Power Pack #22: Trapped!

I'll admit, I was slow to come around to Power Pack.  It was the 80s, I was young and foolish but when I did finally give it a chance I was impressed.  Created by Georgia girl Louise Simonson and June Brigman in 1984, Power Pack told the story of a family of four ordinary kids who got superpowers from an alien.

The best thing about Power Pack was the writing.  The stories were tightly written, the kids were believable, and their adventures were fun.

By the way, today's issue falls under that classic comics category, "cover bears no relation to what happens inside."

Our story begins with the Snark emperor having it out with Chancellor Maruad.

 

  Maruad begins a new plan to capture the Power kids using a new reality bender that can disguise a cruiser as a jub jub bird or anything else.  But Franklin aka Tattletale is using his psychic powers to spy on the snarks.

 

Franklin wakes at the Avengers Mansion where he's staying while his parents are off in the Negative Zone.  By the way, this is the time that Johnny Storm released Annihilus who was being held by Blastaar.

The Snarks fly over the city looking for the kids.  Meanwhile, Alex is being kind of awkward around a girl he likes.  His rival John, trips Alex who is saved from a fall by Julie's lightspeed power.

 

Of course during the excitement Alex activated his gravity powers.  Needless to say two kids using their powers alerts the Snarks.

 

Over at the Avengers Mansion, Franklin "helps" Jarvis in the kitchen.  Jarvis is saved by the Power kids arriving to pick-up Franklin.  This scene reminds of the sticky problem of Franklin Richards age.  Born in comics in 1968, in real time that would make him 45 today.  Of course comics don't move in real time but we have a good template of time passing in that we can apply to Franklin.  Peter Parker graduated high school in 1965, three years before Franklin was born.  Parker graduated college in 1978, so assuming the 13 years between 1965-1978 represented four years in-universe time, that would make Franklin no older than 3 in 1978.  Calculating three years real time for every one year in-universe Franklin would have been about five when Power Pack began and almost six in this issue.  But he's not.  He's more like 3 or 4.  Franklin's age seems to bounce up and down depending on the needs of the story.  Simonson was remarkably consistent but other writers less so.  Which brings up YARTMUNARB (Yet Another Reason the Marvel Universe Needs a Reboot), it's just gone on too long with characters stuck in some sort of perma-statis.

 

Franklin and the power kids head over to Central Park where the Alex's love interest Allison sleds down the hill with John, right toward the well known Central Park landmark the "death jump."

But the death jump is too tame for bad-boy John so he invites Allison to join him on that other Central Park landmark, suicide hill.

Meanwhile Friday and Yrin head to Snarkworld, but in no way are they walking into a trap.

 

Whoops.

Meanwhile, Allison seems to be having second thoughts about suicide hill, but John isn't one to take no for an answer.  Luckily Alex uses his powers to save them but that attracts the snarks attention.

 

Alex then uses his powers to rough up John, and immediately feels really really bad about it.  Nowadays Alex would have just punched John's head off and used it for a lunchbox.

 

The kids decide to leave the park where they meet Jarvis who found Katie's gloves.  Jarvis puts the kids on a bus but...

 

Psyche! It was just the Snarks in disguise.

The Snarks set course for Snarkworld and Alex being a teenaged boy instantly worries that Allison will think he stood her up.  Alex Power- leadership comes second to hormones.  Franklin, and evidently only Franklin in a city of seven million with a half dozen super-hero teams, notices the Snark ship headed toward the sky.

 

The End.  Next issue: Jakal destroyed by Katie's power balls.  Katie destroyed by the knowledge. 

So how does this issue hold up?  Really well.  For a move the larger story along issue it took pains to actually have some sort of self contained plot. As a writer Louise Simonson was in full stride with Power Pack and it shows, and the art was just beautiful.  The kids look like kids of different ages and look at Jarvis's smug expression in that last panel, that's just perfect.  Well worth .75 in 1984 and definitely worth a quarter today.

Bonus: The New Universe

  

Next time: The New Universe