|
recent posts
----------
Mothers With Devil Tongues
How Many Stories in the Naked City?
Sealed Lips Redux
Baby's First Product Recall
Tradition
Outing
Work Culture
Mind Reading
Taking Suggestions
Big Deal
|
 |
You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
Pre-order from:
- Simon & Schuster
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
Bad Parents on the Brain
The heat, while breathtaking (and getting worse, I am reminded), hasn't been what's kept me up the last few nights. That honor goes to a weighty collection of 18 issues of the Marvel Comic Runaways (written by Brian K. Vaughan), which my husband placed in my hands, knowing as he does my taste in comics. (I've been a dedicated reader of specific comics, but not one who typically seeks new things out on her own, which is probably why I tend to respond well to stories that have been around for a while and are readable in big collections. This started with Ronin and Elektra: Assassin when I was in middle school. I hate sitting around tapping my foot, for instance, for more Hellboy to appear.)
Anyway, a conversation about whether Muriel Spark and Martha Gellhorn's treatment of their children could qualify them as evil, made me think about Runaways which takes as its inspiration the thought that most children have, at some point, at least in passing.
They wonder if their parents are evil- or if not evil, exactly, then so fundamentally wrong and misguided as to be terrifying.
I'm guilty of this, having gone through a phase as a young child of being quite certain that my parents were robbers who stole me from my "real" parents.
But in Runaways, this suspicion is made flesh when six children- each the single, coddled child of overachievers- discover that their parents are a cabal of supervillans.
The kids do run away, but then they're stuck wondering what to do. It is enough to seek safety? Do they have to stop their parents? If so, how can they figure out what their folks are up to? And, of course, what if the grown-ups are actually right about everything and even a little blood sacrifice here and there is somehow justifiable?
The parents, too, are complicated, working at all kinds of cross-purposes, trapped by their abilities, their pride, their pricey decisions, and their passion for their children that destabilizes every plan they ever made.
It's all fun, though. And interesting. I can't say much more because to reveal anything probably reveals too much, if you're the kind who likes suspense and hates spoilers. So I'll just toss out a few key words and leave it at that: witch, logician, mutant, (space) alien, murder, empath, vampire, velociraptor, betrayal, family, love.
It's not a television show, but, hey, Joss Whedon liked it enough to write a fan letter (published in the back of the book).
posted by Elise at 7:43 PM
........................................................
........................................................
<< Home
........................................................
|
