Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist.

This week, as I occasionally do, I'm shifting focus to a project that's actually happening. The Runaways are getting TV series on Hulu, with a full series order and the involvement of Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. So obviously we've been thinking about the original book, and who should play those roles.

Runaways was a Marvel comic that started in 2003, featuring a whole new team of young heroes created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona. The hook is that these six kids --- five teenagers and one preteen girl --- discover that their parents are secretly a team of supervillains called the Pride, who have terrifying plans for the whole world. So running away is their only good option, as well as becoming heroes in an attempt to thwart their parents' plans.

For this cast, I've focused on the first story arc of the book, which culminates in the confrontation with the Pride and a betrayal by one of the Runaways. I won't spoil which one, because you really should track down this comic if you haven't already read it.

  • Bella Thorne as Karolina Dean

    Marvel/CBS Films
    Marvel/CBS Films
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    Thorne has that Hollywood glamour that's important to Karolina's background. And she's a good actress.

  • Lana Condor as Nico Minoru

    Marvel/Fox
    Marvel/Fox
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    We're righting a wrong here. Condor's way cool, and she's already been cast as one of Marvel's best young heroes, but the X-Men: Apocalypse movie totally wasted her as Jubilee. So we're going to cast her as another of Marvel's best young heroes, dress her in equally stylish but much less colorful clothes, and make her one of the stars of the show.

  • Abigail Breslin as Gert Yorkes

    Marvel/Lionsgate
    Marvel/Lionsgate
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    Breslin's a veteran actress at 20, and she can bring what's unique about Gert to the screen. And she'll look awesome alongside a CGI velociraptor.

  • Millie Bobby Brown as Molly Hayes

    Marvel/BBC
    Marvel/BBC
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    I hate to typecast Brown as a tiny badass mutant, but after Stranger Things, she's definitely the most exciting tween actress of the moment, and I want to see her punch through walls with her fists instead of her mind.

  • Colin Ford as Chase Stein

    Marvel/CBS
    Marvel/CBS
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    Colin Ford shows a lot of promise in Under the Dome, and he's got the perfect look for Chase.

  • Justice Smith as Alex Wilder

    Marvel/Netflix
    Marvel/Netflix
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    Smith has this slightly haunted quality lurking under his substantial charisma, and I think that's an important thing for Alex to have.

  • Andre Braugher and 11 Other People as the Pride

    Marvel/Fox
    Marvel/Fox
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    If I had infinite space and time for this column, I would absolutely cast all of the supervillain parents. But there's twelve of them, and they mostly just stand around in a crowd. But I can definitely tell you that Andre Braugher would be fantastic as their leader, Geoffrey Wilder.

  • Diego Boneta as Topher

    Marvel/Fox
    Marvel/Fox
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    Topher almost joins the Runaways, but then he turns out to be a vampire and also a real jerk. Boneta can definitely convey his faux innocence and manipulative tendencies.

  • Shameik Moore as Cloak

    Marvel/Netflix
    Marvel/Netflix
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    Moore is an actor who's definitely going places. If one of those places is a Cloak and Dagger spin-off series, that could be fun.

  • Emma Roberts as Dagger

    Marvel/Fox
    Marvel/Fox
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    Similarly Roberts has the star power to carry Dagger farther than the small role she and Cloak play in this story.

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