Runaways #7
Runaways vol. 2 #7 ('Star-Crossed, Chapter One') delivers the first appearance of Xavin, a Super-Skrull-in-training who became Marvel Comics' first gender-fluid character — a genuinely groundbreaking moment in mainstream superhero publishing for 2005. The issue also sets up the emotionally charged revelation that Karolina Dean is a lesbian, making this two-page introduction of Xavin one of the most quietly consequential character debuts of the mid-2000s Marvel era. Brian K. Vaughan's willingness to weave LGBTQ+ identity into a superhero book aimed at younger readers, without reducing it to spectacle, remains the arc's most durable legacy. The issue rounds out with the team dispatching Swarm, a villain whose Nazi-scientist-turned-living-bee-colony concept Vaughan uses as black comedy counterpoint to the issue's more earnest emotional core.
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The second volume of Runaways had launched only seven issues earlier, in February 2005, after strong digest trade-paperback sales persuaded Marvel to revive a series that had been cancelled in late 2004. Writer Brian K. Vaughan and colorist Christina Strain remained from the original volume, but regular penciler Adrian Alphona stepped back for issues #7–8, with Takeshi Miyazawa taking over interior art for the 'Star-Crossed' two-parter; Alphona is nevertheless credited as Xavin's co-creator alongside Vaughan, though Miyazawa was the artist who first rendered the character on the printed page. Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend provided the cover, maintaining visual continuity with the series' distinctive aesthetic during Alphona's brief absence.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Xavin, a Super-Skrull-in-training and the first gender-fluid character in mainstream Marvel Comics, debuting in this issue (Runaways vol. 2 #7, August 2005).
- Story title: 'Star-Crossed, Chapter One' — part one of a two-issue arc concluding in issue #8.
- Written by Brian K. Vaughan; interior art by Takeshi Miyazawa (fill-in for regular penciler Adrian Alphona); inks by Craig Yeung; colors by Christina Strain; cover by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend.
- Xavin is introduced as a Skrull prince sent to claim Karolina Dean as a betrothed, the product of an arranged marriage secretly brokered by Karolina's parents to seal a deal with the Skrull Empire.
- The issue features the team battling Swarm (Fritz von Meyer), the Nazi scientist-turned-sentient bee-colony villain, before the Xavin subplot takes over.
- Karolina Dean's identity as a lesbian — first signaled earlier in the series — becomes a pivotal plot element when she rejects Xavin's initial male form; the resolution (Xavin shapeshifting to a female form and Karolina agreeing to leave Earth) plays out in issue #8.
- Victor Mancha, Gert Yorkes, Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Molly Hayes, and Old Lace all appear as the established Runaways team roster, with Victor having joined only a few issues prior.
- The issue was later collected in Runaways Vol. 5: Escape to New York (TPB and digest editions) and in the Brian K. Vaughan & Adrian Alphona Omnibus, as well as Runaways: The Complete Collection Vol. 2.
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