- Name: Molly Hayes
- Code Names: Princess Powerful, Bruiser
- First Appearance: Runaways #1 (July ‘03)
- Powers: Strength
- Teams Affiliation: The Runaways
About
Comics, especially comics in the mid-00s, had a tendency to go dark. This is the era of gritty realism, of The Ultimates and Identity Crisis, so a dash of hope was refreshing. Marvel tried to tap into that lighter, manga influenced zeitgeist with Tsunami. Tsunami was an imprint that tried to capture a fun, youthful spirit with mixed results. There were a couple X-Books that came out of it that people liked but the biggest thing by far was Runaways. Not that it was a resounding success, it was canceled after issue eighteen, but the energy and passion of its’ characters proved to be a boom for Marvel. And those characters live on today. Characters like Molly Hayes.
Every year, for as long as she could remember, Molly went with her mom and dad to the Wilder’s house for a party with a bunch of families. While the grown-ups talked about some boring charity or stock market thing, Molly played with the kids. They were all older than her, sure, but she had fun hanging out with them. Something was different for Molly this year though. She was eleven, almost twelve, and her body was going through changes. She tried talking to the older girls like Nico and Gert about it, but they just assured her it was a perfectly normal part of becoming a woman.
The kids found a secret passage and decided to see where it went, unaware that it would lead to a revelation. They saw their parents all dressed up, Molly thought they looked like superheroes. Everyone else was on edge. Alex thought it was best for Karolina to take Molly back, she was too young to see whatever was going on. Soon the other kids came barging back through and put together an impromptu game of Twister. They told Molly to keep the what they did quiet and she did. She just went home and got tucked into bed by her mom and dad. It was a fun night.
As Molly slept the other kids got busy. They had seen their parent execute a girl and planned to run away. Their parents caught wind of it and tried to stop their offspring, using Molly’s life as leverage. Molly woke up, Nico was in her room. So was her mom, dressed like she was in the tunnels. They started fighting and Molly didn’t know what was going on, she was just scared and angry and her eyes glowed pink. She didn’t believe Nico and the other kids that their parents were supervillains, that is until Karolina’s mom crashed through Molly’s wall. She saw Mrs. Dean hurting Gert, threatening to kill her, and Molly just wanted everyone to be nice. She shoved Mrs. Dean out of her room, threw her into the pool below. It wasn’t even hard for a mutant with super strength like Molly. They all went on the run, taking codenames like real superheroes. Chase wanted Molly’s name to be Bruiser but she wanted to be Princess Powerful.
The kids sure had powers, but you wouldn’t call them superheroes. While the big kids were letting their hormones run wild, Molly was seeing just how super strong she was. When a vampire they had become friends with died while betraying them, Mol realized just hope serious her life had become. She just wanted her mommy and daddy. That was never going to be an option, not anymore. The Runaways discovered their parents trying to destroy the world and Molly made her choice. She helped stop her parents and saved the world.
Just after that, Captain America showed up and the Runaways were forced to split out. Molly was sent to an X-Corp organization but didn’t feel like she fit in there. Her and her friends lived up to their name though, they ran away. The team eventually ran across Molly’s idol, Wolverine, but he didn’t live up to her expectations. He was mean and smelled like barfed up hair. He got in her way so she punched him really, really hard. He stopped being friendly with her after that. This lead to the X-Men trying to enroll Molly in the Xavier School but they respected that she just wanted to stay with her new family.
Still, after that she kept a friendly relationship with the X-Men. Wolverine was there for the little squirt when some villain from her parents past tried to get revenge on her. She went to Utopia to attempt to connect to mutant culture. After the events of Second Coming she had a nice long talk with Beast about the extinction of the mutant race. She wasn’t ready to face the end of her people, but she accepted that it was out of her control. She just committed to living the best life she could.
It wasn’t too long after that the Runaways pretty much broke up. Nico and Chase were more or less raising Molly alone which went well until they were captured by Arcade for his Murderworld. Molly was determined to find them and enlisted Hank Pym from the Avengers Academy to help her. She ended up helping rescue all the kids but the experience was tough for Nico and Chase. They couldn’t raise Molly anymore, they were just teens, and she was sent to live with her only living relative, her grandma.
Living with her grandma and all those cats meant living like a regular junior high kid, not that Molly had any problem with that. She missed school, missed having friends her own age, but something felt off. She knew her grandma was running experiments on her but she didn’t think she was evil. When the rest of the Runaways reformed, they tried to recruit Molly. She was conflicted, to say the least, but chose her found family over her real one. She stayed in school thanks to a magic spell that allowed Nico and Chase to adopt her, no questions asked, but things weren’t perfect. Molly was growing up. She didn’t want to just be the cute kid sister with the silly hats, but she didn’t know what she wanted to be. She is still discovering all of this but with her trademark positive attitude and charm!
Must Read
Did y’all read that first run of Runaways yet? It is very good. This is the definitive teen superhero story. Brian K. Vaughan has been one of the best in the business for years and he shows his chops here. Adrian Alphona is still developing during this story but the sense of design is ever present. There is a reason this story lead to such a devoted fanbase, it is a must-read.
Ranking
If we were ranking Runaways this would be easy. Molly would be number one, no questions asked. Sadly, Molly is only tangentially related to the X-Men and that knocks her down a few pegs. She is better by far than Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who were similarly derated. I can’t justify putting her as high as Rachel Summers but I think she is a better-developed character than Bailey Hoskins. And even though he is more important to X-Men, Molly is better than Beak. That makes Princess Powerful the new number 46 in the Xavier Files.
Molly was requested by Patreon supporter Josh H. Thank you for your support! If you have a request for how about you send it below? If you want to cut to the front of the two-year long line, we have a Patreon you can support Xavier Files for just $1 to get a line cutting reward.
Make sure you check out my podcast BATTLE OF THE ATOM. It’s where Bish & Jubez creator Adam Reck and I talk about every single X-Men story that ever existed and rank them from best to worst. Episode 42 is up and we talk about some robots. Make sure you subscribe to any of the following platforms (or others, I’m not picky) Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS.
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Next week I take a break for some well deserved R&R! See you when I get back!
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
