Runaways Producer Casts Doubt on the Show’s MCU Connection

While the motto for Marvel’s television projects up to now has been that “it’s all connected,” a lack of crossovers between TV and the movies has given producers headaches as they continually have to manage fan expectations. Runaways executive producer Josh Schwartz is getting a head start, indicating that he isn’t even going to speculate whether or not the show takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

That is a strangely appropriate approach for the characters, whose critically-acclaimed comic book series did not make them major players in the larger Marvel Universe until it was over.

“How it connects or whether it does or not, we’ll leave that to the powers that be,” Schwartz told IGN. “I can just tell you that we were very capable of telling the story that we wanted to tell independent of any of the other Marvel stories that are out there.”

The “Powers That Be,” in Schwartz’s case, would be Marvel TV honcho Jeph Loeb, who coined the “It’s all connected” mantra. He says that the characters certainly exist within the MCU, but that their ties to the other stories being told there are somewhat nebulous.

“How it’s connected and where it’s connected and what it’s connected to remains to be seen. Right now what we’re trying to do is tell the great story that Josh and Stephanie [Savage] have grafted that’s based an award-winning series by Brian K. Vaughan, who’s also on board,” Loeb told IGN in a separate interview. “It has an amazing cast and that’s where it fits in.”

Runaways was created in 2003 for Marvel’s now defunct Tsunami imprint. Intended to be a miniseries at first, Runaways proved popular enough for Marvel to turn it into a monthly series. Runaways helped earn Brian K. Vaughan an Eisner Award, and it was listed on the 2006 American Library Association’s YALSA Top Ten Books for Young Adults list.

Vaughan departed the series in 2007. A series of other creative teams took over Runaways for a time including Avengers director Joss Whedon. Eventually the series ended with the characters being integrated into the larger Marvel universe. Victor Mancha, Ultron’s son and a late edition to the team, became an Avenger while Nico Minoru became a member of A-Force.