Brian K. Vaughan Promises ‘Runaways’ Fans Will Be Surprised

Fans of the cult-favorite comic book won’t have a roadmap for spoilers when Marvel’s Runaways premieres on Hulu. Creator Brian K. Vaughan helped make sure of it.

The writer of the original comic series spoke to the Hollywood Reporter about the new series, saying that fans will be surprised by the deviations of the new series.

“It was important to me that we do something where people can’t go online and read how this ends or what’s going to happen next,” said Vaughan. “If you’re a fan of the comic, you’re going to be surprised. If you’ve never read the comic, you’re going to be surprised.”

Vaughan originally wasn’t going to be involved with the new series, but came for a short visit to the writers room at the behest of Jeph Loeb. That short visit turned into a month, and showrunners Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz took advantage of the opportunity to expand the series while staying true to its heart.

“I have to say, they have been so generous — they give me a lot of credit — but in reality, this is very much Josh and Stephanie’s show,” Vaughan said. “They have assembled an incredible group of writers that I have been lucky enough to sit in with. I have a consultant title. They certainly consulted with me at every stage. The reality is, they didn’t really need my help all that much…

“I feel my job was to give them the cloud cover, the freedom I guess, to make it their own. If this is going to succeed in 2017 as a television show, you can’t treat the 2003 comic book as storyboards to be adapted exactly. It needs to evolve. It needs to change. I was hopeful that they would make it their own, and they very much have.”

Vaughan called Savage and Schwartz “terrific writers” and praised how the series focuses on the parents to differ from the comic book.

“My loyalty was always with the young characters. I liked that right away, their thinking was: ‘How much more interesting would this world be if we came to care about the parents as much as we care about the kids?’ Having become a parent in the last two years, I’ve looked back on some of the ways I judged my parents.

“Parents aren’t gods. They’re sleepy, dizzy human beings trying their best to do an impossible job… Getting to show another side of these adults was a fantastic opportunity. [Schwartz and Savage’s] level of sophistication and the care with which they took for all of these characters meant a lot to me.”

Marvel’s Runaways premieres this Tuesday, November 21 on Hulu. Check out our review of the first four episodes here.