Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #3 – “True Believers (Chapter 3)”! In the previous installment, the kids, having been directed by Old Dead Gert, decide to go scope out this Victor Mancha kid. They find him at his school, and it’s these kids’ appearance that prompts him to use his extraordinary powers for the very first time! Whoops.

Meanwhile, the Excelsior team have decided to don their costumes and be superhero vigilantes even though that is precisely what the support group aims to help prevent. But money’s on the line here, so why the fuck not? And wouldn’t you know it, it takes about 45 minutes for them to find the Runaways. Stupid kids aren’t hiding well enough.

So what’s next for our intrepid Runaways? Maybe Alex will come back to life and shove a broom up his own butt.

Runaways (Vol. 2), Issue #3 [June, 2005]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“True Believers (Chapter 3)”

The Excelsior Team tells the Runaways that they’re friends, they swear. “What are you, a Christian glam band?” sneers Gertrude. Zing!

Victor Mancha recognizes these fucks. Turbo, Darkhawk, Lightspeed, Chamber. All these J-List celebrity superheroes. They want the Runaways to let Mancha go, but Nico calls Mancha a murderer and also no. And he’s not a murderer yet, but he will be, so screw him all the same.

“Listen, we have no interest in fighting you,” claims Turbo. “Let’s open the lines of communication here, and try to find out what we need to do to make you feel more comfortable with–” ZIPPT!! That’s the sound of Chase shooting lasers at everyone from Leapfrog. He cheers happily while the rest of the group takes advantage of the incapacitation of the Excelsior team by Leapfroggin’ away with Mancha.

The Excelsior team are more perplexed than anything. They get up to brush themselves off, and Chamber is like “OI! I’M OUT, GUV’NOR! SEE YOU CUNTS LATER!” After Turbo tells him to stay, Chamber bitches for a panel before deciding to stick around. Part of his problem is that he doesn’t fly, and he’ll look like an idiot with everyone else who can fly. First-world superhero problems.

Meanwhile, Chase is Leapfroggin’ in broad daylight, much to the chagrin of the rest of the kids.

They could try trading in their Frogcraft for a Molecraft and start digging underground?

“Hey, if you guys are kidnapping me for ransom money, you nabbed the wrong guy,” complains Mancha. “My mom is a single parent working three jobs. She barely scrapes by.”

Gert calls Mancha’s dad a supervillain. Mancha says his dad’s fuckin’ dead. Whoops!

Molly apologizes, but Karolina reminds her that their supervillain parents are dead too. Even I forgot that one! I should pay more attention to what I’m reading.

Back at the school, Mrs. Mancha is already fretting to the principal over the disappearance of her son. The sweaty principal assures her that Victor will be found in at LEAST one piece. Victor’s dumpy friend Jorge approaches Mrs. Mancha and tells her all about the freaks with the superpowers showing up, and then Victor did some superpower shit as well, and, well, one thing led to another! Can he have some empanadas?

Elsewhere, the Excelsior Team is flying (while Mickey carries Chamber by the armpits) west toward Studio City where Phil Ulrich reports the last sighting of the giant stupid frog craft. Eventually, they catch up to the kids and Darkhawk zaps the frog with purple lasers. Turbo Mickey is like “THOSE ARE JUST KIDS, DINGBAT”, to which Darkhawk basically replies “Remember Columbine? Fuck them kids!”

Maneuvering out of the way, Chase lands the Leapfrog safely in the studio lot. And by that I mean he crashes the fucking thing right onto a set where they’re filming some cheesy sci-fi flick. The cast and crew runs away screaming while Chase assesses the damage. “Looks like the crash knocked the ‘Frog offline,” he says.

Nico’s plan is to have the girls take care of the Excelsior Team while Chase stays to keep an eye on Mancha.

“What’s… what’s your power?” Mancha asks.

Chase brandishes a switchblade. “A poor upbringing.”

The Excelsior Team flies down through the giant hole in the studio building, asking if the kids are ok. Nico has a simple response:

Kids these days with their potty mouths, truancy, and mysterious glowing staves.

Nico’s staff creates a whirlwind in the building that sweeps up Excelsior and sends them flying around. So, they retaliate by facing the kids one-on-one. This happens for a few pages as they all trade one-liners. It gets to a point where Darkhawk threatens the shit out of Nico to the point where Mickey Turbo is like “Settle down, chief. I mean, goddamn.” So now they start fighting, causing a bit of a raucous ruckus. During the fracas, the Runaways use the diversion to get everyone back into the Leapfrog. And, as much as Chase would like to gut the Mancha kid, he needs to pilot the craft again.

Darkhawk apologizes to Turbo Mickey, and Turbo Mickey graciously accepts the apology. Everyone hugs it out and everything is peaches and cream until Chamber realizes that no one kept an eye on the kids. D’oh!

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but… Nice work, Chase,” says Nico. Chase calls himself a genius, speaking of his idea to let Mancha zap the motherboard with his electric powers and reboot the Leapfrog. Victor asks if they’re even now and they can let him go, but the answer to that is “NO BUENO”. “Let’s talk about your future…” Gert says ominously.

Finally, at Casa du Mancha, Mrs. Mancha calls a so-far-unknown person to tell him or her that Victor has gone missing. Something terrible has happened to him that has triggered his… his… HIS…

Don’t worry. They’ll be coming to Los Angeles to help find him.

The “they” being… DUN DUN DUUUUUUNN!!

Victor’s stupid not-at-all-dead supervillain dad.

Final Thoughts

Here’s what’s going to happen: Victor’s dad is going to find his kid and then beat his ass ruddy to within an inch of his life, spurring the origin story of the homicidal, murderous “Victorious”.

And his dad is going to be Craig T. Nelson, just for the extra layer of surprise.

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!

Final Thoughts

These Runaways don’t know what they’re in for. They all should go home crying to the mommies and daddies instead! Oh wait, lol, they’re all dead!