It is human nature for teenagers to want to rebel against their parents; especially if those parents are in a mysterious cult. The cast of Marvel’s Runaways gave an eagerly awaiting audience a glimpse into what that life would be like in the world premiere of the series’ first episode at New York Comic-Con 2017. The result is a show that plays like Stranger Things: The High School Years, much to the raucous approval of everyone in attendance.
In Marvel’s Runaways, six teenagers — Gert, Chase, Molly, Nico, Karolina, and Alex — band together to thwart the plans of their parents’ super villain group, known as Pride. The series is based on the comic created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, which debuted in 2003. The series is also Hulu’s first superhero series after Netflix has unraveled its own Marvel universe since 2015 with Luke Cage, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and the series that brought them all together, The Defenders.
Jeph Loeb, Head of Marvel Television moderated a brief discussion with executive producers Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, and the actors who play the six main characters about the new series. But, most of the 80-minute NYCC panel was dedicated to the world premiere of the 53-minute first episode.
The teenage superhero group will be streaming near you soon when Marvel’s Runaways hits Hulu starting November 21. Until then, here are our first impressions of Marvel’s Runaways and what you can expect in its first season.
Early in the episode, you are thrown into the middle of a well-established conflict between the six Runaways, who were childhood friends that became estranged after their friend (and Nico’s sister) Amy dies. The group begrudgingly reunites at Alex’s house near the end of the episode, after each of their plans for the night falls through in epic fashion. Alex unexpectedly unlocks a hidden entrance behind his father’s bookshelf that leads to a dungeon-like area with their parents hooded in crimson red robes. But the more you get to know these parents, the quicker you realize a cult meeting for them is akin to a PTA meeting for normal parents.
Chase Stein, played by Greg Sulkin, deals with his overbearing father, Victor Stein, who motivates him towards academic excellence with sage words of wisdom like, “If you were really afraid of me, you’d be getting an A.” Molly, played by Allegra Acosta, is strongly advised by her mother to give herself a bit of self-pleasure in the school bathroom in order to quell her nerves before a dance tryout. With parents like these, you’d run away too.
The brightest spots of the episode are its darkest, and the precociousness of its six teenage protagonists help that come through clearly. In one scene, Chase saves Karolina from two sexual predators on the verge of taking advantage of her after she passes out at a party. In another scene, Nico and Katalina, played by Lyrica Okano and Virginia Gardner, discuss how they mask their sorrow with excessive makeup and forced smiles.
Most superheroes wear masks. In Runaways, the mask is being a teenager.
For half of the episode the only superpower any of the Runaways exhibit is indomitable teenage angst. Then the eyes start glowing, the dinosaurs start showing up, and you are reminded that these are no ordinary teenagers.
The first superpower introduced is Molly’s super strength, after a visit to the nurse for cramps turns into a scene where her eyes glow yellow and her seat is crushed by her own bare hands. Instead of being freaked out, she goes home and gleefully tests her powers by pushing the family’s Volkswagen. At a party, Karolina’s arms glows iridescent with shimmering rainbow colors, but it’s chalked up to her having taken drugs right beforehand, and we never get to see her powers.
Even though the first episode was mostly devoid of the Runaways flexing their powers, that is not indicative of what is to come later in the season. During the panel, Okano promised fans that Nico will wield the fan-favorite Staff of One from the comics in later episodes. Sulkin also confirmed Chase will at some point don his signature Fistigons gloves made famous in the comics. Both promises were quickly proven true in a quick sizzle reel of what is to come later in the series shown at the end of the panel.
Executive producer Schwartz said the same episode that premiered at New York Comic-Con 2017 will be retold in the episode following it, but this time from the perspective of the parents and the Pride group. If the deafening cheers that reverberated throughout the crowd is any indication, Marvel’s Runaways will be a hit for Hulu and Marvel fans alike.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?