Of late, Disney Plus and Hulu have embraced the controversial ways of Netflix and purged a major chunk of its shows, leaving them no place to exist legally. The initial deletion included three Marvel shows that though raised eyebrows, didn’t really pain the fandom in the long term. Sadly, the streamers have finally dealt a crushing blow to the fandom by erasing Marvel’s Runaways from existence. But what is irking everyone more than the show’s unjustified deletion from both platforms is the fact that another unanimously hated Marvel series still exists on Disney Plus.
Unlike the 50 shows that were erased with a prior announcement, Runaways disappeared into the night without so much as a whisper from Disney Plus and Hulu. Yes, it didn’t enjoy the early success that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did, but it had a space of its own in our hearts as its team of superheroes rebelled against their own families and their allegiance to the forces of evil to fight for what is right. And it didn’t hurt that the overall series has a fresh 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Apparently, just like exceptional views means nothing to Netflix, the high critic score and the fact that fans were still hoping to see the Runaways heroes find a proper place in the MCU didn’t matter to either streamer.
And more importantly, adding insult to injury is the mocking presence of the Marvel disappointment Inhumans on Disney Plus.
For anyone who didn’t watch the show or successfully blocked out the painful memories, Inhumans focused on the Inhuman Royal Family, with Anson Mount’s Black Bolt leading the storyline. To say that the series was a rousing failure would be an understatement given that it managed to scrounge together a meager 11% rotten rating with the overall critics’ consensus stating that it set “a new low standard for the MCU with an unimaginative narrative, dull design work, weak characters, and disengaging soapy melodrama.”
While Black Bolt is technically MCU canon thanks to his rather gory death in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, that being enough to protect the series isn’t really a sound explanation.
This sudden decision has only crushed lingering hopes that the show and its band of heroes will be made MCU canon one day. The only solace we can find in this ongoing reign of chaos is that, unlike the other purged shows, at least Runaways is still available via on-demand outlets like iTunes.
