it, sister.

And yes, she has the room to herself. That’s the way she likes it.

“Why, you doing something in here you don’t want them to see?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Right on. Topher notices the cut on her forearm, which alarms him, but Nico insists that it’s no biggie. She just cut herself to get her staff out of her body is all! Routine shit. But she doesn’t tell him this, she keeps things close to the vest. Topher thinks she’s a cutter, which embarrasses her into spilling the beans.

“Man, I don’t know how you guys have adjusted so quickly to the fact that your parents are… you know,” Topher slumps pathetically on the bed. “It’s like, growing up in Cali, you hear about Doc Ock and Venom and the Punisher and whatever on TV, but they always felt far away and… make-believe.” That’s because it is all make-believe, Topher, you idiot. Buy a comic book once in a while.

Nico tells Topher to buck up, buttercup. Maybe there’s a still a chance that his parents can reform! Her parents are a lost cause, though. Evil sorcerers, remember?

Topher says that he’s been wanting to run away from his parents since he was 12. And now that he has, he wants things back to normal (i.e. this kid is equivocating like a motherfucker).

They start to lean in for a kiss, but Nico (rightfully) stops him. There will be no nookie until they hit another topic: she has a thing for Alex. Topher, racistly, is like “he’s your type?” Nico, racistly, is like “he’s not.” It doesn’t matter, they still shouldn’t kiss.

Topher is like, “no, we’re going to anyway, ho.”

And then they kiss. And Nico is surprised. And then she likes it.

And then Alex is spying on them from behind a painting like a total creep.

Final Thoughts

Nico’s gonna get something else stuck in her today ifyaknowwhatimean.