Marvel's RUNAWAYS Series Will Feature a Different Kind of Villain; The Showrunners Explain

Villains are hard to do. Especially in superhero movies. Sometimes you get really well-done villains that are deep and conflicted. Sometimes you get really well-done villains that are just pure evil. Then sometimes you just get a crappy in-between, where the directors want the villains to be bad but also have depth, but they never really decide on either so the character just seems... meh.

But according to Runaways showrunner's Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, they are taking the series villain in a different direction.

"When we were talking to Brian K. Vaughan about the run of the book and how they churned through so much story and how the parent characters had to be so evil, it's because, as he said, every issue they thought they were getting canceled. So I think there's an opportunity now to slow down and dig in. It's something we want to take advantage of. Because the kid characters are so great in the book and they hold up so well, we just wanted to make sure the adults had the same opportunity.

"Obviously the parents are the villains in some regard. That's the premise. But I think what we want to be able to do is delve into those characters and realize that everybody is kind of flawed, perhaps, but that there are no cliched mustache-twirling bad guys who are just out for world domination."

Hmmm. I agree, and also disagree. Sometimes villains are straight up bad, mustache twirling villains out for world domination. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I'm not opposed to giving the villains more depth either. I think depth can be great when added to a villain in a correct way. The Vulture was a great example of this. We saw a Villain with some great depth who was trying to do right by his family even if it meant that he did bad things along the way.

In the Runaways comics, the Villains are known as the Pride. They are a group of different villainous people that consist of evil ninjas, scientists, aliens, cultists and they all make up key members of the Pride. What makes it so interesting is essentially a group of teenagers find out that their parents are these supervillains and decide to run away. That's kind of what makes the concept so fresh and interesting. 

I also get worried about when shows feel they should stretch things out. One of the biggest complaints of the Marvel Netflix series is that they usually feel like a couple episodes too long. You want to have viewers wanting more, not wishing there was a little less. I am excited about Runaways. I think it has some great characters as well as a very interesting premise different from many other superhero-based shows. As long as the show doesn't forget about pacing and entertaining the audience, I think it should be able to succeed.