By When describing her character from Runaways, Allegra Acosta said that Molly Hernandez, her super strength-powered young girl is getting “bigger,” “louder,” with “more powers,” and most importantly, “going to war.” You could say the same for all of the teen characters in Hulu’s Marvel teen drama for its second season. At the New York Comic-Con panel for the show, co-creator Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl, The O.C.) and all cast members were present to describe the changes of all of their respective characters.
Marvel Television president, executive producer, and guy-who-acts-likes-he’s-everyone’s-dad Jeph Loeb moderated the relatively short panel, going through each cast member. Gregg Sulkin said that his character Chase Stein was finally “becoming a man,” and has a”beautiful relationship” with Gert Yorkes (Ariela Barer). Barer delved into the mental illness and anxiety disorder of her character, and despite her status as a “social justice warrior,” her status as a runaway is giving her first-hand experience of poverty and social injustice for the first time in her life.
Virginia Gardner discussed her character Karolina Dean’s newfound confidence with her light-based power, and Lyrica Okano mentioned that her character, Nico Minoru, is the “reluctant leader” of the Runaways. Karolina and Nico have begun a relationship, possibly to the jealousy of Alex Wilder (Rhenzy Feliz). When asked about his character development, Feliz instead suggested they show a clip. After minutes of obvious teasing, it soon became obvious that all attending the panel would have a look at the second season’s first episode.
The first season ended with a fairly average episode, with the Runaways finally being true to their name and running away—albeit very abruptly in the last minutes of a relatively uneventful episode. Without spoiling too much, the premiere episode reminds us of the discord not only between the Runaways but their parents they have run away from, who form the organization The Pride.
There are a lot of parallels between the two factions of the Runaways and the Pride—both are now generally united in their goals (the Runaways to take down their parents, the Pride to catch their children), and despite all of the machinations, in-fighting, and backstabbing between all of the characters in season one, they pledge to become a united front. But as everyone has their own motivations, a lack of scheming is not guaranteed, and distrust still remains.
The panel ended with a quick look at what the rest of the season has to offer, with quick revealing images and an appearance by the comic book character of Topher (Jan Luis Castellanos), a “consummate survivor” who “knows how to read the room and win friends.”
Season 2 of Marvel’s Runaways will stream on December 21 in its entirety on Hulu. We participated in a roundtable interview with the cast and producers at NYCC, which you can read for yourself very soon.