5 Things We Want to See in Season 2 of Hulu’s Runaways

The first season of Hulu’s Runaways, based on the Marvel comic created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, has come to its conclusion. The show’s first story arc left us with a lot of questions unanswered, while providing just enough teases and revelations to make us want to come back for more.

But we don’t just have questions about things Season 1 left unresolved. There’s also a lot of things we would love to see addressed or added to the show in its sophomore season, some teased, some not teased, and some drawn straight from the comics.

The Runaways Finally Run Away… But to Where?

After ten episodes of the Runaways sticking fairly close to home, the season 1 finale, “Hostile,” ended with the team finally living up to their name and actually running away, but leave the question of where they’re going to go up in the air. With their names and pictures all over the news, taking a bus out of town is out of the question, and the number one home for teen runaways in Los Angeles County, the Church of the Gibborim, is completely out of the question. Fortunately, Alex managed to get some cash from Darius, his dad’s former-partner-turned-adversary, so the kids won’t quite be living hand to mouth. But they’re still going to need a safe place to call home base.

The newspaper we glimpsed at the end of the episode—which read “Earthquake Watch: Is LA Next?”—might offer something of a clue. In the comics, the team shacked up in an old mansion swallowed into the ground in an earlier earthquake. While a subterranean mansion is probably a bit too unbelievable, an abandoned house damaged in an earthquake could be a nice compromise. Regardless of where it ends up being, we’re looking forward to seeing the Runaways new hideout, if only to see how they go about dinosaur-proofing it.

The Runaways, Pride, and Jonah’s Faction Plot Against Each Other (And Themselves)
“Hostile” shook up the show’s status quo in more ways than just having the kids finally run away from their parents. In one of the more unexpected twists, the episode also set up a new three-way conflict between the Runaways, the Pride, and a new faction made up of Jonah and Frank Dean (as well as the temporarily-deceased Victor Stein). The new dynamic adds to the uncertainty built up through most of the first season over whether the Pride are actually evil, or if they’ve just been deceived by Jonah to do evil things. The three team dynamic will also create a number of opportunities in the second season for the groups to team up out of convenience, only to inevitably turn on each other when circumstances change.

Even more interesting, though, is that each of the factions are likely to end up turning on themselves, as well as each other. The Pride has so many secrets in betrayals in their past that they are likely the first to crumble. But the text Jonah received from an unknown caller suggests there may be a mole inside the Runaways themselves. Alex is the obvious candidate, since he betrayed the team in the comics, but my money is on Chase, who we suspect is secretly working with Jonah to help bring back his dad. Meanwhile, does anyone really think Frank is on Jonah’s side?

we wouldn’t be shocked by the end of Season 2 to see three very different groups, each made up of a mix of kids and parents.

Let That Nico/Karolina Romance Bloom
While it has kept a lot of the tone and design from the comics, Runaways has not been afraid to mix up the details. One of the more welcome changes? When Karolina kissed Nico, Nico most definitely kissed back. Coming only a few months after the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduced its first queer character, Valkyrie, in Thor: Ragnarok, that Nico/Karolina kiss meant something, and it would be wonderful to see some romance bloom between the two of them in season 2.

Of course, Runaways is a teen drama, so there’s bound to be a bit of, um, drama between the two of them, as well as with their teammates, especially Alex. If there isn’t a new love triangle or rectangle or hexagon by the midpoint of the season, we’ll be surprised.

But, Make Room for Xavin and Victor
One potential source for a new love triangle: New Runaways! A number of other characters have been associated with the team over the years, but the two longest-lasting are probably Victor, the cyborg child of Ultron, and Xavin, the shapechanging, genderqueer Skrull. In the comics, the two were romantically linked with Nico and Karolina, respectively, creating lots of potential for relationship drama.

Introducing Victor, in particular, would be a great way tie the series into the broader MCU. By tweaking his backstory slightly, Victor could be not so much the child of Ultron, but the result of an experiment by Chase’s dad, Victor Stein, on some bit of Ultron recovered from the ruins of Sekovia. Messing around with a murder AI to create new life seems exactly the sort of crazy that Victor Stein would get involved in (naming the AI after himself would also be unsurprising). Cyborg Victor would thus have a chance to rebel against two evil parents, while sharing an even closer connection to the core team of Runaways.

Xavin, on the the other hand, might need a bit more tweaking to work in the series. Given Marvel’s reluctance to use the Skrulls in the MCU until 2019’s Captain Marvel, it’s doubtful they would premiere the race in the form of a minor character on a Hulu series. But, borrowing a page from Molly’s TV origins, Xavin could be another normal kid who came into contact with whatever those glowy rocks were, giving them the power to shapechange. (Or Xavin could just be an Inhuman, we suppose.) Xavin as a human shapechanger who happens to be genderqueer would be an incredible first for MCU, and would make for much more compelling television than the original “male Skrull who changed gender when he fell in love with Karolina” storyline.

A Crossover with Marvel’s Other TV Runaways, Cloak and Dagger

What we would love to see more than anything else in Runaways season 2, though, is a team-up with Marvel’s other TV runaways, Cloak and Dagger. Sure, there are probably a lot of things that make it complicated: Cloak and Dagger is set to air on Freeform, rather than Hulu, which could create some cross-network tensions; the two shows film in different cities (Runaways in LA, Cloak and Dagger in New Orleans); the filming schedules might be impossible to work out; etc. We don’t care, we just want to see all my precious Marvel teen runaways together in one place, even if just for one hour. Please, Marvel, make it happen.