Power Pack

Original series

During the early 1980s, Marvel Comics had a policy that all their editors should also be writing comic books. Despite this, Louise Simonson recalled, "I had resisted [editor-in-chief Jim] Shooter's encouragement to write stuff or do freelance stuff because I thought he had writers whose livelihoods depended on their doing books and it didn't feel fair to take the work away from them. I had a job. But then Shooter hired a whole batch of new editors, and my workload was cut in half. I got bored and I thought I should create something rather than take one of the jobs that were already there, so I proposed the idea for 'Power Pack' to Shooter. He eventually loved the idea, and so that was my taste of writing. I found it more challenging than editing, and way more fun, because I had been editing for a long time so I think it had gotten too easy for me.[2]"

Simonson chose June Brigman as Power Pack's penciler because of her talent for drawing children.[2] The Power Pack series premiered in May 1984 (cover date August 1984) in a double-sized issue inked by Bob Wiacek.[3] The series continued into 1991, during which time Brigman and Wiacek were replaced by Jon Bogdanove and Hilary Barta as principal artists, and Bogdanove took over as writer. The Power Pack letters column, titled "Pick of the Pack", printed drawings and jokes about the characters submitted by readers, an unusual practice for a Marvel title.

In the first story of the series, the alien Kymellian known as Whitey is fatally injured by the alien villains known as Snarks. He gives the four Power children his powers before dying. His mass control power goes to Jack, his energy and disintegration power goes to Katie, his ability to fly goes to Julie, and his control over gravity goes to Alex. In issue #25, the team's powers are temporarily stolen, then returned but rearranged. Due to this "power switch", each Power Pack child now has an ability wielded by one of their siblings, leading to a change in codenames.[4] The Power Pack children finally switch their costumes to match their new powers in issue #47. In issue #52, another rearrangement of powers and codenames occurrs.

Unlike superheroes such as Spider-Man or Batman who were orphaned, free agents, or teenagers often trusted to be on their own without supervision, Power Pack was made up of pre-adolescent siblings who had a close relationship with each other, as well as their supportive parents Jim and Maggie Power. Early in the series, the children decide to keep their powers and superhero activities concealed from their parents, believing it would cause them stress and worry. This decision leads to several moral compromises and feelings of guilt for the Power Pack members whenever they have to lie to friends and family or allow harm to occur because helping could mean revealing their abilities.[5] The question of whether or not the powers should be revealed is an ongoing source of debate among the children. Power Pack readers also argued the matter out in the letters pages. During Jon Bogdanove's story "Revenge of the Bogeyman", which was a tie-in for the crossover Inferno, the parents learn their children are superheroes.[6] Bogdanove depicted Jim and Maggie Power as so overwhelmed by the situation that they suffer mental breakdowns. To help the Power family, the New Mutants use illusory clones to convince Jim and Maggie Power that their children were never superheroes. This restored the secret identity status quo.[7] Fans reacted negatively to this resolution, saying it was a deus ex machina, that it avoided dealing with the issue of the Powers' secret identities, and that it characterized Jim and Maggie Power as weak and irresponsible in a way inconsistent with their earlier portrayals.[8]

Despite the characters of Power Pack being children, the series often dealt with mature issues.[10] Many of the social problems of the 1980s found their way into the book's storylines. Among the themes addressed were pollution,[11] drug abuse,[12] runaways,[13] kidnapping,[14] gun violence,[15] bullying,[5] orphanhood,[16] and homelessness.[13]

Through the series, the children age and mature. In issue #1, Alex is 12,[19] Julie is 10,[20] Jack is 8,[21][22] and Katie is 5.[23] In issue #45, Julie graduates from elementary school with honors in English, and the story says she will join Alex at school 44 (an actual middle school existing in New York City).

The same year Power Pack debuted, the team appeared alongside Spider-Man in a special comic designed to discuss children targeted by sexual abuse. The one-shot issue, written by Louise Simonson, was distributed for free and reprinted in the comics sections of many major newspapers.[24] Marvel continued the campaign by featuring the characters in print public service announcements.[25] Later the same year, the writers used the Snark Wars storyline (wherein the children are kidnapped by the evil Snark alien race) to address the issue of child abduction. During the same storyline, photos of missing children were printed in lieu of the comic's regular letters column.[26] In 1989, the Power Pack teamed-up with Cloak and Dagger in a special graphic novel addressing teen homelessness and runaways. Hotline telephone numbers for Covenant House were printed on the back cover.[13]

Along with Spider-Man and the duo of Cloak and Dagger, Power Pack frequently encounter members of the X-Men and New Mutants. In issue #16, they meet Franklin Richards (son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four), and in issue #17 Franklin becomes a part-time member of Power Pack. He joins on many other adventures, occasionally staying with the Power family for days at a time when his own family are off on adventures. Franklin has a tense relationship with Katie Power, as Simonson explained: "Katie hates Franklin's guts. He's smaller than she is, and the others are making a big deal of him. She considers him low man in the pecking order. ... Katie and Franklin will kind of become friends, but there will always be a little bit of rivalry between the two of them."[27]

Starting with issue #42, Jon Bogdanove, who wrote issue #36 as a guest writer, took over as regular writer, remaining in that capacity until issue #52. A number of other fill-ins took place in the series's later years; Howard Mackie wrote issue #34, Julianna Jones wrote issues #38 and #45, Steven Heyer wrote #41, Terry Austin wrote issues #46 and #53, Judy Bogdanove wrote #54, and Dwayne McDuffie wrote issue #55. During Bogdanove's final issues, Franklin Richards returns as a regular member of the team.

Further changes involved Alex Power mutating into a Kymellian without explanation, forcing him to hide from his girlfriend Allison as well as from public life. The series was cancelled with issue #62. The final issue, printed in the fourth quarter of 1990 (cover-dated February 1991), depicts the team and their parents journeying into space together.

One year after the original series' cancellation, creators Louise Simonson and June Brigman teamed up for the one-shot issue Power Pack Holiday Special (published in fourth quarter of 1991, with a cover date of February 1992). The one-shot comic resolved the cliffhanger the series had ended on, restored the Power Pack's original powers, and undid some of the changes to the characters done during the run by Michael Higgins and Tom Morgan. Power Pack Holiday Special also included a short comedy story involving an art style that evoked Calvin and Hobbes, and a short story that showed an older, teenage Julie dealing with romance and self-esteem issues.

The Power Pack stories were reprinted by Marvel UK beginning around 1986. It was Marvel UK's practice at the time to use a less well-known series as a secondary story in a comic devoted to more recognizable characters, and Power Pack became the back-up "strip" in a run of Marvel's licensed Star Wars weekly Return of the Jedi.[28] During this period, it was printed partly in black and white and partly in color, as was the main Star Wars strip. Power Pack subsequently became the back-up strip for the UK ThunderCats comic, where it remained until its eventual replacement by the Galaxy Rangers series.

2000 miniseries

A four-part Power Pack mini-series published in 2000 depicted the children as now being slightly older than when they had last been in the 1991 Power Pack Holiday Special. Katie was now in the fifth grade (having skipped two grades due to her intelligence), Jack had joined Julie in middle school, and Alex was now a teenager in high school. James and Maggie, the children's parents, were now aware that their children were also the heroes of Power Pack and accepted it. The Power children now wore masks when in costume and their superhero activities were largely restricted to "practice sessions" in the forest around their new home in Bainbridge Island, 10 mi from Seattle. The series once again pitted the Pack against Queen Mauraud and the Snarks.

Return of Power Pack

Joe Quesada announced in a New Joe Fridays column at Newsarama that Power Pack would be returning to the Marvel Universe in late 2007, after the events of Civil War.[29][30] However, due to the various delays within their release shipping schedules for Marvel Comics, these plans were put on hold. A new Power Pack story was commissioned for the 2007 Marvel Holiday Special,[31] which would have been the first original material featuring the full cast in the standard Marvel Universe since the 2000 mini-series. It was briefly summarized as "Power Pack relives holidays past" in official Marvel solicits, but the story was scrapped from the publication at the last minute, when it was decided to prioritize the recently canceled title The Loners, which featured Julie Power among its cast. A Loners story written by C. B. Cebulski ran in place of the Power Pack story, though the official solicitation information still listed the Power Pack story and description.

Three of the Power siblings – Alex, Jack, and Katie – appear within Fantastic Four #574 (2010) as guests celebrating Franklin Richards' birthday. They were all depicted as only slightly older than they had been in the 2000 mini-series, with Alex still a teenager.[32]

At the beginning

Alex (age 12),[37] Julie (10),[38] Jack (8),[21][22] and Katie Power (5)[39] were bright, normal American children living with their parents in a beachfront house in Virginia. Their father, Dr. James Power, was a physicist who discovered a process to generate energy from antimatter with the assistance of a converter, of which he made a prototype. The process was, however, known to several alien races to cause chain reactions and destroy planets, and Dr. Power's knowledge of the process was discovered by Aelfyre "Whitey" Whitemane, a member of the horse-like

Alex, New Warriors and the Future Foundation

The Kymellians had given Alex the ability to absorb the powers of his siblings into himself and thus use them all. With these powers, he joined the New Warriors superhero group under the name Powerpax, later Powerhouse.[64] This caused some friction with Alex's brother and sisters; even their parents noticed the heightened levels of hostility and forced the children to see a psychologist. Alex eventually gave the others' powers back; the four reverted to their original names (except Alex, who named himself Zero-G and Julie, who was now called Starstreak, the name Katie had chosen when she had Julie's powers).[65] Speedball later tried to recruit Alex back into the New Warriors. Alex politely refused, citing the conflicts his membership would cause among his siblings, though Katie offered her services, to Speedball's chagrin.[66]

At some point outside of any published story, their parents discovered that the children had superpowers and were active as superheroes. Why Power Pack's parents could now retain this information without suffering mental trauma and insanity – thanks to telepathic manipulation by Byrel Whitemane that had previously been established as impossible to circumvent – has not been explained.

Age of Apocalypse

An alternate universe iteration of the Power Pack appear in Age of Apocalypse. This version of the group were captured, experimented on, and fused together by Beast.[87][88]

All-ages miniseries

An alternate universe iteration of the Power Pack from Earth-5631 appear in a self-titled miniseries aimed at young children, written by Marc Sumerak and penciled by Gurihiru Studios.[89] In later years, Sumerak and Gurihiru Studios, among other creators, would release further miniseries that would see the Power Pack work with the X-Men, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four.

Mini Marvels

TV pilot