Rainbow Rowell to write ‘Runaways’

Critically acclaimed young adult author tackles Marvel’s teen heroes with villainous parents.

Young adult and contemporary fiction writer Rainbow Rowell dropped a big hint on Twitter earlier this week something was on the horizon, and she was excited about it:

At the annual BookCon festival held in New York, Rainbow Rowell announced her writing duties on the new ongoing series Runaways, with Kris Anka as the illustrator.

Rowell is no stranger to a variety of teen fiction which made her a natural fit for the youth-centric series and has received critical acclaim for her books Eleanor & Park, a New York Times bestseller of star-crossed misfits; Fangirl, the story of an introverted nerd girl’s coming of age; and Carry On, a supernatural story of love, magic and mystery.

A fangirl herself, Rowell enthusiastically spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her love of the original series by Brian K. Vaughan.

This is my favorite Marvel book. When [editor Nick Lowe] first reached out to me a few years ago about maybe working for Marvel, it was the first thing I asked him about. The characters and original story by Brian K. Vaughan are just so great and so beautifully built. I was really excited because I always felt like there were more Runaway stories and that book should just have kept going.

The series’ first arc will bring the original Runaways together, a group of teenagers that ran away from home when they found out their parents were super villains. This includes bringing one member back from the grave. Rowell clarifies what the series will entail.

“It’s kind of funny calling them the Runaways because it’s not like they’re the Avengers or the X-Men. They were not formed with a mission and a purpose. They’re just kids who ended up in the same boat. At the beginning of this series they are scattered to the four winds and half of them are dead. One of the challenges now is who are they when they’re apart? They got thrown together, but now they’ve been pulled apart. They’re trying to figure out who they really are without each other… This arc is very much about them choosing to be together.”

The full interview with Rainbow Rowell and editor Nick Lowe can be found on Entertainment Weekly.

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