Runaways is the fun teen superhero series we need

[Archiee]

SECRET passageways behind hidden doors never lead anywhere good.

Well, maybe Narnia. And the Secret Garden. OK, secret passageways behind hidden doors in your parents’ Los Angeles mansion never lead anywhere good.

In Runaways, the passage leads down a flight of stairs to an imposing, cavernous chamber where all the adults are standing around in red robes, surrounded by candlelight and an air of evildoing.

Looking on, stunned, six teens see their parents make a young girl drink a liquid from a grail-type cup and usher her into a black box. A flash of light and then she’s gone.

When you’re a teenager, your parents are the enemy — all those demands about homework, a clean room and looking after your younger siblings when you’d rather hang out with your friends. Runaways is about what happens when your parents are actually the villains in the story.

Based on a popular Marvel comic book series, Runaways is a fresh superhero series that’s clever enough to let the teens’ stories take centre stage but nuanced enough to give the adult characters their own complex relationships and motivations.

Created by The OC and Gossip Girl team of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the series is fun, addictive and packed with charismatic characters you want to follow.

The teens are loosely led, at first, by Alex (Rhenzy Feliz), the son of a real estate developer (Ryan Sands) and lawyer (Angel Hart). He’s a whiz at computers and tech and harbours a crush on Nico (Lyrica Okano), a Wiccan with a ball-breaker, overachieving mum (Brittany Ishibashi).

“Woke” riot girl Gert (Ariela Barer) and her adopted sister Molly (Allegra Acosta) are the kids of genius scientists who have genetically engineered a little dinosaur they keep in their basement.

Rounding out the gang are Karolina (Virginia Gardner), a “good girl” whose mother (Annie Wersching) is the head of the Scientology-like Church of Gibborum, and Chase (Gregg Sulkin), a whip-smart engineer and surprisingly sensitive jock whose father Victor (James Marsters) is this universe’s Elon Musk. Or considering this series is loosely set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Victor is more like a less charming Tony Stark.

The teens couldn’t be more different from each other but they grew up together because of their parents’ association in Pride, supposedly a charity organisation but in reality a nefarious cabal that ritually sacrifices young people and whose grand plans become clearer as the season progresses.

Having grown apart over the years, when the teens find out about their parents’ tru(ish) natures, they’re forced to band together to figure out what’s happening. None of them really want to believe their parents are malevolent scoundrels but they’re also too smart to ignore what they saw.

The dynamics between the teens, and with the adults, are captivating, as they figure out love triangles, the expectations of their own social tribes and the fact that some of them have super powers. They all have different challenges to face, all carefully plotted out across the first season’s 10 episodes, and it’s a delight to see them work together.

It’s not as soapy as Schwartz and Savage’s previous works and you don’t have to be a comic book nerd or an adolescent to be bewitched by Runaways.