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

* Part 2 of 6 of the True Believers storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #2 – “True Believers (Chapter 2)”! In the previous installment, the Runaways pick up where they left off: fightin’ ne’er-do-wells in the streets of Los Angeles without Alex, who died because he sucked.

SUDDENLY, a version of Gertrude from 20 years in the future shows up to warn the Runaways of the most powerful piece of shit in the universe! Victor Mancha fancies himself as “Victorious”, and the Runaways have to kill him or maim him or stop him in 2005 while he’s still a kid. Then Older Gertrude dies, so you know it’s serious.

And since Chase is in love with Gertrude, well sir, it is now his sole mission to give this Victor Mancha an atomic wedgie that he’ll never forget.

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

I forgot to mention that Mickey Mushashi of the Excelsior Meeting to Rehabilitate Former Superheroes has been tasked with finding the Runaways. She has footage of four of them doing their superpower thing: Molly is strong, Karolina is an alien, Nico has a magic staff, and Gertrude… does dinosaur things. They don’t have footage of Chase, but since he was the son of two mad scientists it stands to reason that he’s the BRAINS of the operation. *snicker*

Phil Urich dug up some records about their affiliation with The Pride. You know, kin and all. After their parents were, and I quote, “destroyed”, the kids ran away from their respective foster homes and are now crime wavin’.

Members of the Excelsior Meeting – Julie, Chris, Whatshisname – watch the slideshow with no enthusiasm. Mickey reminds everyone that an anonymous donor will give them one million smackers, so let’s look for these little punks forthwith.

They wonder if this “anonymous donor” is merely a friend of The Pride looking to get revenge on the kids. Mickey doesn’t think so, since she wasn’t instructed to murder them. Just bring them in alive so they can be murdered later! Or, more likely, I’m sure it’s just someone wanting to rehabilitate the kids, okay? Altruism is at an all-time high these days! Good Samaritans abound!

Think of what they can do with all that money! Support groups all over the nation! Cocaine and blowjobs! Did someone say TV dinners??

Phil tells the group to get their superhero gear and start superheroing up! Chris makes a suspicious face and gets right up to Mickey and says “buuhhhhh, I thought the point was to NOT be superheroes anymore!” And Mickey is like “The ends justify the means!”

They all agree to don their suits one more time for the good of society and yada yada yada.

Intelligence suggests that these kids have an underground lair. Check every basement in L.A.! Move, move, move!

The La Brea Tar Pits – Los Angeles, California

This is where these kids have an underground lair! Young Gertrude tells Chase to let go of Old Gertrude and find a place to bury her, preferably a location with dirt. Chase is incredulous, wondering why Gert isn’t freaking out more about seeing her own future self die. “I told you,” she says, “this is probably some trap our parents left for us before they died. That could be a clone, or… or a magic trick, or a–”

Chase yells at Nico to bring Old Gert back to life with her magic ooga-booga staff. She’s like, “no, son, you can only try to do that shit once and I already tried with Alex.”

Editor’s Note: Alex disintegrated into a puff of burnt dust, so resurrecting him probably wasn’t in the cards anyway.

“Alex?! You wasted something like that on the kid who betrayed us?!” Chase yells. Nico hems and haws over this, likely because she wanted Alex to bone down on her, and anyway, the Staff has its limits. No raising from the dead today.

But here’s an idea! Maybe Nico can wave that stick over Old Gertrude’s face and see the last few moments or hours or years of her life, no?

…

The visions are of a whole squadron of dead Avengers in a collapsed building. Gertrude (Heroine) cries for the Avengers to assemble, but they’re not assembling anything anymore except worms and maggots! Hisako, whom I only know from Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, comforts Heroine and tells her to quit bitching since her X-Men died as well.

“I… I trusted him, Hisako,” says Heroine. “I loved him.”

“We all did, and now we get to die for our mistake,” says Hisako. In other words, LOVE DON’T PAY THE BILLS.

Victorious shows up to finish the job. And the vision ends because Nico screams and snaps out of it. It’s all true! Old Gert is Young Gert only older! Victorious is a jerk that needs to be wiped out.

Chase knows it’s all settled, but the others aren’t too sure. The kid is still a kid, and he probably isn’t evil yet even if his father was a villain. I mean, look at them. Children of The Pride. They’re all good eggs, right?

“Man, what if his dad is Voldemort?” Molly suggests.

Chase gets snippy. “Voldemort isn’t real, genius. This psycho’s probably the son of the devil. Or Dracula.”

Chase wants to pound this kid’s face into McDonald’s hamburger meat (the kind that comes out of a fucking tube), but Nico is worried that violence may create the very monster that they’re setting out to destroy. A salient point, especially since the correct time travel rules are “whatever happened, happened”. We’re talking Lost time travel, not Back to the Future rules!

You’re fucked anyway, Nico. Don’t you remember when Jack threw the bomb in the well and caused the very Incident he wanted to stop? Now that’s good television!

East Angeles High School – Later

Victor and Jorge, aka Weasel and Fatso, are hanging out on the bleachers watching the cheerleaders practice. Victor’s mother wants to transfer her son out of what she thinks is a dangerous high school in a dangerous part of town. Jorge cries fat tears since he has no other friends.

After a brief discussion about Hawkeye and Tupac Shakur, Victor reminds Jorge that Hawkeye was a bad guy before he joined the Avengers. “He probably did some good things in his time,, but deep down, I doubt he ever stopped being a hood,” Victor says, hanging his head down. “It’s like my mom says, people never really change that much. When you grow up wrong, you usually stay–”

He suddenly gets cut off by Jorge, who points at the flying robot frog in the sky. It subsequently crashes down right on the middle of the football field, killing 56. “Attention jocks!” Gert cries into her microphone. “We’re looking for one of your classmates, Victor Mancha! Tell us where he is, and you can return to your meaningless ball chasing!”

Karolina emerges all rainbow-colored and sparkly instead of, you know, normal. She shows Victor a picture of himself from the yearbook and tells him that they tracked him down using that, somehow. I don’t know. But Victor ain’t havin’ it.

Impressive to spit while saying four words that have no spittle syllables.

After Victor screams, the bleachers suddenly curl up and form a giant metal hand that karate chops the ground near Karolina, throwing her off-balance. And, of course, he has no idea how he just did that. A tale as old as time.

The Los Angeles Times – Now

Phil Urich works at the paper, fancy that! Just like his Daily Bugle counterpart. He gets a call at his desk from the unknown benefactor who wants his support group to help find the Runaways. “Your voice sounds sorta familiar,” Urich says, tapping his pencil on his desk obnoxiously. “Have we talked before…?”

Enough of that nonsense, sir, and put it out of your head! The mysterious phone person has a lead! Go chase it down, Sparky!

Meanwhile, back at the football field, Karolina gets launched 500 miles into the sky. Victor tells Jorge to go run now while Chase puts him his very tiny dukes. “I’m gonna beat the life outta this freak,” he says, jaw set in determination. Nico all but calls him a moron.

Victor throws his hands up in the air in the universal symbol for “I’m a pussy”. “What is this? Are… are you guys those Young Avengers I read about?” he asks. Gert almost pukes in her mouth and tells him, no, they’re not superheroes. Yuck.

“Just stay cool and everything will be fine,” assures Nico as she approaches the kid. Victor tells them all to stay back, because his weird powers are so far uncontrollable. Then he launches Molly 500 miles into the sky. Nico tries to blast Victor with red Staff energy, but he jumps about 500 miles into the sky to avoid it, impressing himself.

Then Nico is like “fuck this” and kicks Victor right in the jaw with her 500-mile-high stilletos, knocking him out cold. After everyone regroups without a scratch, for the most part, they decide to take the kid onto the Leapfrog with them.

Until a gaggle of costumed cunts show up to spoil the party. It’s the Excelsior Meeting losers and they’re here to beat up a bunch of children!