How ‘Runaways’ Deals With The “Mutant” Problem

Marvel’s first series on Hulu is striking the right balance of adapting a beloved comic book while making some alterations for television, but Fox’s rights to the X-Men forced a major change.

When Marvel’s Runaways premieres later this month, fans of the original comic book by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona will notice that Molly is not a mutant, and the showrunners said that change actually benefitted the series.

Executive producers Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz discussed the changes to Molly’s character, not being able to say “mutant” on the series, and why they decided to make her an orphan during an interview with ComicBook.com at New York Comic Con. Check out the clip above!

“How Molly got this ability, why she has it, is a mystery that we’re going to be pursuing and unpacking in the series,” said Savage. “So it gave us an opportunity for her to go on a journey that we might not have otherwise had.”

“It’s not a story about being a mutant. You know, that there’s a mutant gene and she happens to have that,” added Schwartz. “It’s actually very specifically tied to our story.”

The showrunners also spoke about the decision to make Molly adopted by the Yorkes, becoming Gert’s sister on the show.

“Part of it was we had 17 series regulars to cast, so if a couple parents aren’t around when the story starts — and that will be explored and we will get to Molly’s parents later on — that made our lives a lot- it was slightly more feasible,” Schwartz said. “Seventeen series regulars, a breeze compared to 19.”

They added that the decision to make Molly Latina also followed the footsteps of what Vaughan and Alphona did in the comic book series in diversifying the cast.

While the series is reverent to the source material in how it portrays the characters, their own personal drama, and how the Runaways deal with finding out their parents are evil, the change to Molly is most relevant. But they managed to stay true to the original Bruiser (or Princess Powerful) without being allowed to use mutants.

The first three episodes of Marvel’s Runaways premiere on Hulu Tuesday, November 21.