Avengers Are on Another Membership Drive

$3.6 million is less than what Stark spends on satellites to erase his secret identity from people's minds, but sure, stiff the kid.

Avengers Power Pack: Assemble, takes a similar approach to Iron Man Power Pack. Or maybe it's the other away around since this was published first. Point being, the first two issues are largely their own, done-in-one adventures that hint at being tied to something larger.

The first involves the Power kids helping Captain America against Taskmaster, the latter written as a mouthy jerk who ridicules the kids for their costumes. This while he's rocking the Udon Studios "casual Friday" look. After getting beaten up by children, he gets beaten up by World War II veterans, for dressing so sloppy. Pull your dang drawers, Taskmaster!

OK, only part of that is true, and Taskmaster got away, but Captain America is reminded not to dismiss people as being capable just because they're young or old. Then Jack suckers his siblings into looking for an Iron Man armor swiped using the passcodes Taskmaster got, in the hopes of getting a reward from Tony Stark. Instead, they run up against AIM. The malevolent beekeepers are ready for the kids, but they're able to get by (with a little help from Iron Man).

The second half is where Sumerak's story comes together, as the entire family visits New York and the kids' attempt to help Spider-Man against some familiar looking metal suits turns in to watching the Avengers get defeated by Kang, who has used what AIM stole for him to build improved weapons. You'd think he could be more stealthy, but oh well. Sumerak takes a similar approach to Kang as Busiek, in having the guy insist he's honorable by not using time travel as a crutch to win, and by not attacking children.

Of course, once the kids attack him, all bets are off and he chucks them into a dystopic future ruled by him. You'd think Kang would keep things a littler cleaner. The child Power Pack team-up with their older versions. Gurihiru don't change the looks much. The costumes are the same, except everybody gets a belt with their logo. Except Jack, who has other issues. Although Kid Jack is more horrified by the fact his older self gets along with the future version of Katie. Likewise, Katie finds out she grows up to like boys.

Either way, the two Power Packs team-up to rescue the Avengers in the future, to have their help sending the kids back to their time to stop Kang there. As one does. The whole mini-series might be worth it just for Kang being hurled back to his time by a little girl in pigtails. That's a hit to the pride he'll need time to shrug off.

Sunday Splash Page #267

 

"Armors War," in Iron Man Power Pack #4, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Marcelo Dichiara (artist), Gurihiru (colorists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

As I said, something very different from Saturday. That's just how variable the weather is during Iron Spring!

This was the seventh of the all-ages line Power Pack mini-series. At least Iron Man can tell himself he got one before Wolverine or Thor. As with most of these, the Power kids get roped into tangling with Iron Man's enemies. Ultimo in the first issue, Blizzard and Speed Demon in the second, Titanium Man (briefly) in the third.

The overarching story starts with the Ghost setting Ultimo loose to cover his stealing a special neural interface chip from Stark, for the Puppet Master of all people. Whose goal is to combine the chip with his special clay so he can control armors as well as people. Hence the siege of Armor Designs Past. I would say just control the people inside the armor, but Stark somehow built something into his suit to block such effects, so I guess it's not a bad idea.

The exception is issue 2, which has nothing to do with the Puppet Master plot. It focuses on Julie Power running for student body president, against the daughter of a barely-veiled Trump stand-in. The daughter's kidnapped by Blizzard (who is working with Speed Demon) for ransom, and the Power kids (reluctantly in Julie's case) follow him. Meanwhile, Stark is trying to get "Arnold Crumb" to sell him some property for a new lab, which Crumb intends to use to build another big tower with his name on it.

Stark agrees to save the daughter in exchange for the property, and it's two loser super-villains against five super-heroes. Sumerak even has Speed Demon lampshade the fact he would have been the better choice to kidnap the target, rather than the guy who leaves a giant ice slide everywhere he goes.

Despite the blithering stupidity of the villains, it's actually the issue I like best, as it's the only one that really has any sort of focus on the Power kids. Namely, Julie struggling with her distaste for her opponent (who is as much of an asshole as you'd expect a rich teenage girl) and her concern for her secret identity. Which is a change from most of these mini-series, where Alex is the one who wants to keep secret identities, especially from their parents, and Julie wants to be more open. But it's the one issue that really feels focused on the kids.

Saturday Splash Page #12

 

"Princess and the Pain-in-the-Butt," X-Men and Power Pack #1, by Marc Sumerak (writer), GuriHiru (artists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Back in the mid-to-late 2000s, Marvel did a bunch of 4-issue mini-series starring Power Pack, mostly aimed at younger readers, mostly involving the 4 Power kids teaming up with some other hero or group of Marvel heroes. Most of the ones I've seen take the approach of each issue being its own, done-in-one thing, which makes sense if you're aiming at younger kids. Give them a whole story, to make it worth the money.

That's the case here, as each issue involves the Power kids running into a different X-Man, although they already know them in each case. Wolverine tracks Sabretooth down in a forest near a Halloween costume party the kids are attending. Meaning Sabretooth gets to lose to the Power kids a second time (counting Mutant Massacre, which is not referenced here, for obvious reasons). Mystique steals a device of Hank McCoy's at a big conference the kids' dad is attending. Mystique can't exactly slit people's throats, so she tries to win by shapeshifting into a giant purple monster, while retaining the same mass as always. That doesn't work great.

Issue 3, Nightcrawler returns to his old circus to find it under the control of the Ringmaster. Kurt gets hypnotized and the kids have to deal with all that, despite Katie's fear of clown and Julie's fear of snakes. In the last issue, Cyclops gets captured by Mr. Sinister and the quartet save his butt. Which is especially amusing after Cyclops dismissed them (and Alex especially) rather coldly after their first attempt to help went badly.

I'm a little surprised there wasn't a Shadowcat issue. I feel like, other than Wolverine, she's the X-Man who interacted with the Power kids the most back in the day. Plus, the Wolverine and Power Pack mini-series established Jack's got a crush on her. Don't know what the hook would have been, though.

There are a few things that seem to carry from one mini-series to the next. Jack torments his little sister. Alex has his awkward teen crush thing on Caitlin, and Julie's seeing a guy named Greg, who had an internship working for Mr. Sinister. But apparently he's not a clone of Madison Jeffries or something, just an actual teenager with a part-time job. Bizarre.

The GuriHiru art team's work is suitably clean and bright for the tone of the stories. Logan might pop his claws against Sabretooth, but nobody is drawing blood. Mustique shapeshifts into a suitably punchable monster, rather than trying to assume a harmless appearance to escape and/or murder people. They do have some fun with the costume contest, as Jack finds Wolverine is a very popular costume that year, and the kids have pulled out almost every variation possible, up to and including Dark Claw from the Amalgam universe. Real deep cut there, Ba-dum-tssh.

Does Logan Count as Adult Supervision?

Sorry Katie, you're a few decades late for a Godzilla encounter in Marvel Universe Japan. You can have an unpleasant team-up with Sunfire, or help Wolverine fight ninjas.

One of my back issue projects this year has been the various late-2000s Power Pack mini-series. The ones with all the Guruhiru covers? Turns out they're a bit tricky to find, at least where I've been looking, so I've only tracked down three so far. One of which is Wolverine and Power Pack: The Wild Pack. The four issues are loosely connected, but I don't think there's an overarching theme.

In the first one, Logan has to fend off the kids while they're under Sauron's control because Karl Lykos was giving a talk at the museum while Alex was trying to do research for a paper. The second issue involves the kids visiting the X-Men's school and helping fend off some Sentinels. Which does end with Cyclops admitting he was wrong to say Power Pack shouldn't get involved because they aren't mutants. 

The third issue (drawn by Scott Koblish rather than the Guruhiru team) is Jack Power and Franklin Richards using Reed's (obviously inferior to Doom's) time machine and inadvertently meeting sheltered young James Howlett. Then Jack's siblings and HERBIE (the robot, not the Volkswagon) have to rescue all three of them from some kidnappers. The final issue, the kids briefly try to help Logan fight the Hand, but it's really about whether Alex is going to use his gravity control powers to cheat at one of those Ultimate Ninja Warrior style obstacle course games.

At the end of the third issue, once everyone's back in their proper time, HERBIE tells the kids the shy boy they befriended was actually Wolverine. Not sure it's his place to mention that, but I guess it's OK. Then in the fourth issue, Jack briefly calls Wolverine "Jimmy" during the ninja fight, as sort of a tease. Logan gets kind of gruff about it and Jack backs off. This was from 2009, after Bendis did the House of M thing and gave Logan all his memories, but it's hard to tell how much these books worry about that. I don't know if Logan was confused by Jack calling him a name he doesn't recall, or he doesn't want them spreading it around. Or he knows his name but doesn't remember meeting all of them as a boy (you'd think a girl who leaves a rainbow behind her as she flies would be hard to forget, even with Logan's backstory).

Or Logan remembers all of it and just doesn't appreciate a kid needling him. Probably that. Jack does play the instigator role in the family. He encourages Franklin to use the time machine. He videotaped Alex using his powers to do parkour in his civilian clothes without his brother's knowledge, which is how Alex gets roped into the TV show. And Jack's the one eager to go to Lykos' lecture when the doc promises the chance to see a live dinosaur. 

In contrast, Julie's the one who gets the least focus. Sumerak doesn't really seem to have much for her to do. Jack's the troublemaker, Katie's the one who gets to be alternatively cute or afraid, Alex is the leader. Julie's gets stuck with the always thankless Team Mom role. The one who asks Katie what's wrong, or has to watch everyone's backs. She seems to be the most interested in education, as she's excited to sit in on some of the lectures at the X-Mansion, but it's the fact Jack only goes along with it when he can sit in on one Kitty Pryde is teaching that steals focus. The stories are mostly built for light-hearted action and humor, so a gung-ho loudmouth like Jack is going to be important, but he also gets irritating after a while.

There was an episode of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men where they discussed the Mutant Massacre ancillary tie-ins, including the Power Pack issue where the kids survive an encounter with Sabretooth in the sewers. How, while it made sense for the Power kids to go try and help their friends Artie and Leech, it was maybe not a good choice to pit them against a remorseless killer like Sabretooth. Either he ends up looking like a putz, losing to four grade school kids with no grasp of how dangerous he's supposed to be, or they end up dead. 

I thought about that a little in issue #2 when they're fighting the Sentinels, but at least there's an entire school of X-Men, and the Sentinels specifically do not attack the kids, even in self-defense. It came to mind a lot stronger in issue #4, once some mystic that was part of the Hand somehow neutralizes the kids' powers. Because at that point, it's four kids with no powers or particular combat training against ninjas who are trying to kill the guy with an unbreakable skeleton. That should not end well for our heroes. Sumerak gets around it by having Wolverine fight them all himself, although you'd think at least one would try to target the kids to get his guard down.

It does lead to a funny exchange where Logan says he doesn't need his healing factor or enhanced senses to beat the hand, and real power doesn't come from mutant genes of magic spells anyway. To which Katie replies, 'Duh, it comes from alien horsies.'