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'Runaways' Season 3: Star Hopes Disney-Fox Merger Adds Mutants to the Show

"Throughout Season 2, we're throwing small little Easter eggs for the comic fans," one 'Runaways' star tells Inverse.

Marvel’s Netflix universe might be doomed, but the newly released Runaways Season 2 shows no signs of stopping. Now, thanks to the incoming Disney-Fox merge, one Runaways star is optimistic that the Hulu series may finally be able to use the “M-word” to describe Molly as a mutant.

One of the show’s stars remains optimistic that especially with the upcoming Disney-Fox merger, a potential Season 3 could more closely honor the show’s comics roots by finally using the “M-word” to describe Molly as a mutant. Season 2 even lays the groundwork to make that happen.

In an interview, Allegra Acosta (Molly Hernandez in Runaways) tells Inverse that she’s excited to see how the series may start to connect to the larger X-Men universe, noting that Season 2 may have already laid some of that groundwork.

“If we go on to Season 3 and Disney merges with Fox, maybe we can use the “M word” in Season 3,” Acosta says. “Because there are some cool Easter eggs to explore from Season 2.”

Her character’s comics counterpart, Molly Hayes, is a mutant with superhuman strength, but much like Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in the MCU, Runaways can’t legally use the term “mutants.” 20th Century Fox owns the term and all of the X-Men. So until the merger is finalized, any show or movie owned by Disney/Marvel can’t even mention the term.

Molly uses her NOT-mutant powers to stop a giant pillar from crushing her friends.

Hulu

Season 1 explained Molly’s powers as the result of exposure to radiation from strange rocks when an explosion killed her parents, avoiding any talk of genetic mutations involving the X-Gene.

“Throughout Season 2, we’re throwing small little Easter eggs for the comic fans, to kind of not use the M word but to instead show it in a different way,” Acosta says. “I think it’s really interesting and fun, the way we kind of portrayed it.”

Acosta earnestly hopes they can explore mutants in Season 3, but her real dream is for an iconic Runaways-Avengers crossover moment from the comics when Molly meets Wolverine and punches him so hard he’s sent flying through the air.

Everyone talks about Wolverine joining the MCU with the impending Disney-Fox merger, which could finalize on January 1, but the deal will have implications in virtually every actively running Marvel show or movie.

Before long, mutants could be everywhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, maybe even part of a post-Avengers: Endgame reality. And with any luck, the Runaways will be a part of that expanded universe as well.

Marvel’s Runaways Season 2 is currently available to stream on Hulu.

Related video: Rewatch the first Season 2 trailer.