Molly Hayes
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| Molly Hayes | |
 Cover art for Runaways 2 #21. Art by Jo Chen. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Runaways vol. 1, #1 (July, 2003) |
| Created by | Brian K. Vaughan Adrian Alphona |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Molly Hayes |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | Runaways |
| Notable aliases | Bruiser, Princess Powerful |
| Abilities | Superhuman strength and durability |
Molly Hayes, sometimes known as Bruiser and Princess Powerful, is a Marvel Comics superheroine in the comic book series Runaways, created by author Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona. Molly first appeared in Runaways vol. 1 #1 with the other five "founding" members of the unofficial superhero cadre. Molly is the only character who has appeared in every issue of Runaways.
Molly is the youngest member of the group, beginning the series at age 11, and also the most enthusiastic about leading life as a superhero. Molly's naivete and innocence usually serve as comic relief in the series, though she has been prone to moments of profound insight due to her childlike honesty. She is the team's sole mutant and takes much pride in her heritage; she admires the X-Men, primarily former X-Force member Doop, and Wolverine but began to hate him after a conflict with him when the Runaways were working with Cloak. Molly's mutant powers are super strength and invulnerability, though she falls asleep after exerting herself for too long. Molly's trademark is the large assortment of hats she wears throughout the series.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] The Pride
Molly is with friends Alex Wilder, Karolina Dean, Gertrude Yorkes, Chase Stein, and Nico Minoru when they observe their parents calling themselves The Pride and preparing the ritual sacrifice of a young girl. Molly is preemptively escorted away by Karolina while the older children watch the sacrifice commence. They inform Karolina and decide to run away from their homes that very night. After discovering their powers and gifts, the older five kids rescue Molly from her home. Molly awakes from a psychically-induced slumber during the runaways' rescue and sees her mother being threatened by Nico. Molly's mutant powers manifest at that moment in a display of glowing pink hair and eyes. However, Molly first uses her strength to knock Leslie Dean out of the sky, saving Gert. Molly promptly falls asleep from exhaustion and the runaways take her to their new hideout, a dilapidated mansion called "the Hostel."
Throughout the first volume of the series, Molly is skeptical that her parents were accomplices to murder and is unsure why the group ran away in the first place. However, she is excited at the prospect of becoming a superhero and enthusiastically takes the codename "Princess Powerful," while her teammates dub her "Bruiser." Shortly after their "superhero" careers begin, the runaways take in fellow runaway Topher, who turns out to be a vampire. He dies by ingesting Karolina's solar-irradiated blood and when Molly witnesses Topher's death, she realizes that the superhero life is not a game, and cries for her mother.
Alex later deciphers a text kept by his parents called the Abstract, and informs the runaways about their parents' activities as The Pride, their ties to the Gibborim (the Pride's Biblical benefactors), and their ultimate goal of exterminating all human life save for the six most loyal Pride members. Molly expresses disinterest in the Pride's motivations, but is excited when Alex plots to disrupt the Pride's ritual sacrifice to the Gibborim. When the runaways encounter the Pride, Molly witnesses first-hand why she and her friends have been in hiding for months and destroys the sacrifice prepared for the Gibborim. She escapes with the runaways when the Gibborim attack the Pride for losing the sacrifice. After the Pride's demise, Molly is sent to X-Corp for foster care, but breaks out with Gert's help and runs away with the rest of the team.
[edit] Runaways
In the second volume, Molly fights under Nico's command and witnesses the future Gert die in Chase's arms as she warns the runaways about the future supervillain named Victor Mancha. Molly participates in the search, and during the second fight with Excelsior, Molly discerns Chamber's fake accent; he is later revealed to be Geoffrey Wilder in disguise.
After Victor joins the team, Molly accompanies him on group shopping trips under Nico's orders because she believes that Molly is the only individual member of the runaways capable of bringing Victor down should he betray the team. During the runaways' trip to New York City to exonerate Cloak, Molly meets her idol Wolverine, but he scares her and she hurls him out of a church. After the runaways solve the case, they return to Los Angeles, but Wolverine and the X-Men follow them, looking to enroll Molly in Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. After a short altercation, the X-Men leave Molly alone, realizing that it would be unfair to force her to enroll.
During one mission, Molly gets separated from the team and the Provost abducts her. He coerces Molly and other children into robbing banks for him. Molly rallies the children to stage a coup, and she finds her way back to the runaways.
Molly is abducted in a battle with a second incarnation of the Pride, made up of Alex's MMORPG friends and led by a younger version of Alex's father, Geoffrey, (whom she refers to as "an evil black man from the 1980s" when a member of the pride temporarily removes her gag). Nico rescues Molly with Xavin's aid, but Gert dies covering their escape. After Gert's death, Molly asks the Leapfrog, the group's transport, if Gert went to Heaven, but it cannot reply since Heaven is not on any of the maps in its database. Soon afterwards, Molly begins hearing a disembodied voice she believes is Gert's, and follows its instructions to help revive Victor. She helps Victor rescue Nico from the Gibborim and subsequently joins the team on their cross-country trek to evade Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. The voice Molly heard is later revealed to have been Alex's.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
Molly's mutant powers include super strength and invulnerability, with which she has toppled a giant monster bigger than skyscrapers, tunneled through miles of rock, and broken solid objects over her head. While in her powered form, Molly's hair gains purple highlights and her eyes glow violet. Like fellow mutant Colossus, Molly must consciously activate her powers when she wants to use them. However, Molly can only use her powers for a limited amount of time before she becomes extremely fatigued and falls asleep. When she first used her powers, Molly fell asleep after only throwing one punch, but as the series continued, Molly has been able to use her powers for increasingly longer periods of time and to greater extremes without tiring. Nico once used the Staff of One to give Molly a caffeine rush while fighting a giant monster to keep her awake longer.
[edit] Relationships
Although Molly enjoys being independent and a superhero, she is still just a pre-adolescent girl who wants to have fun. Most of her close relationships are based on who is willing to spend the most time playing with her. Molly also has a tendency throughout the series to gravitate towards people that she can look up to as a big sibling.
[edit] Chase Stein
In the beginning of the series, Molly and Chase engage in a big brother/little sister relationship: they bicker, call each other names, and horse around. Chase always stands up to protect Molly. As the series progresses, Chase and Molly grow apart, primarily due to his romantic involvement with Gert. In issues #18-#24 of volume 2, Chase distances himself from Molly and the rest of the runaways to deal with his grief over Gert's death. However, in the Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways miniseries, Chase expresses jealousy over Molly's growing attachment to Speed. Though they are not as close as before, Chase and Molly's relationship seems to have been repaired after Chase moved past grieving for Gert.
[edit] Victor Mancha
Molly meets Victor when the runaways abduct him from his high school, hoping to preempt the prophecy that Victor will one day kill the Earth's heroes. Molly adjusts rather quickly to Victor's addition to the team; she spends more time off the battlefield with Victor than most, playing board games with him and pairing up to go shopping. During one of their trips, it's revealed that Nico has ordered Molly to "babysit" Victor, because she is the only individual member strong enough to take Victor down if he goes haywire. Molly tells Victor that she's not particularly scared of him, and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his supposed future. Victor surmises that Molly is simply using flattery to get him to buy her favorite cereal, but since she treats him as an equal and consistently spends time with him, he concludes that Molly was not just "sucking up." As Molly's relationship with Chase deteriorated, her relationship with Victor grew stronger.
[edit] Xavin
Though Xavin was initially hostile towards all the runaways, excepting Karolina, he has shown a great amount of concern for Molly's well-being. He returned to Earth with Karolina after their failed wedding as the runaways were attempting to locate Molly after she was abducted by the second Pride; Xavin immediately volunteered to help the search efforts to locate "the hatchling." Xavin is another one of Molly's frequent board game partners; during one of their gaming sessions, Molly expressed her discomfort with Xavin constantly shifting between forms and said that most of the team felt the same way. Despite this, Xavin still fought the Gibborim without hesitation to protect the team, after which Molly admitted that Xavin's consistent selflessness more than makes up for the shapeshifting. The two now share a close camaraderie.
[edit] Gertrude Yorkes
During the series, Gert was a sort of a role model for Molly. Gert was usually the one that Molly asked most of her questions to and they were normally paired together to guard the Hostel and their getaway car. When Gert was killed at the hands of Geoffrey Wilder, Molly spent time sitting in front of a photo of Gert in the new Hostel's photo wall. Molly would talk to Gert as if she were really there. She even asked the Leapfrog if Gert went to heaven (although it was unable to answer because heaven was not on any of the Leapfrog's maps). In at least once instance, Molly seems to gain specific information from an unknown voice only she can hear, which she assumed to be the voice of Gert; in reality it was the voice of Alex Wilder, in an attempt to redeem himself and escape limbo.
[edit] Conceptual Changes
Molly was one of the few runaways to actually keep the name she had in Brian K. Vaughan's original proposal; she is named after Vaughan's younger sister, Molly Hayes Vaughan.[1] However, in the original pitch for the series, Molly's parents were Hollywood actors. This would eventually become the cover story of Karolina's parents.[2] Also, Molly's sibling-like relationship with Chase was originally supposed to be with Gert.[3] Molly was supposed to be thirteen years old in the original pitch instead of eleven.[4]
[edit] References
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