You can listen to the episode by clicking: Episode 53.
We love to draw outside the lines…or at least read other books featuring Power Pack. That made sense, right? OK, another question for you….does this book make sense?
Considering the kids costumes are changed (which happens after Inferno) and Magik is in her pre-Inferno age….I would say that there is a bit of a time warp issue. But that is OK, right? We still got the Power kids we know and love….right?
While this feels like an “After School Special”, there are some interesting surprises, things you may not have seen coming.
Maybe Jack has started to worship the all mighty nuclear god. While we did expect that to happen, we are just surprised it took this long. The funny thing is that he is not the reason that there is a demonic Asgardian beast attacking Power Pack and friends….
No, this is really all Magik’s fault….although it is not…it is just a dangling thread from a really old (and awesome) New Mutants/X-Men tale when they go to Asgard….but I digress.
Long story short, Katie holds a daisy and keeps being mean to Jack.
And she rides Warlock like a rocking horse. There are certain words or sentences that you never know you are going to write until you do. This is where I am at right now.
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Eighties Action by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3703-eighties-action License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Noise Attack by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4142-noise-attack License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Jeff and Rick Present 
I could swear I’ve read this issue before. The cover and the story are completely familiar, but I don’t own it myself. It must have been my college roommate’s copy. He was a fellow comic collector, and he was a big Colleen Doran fan. (Da-doo-Do-ran-fan, da-doo-Do-ran.) Your comments on Colleen’s style are not wrong. Action sequences are not what I’d call her strong suit. But she’s done a few things I’ve really enjoyed. Like Sandman #20, the last part of Dream Country. The illustrated life of Stan Lee. And just last year, I picked up a couple of volumes on Comixology of A Distant Soil. If you want to see a story that plays to her strengths, it’s the best.
About this story, there’s one way to No-Prize it. Magik’s teleportation discs have let her travel thru time more than once. Like in New Mutants #17 where she and Dani try to rescue the team from the Hellfire Club, but overshoot by 6 months. So this story could have Illyana and Warlock from the past visiting this Power Pack in the present. Well, not our present, since this comic came out 30 years ago, so she went from the past to slightly less in the past. Now I’ve written “past” too much, and it’s made me think of “Pabst”. No chance that’ll be the beer on the show, I bet. … where was I? Oh right, I know WAY TOO MUCH about comics from that era! (NERD!)
And again, Marvel Unlimited has failed me by not having this issue. They’re angling to get a very perturbed email. Review: “I read hundreds of comics each year on the MU app, but it didn’t have one issue that I wanted of a story that’s not that great. 1 star.”
Be safe out there! Virginia just declared a “shelter in place” order today. Scary times. Maybe demons from limbo wouldn’t be so bad.
All the best, Pack-Men!
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You win our coveted, and just made up, blue ribbon award! And why yes, that is a play on you saying “Pabst”.
MU is kinda funny with it’s coverage sometimes. Often they will have everything of a run except the one I am looking for.
Yup, it is scary times right now, but with time everything should get better… I hope so anyways. We do have the technology advantage though. Digital everything. Online shopping. Oh, and being able to have virtual hangouts with people. Lot less boredom than in decades past. Of course, we are taking care of a two year old so things are pretty tough for us,as you can well imagine. 😉
Hope you and yours are well, and continue to be well. Chat you later.
-Jeff
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Guys! I thought I knew about all ‘80s/’90s Power Pack appearances, but you schooled me twice in Strange Tales #12 (however brief) and this Marvel Fanfare (I’d actually never even heard of the Marvel Fanfare title itself before this!). It’s also why I’m a little behind, because, as Tim said, neither of those are on MU, so I had to wait on them to be delivered from eBay after no luck trying to shop local. Teenage me would have eaten this issue up because my favorite characters were our four heroes AND Illyana Rasputin! Teenage me also would have scratched my head over the out-of-character stuff in this issue, despite the cleverly delivered editor’s note in the beginning.
I love Tim’s idea for a no-prize. Here’s my theory for what happened in real-life to produce this mess of an issue:
Our boy Terry wrote the issue pre-power switch – I’m guessing around Power Pack #20. He also wrote it as an Alex-centric story. The way Jack is acting aligns with Alex’s personality better. Jack established himself as a top-dog in his grade right away bragging about knowing Spider Man. Alex was the one who had problems socially at school and would have been more likely to have a conversational relationship with the school janitor. Alex also would have been more likely to think of unlocking the doors with his gravity powers. If I’m right about the #20 timeline, this was before Alex’s run-in with Johnny Rival, so that bullying story hadn’t happened yet, which makes this more original (It seems like maybe Louise Simonson used this bullying idea the way it was intended – for Alex – in a later issue! Which might be a reason this story came out much much later). Also, none of the Pack had met Illyana yet around that timeline, even though they were meeting 3 other New Mutants, so meeting her for the first time in MFF would make sense. Granted, they hadn’t met Warlock yet either, but maybe he was added in one of the re-writes the editor mentioned. Also, this would have been around the same time as New Mutants #37, in which Dani sees all the members’ personal images of death. Illyana’s is a demon that looks very very very similar to the one she fights in this MFF issue! Hmmm….
Also, it makes more sense that Jack, Julie, and Katie would be waiting outside the school for Alex to come out, since he went to a different school. Julie and Jack went to the same school. If Alex were hiding in the bunker, Katie, Jack, and Julie still could have used their powers to do the same things (slipstream…wha???) with the exception of the super strength (whaaa?) less-dense form, which Jack never figured out how to do when he had that power.
I’m thinking that when Terry re-wrote the issue due to continuity, he couldn’t have Alex stay the main character of the story, because the end scene with Gus was dependent on the gravity power to flip the wall off of him AND because Louise had already had that happen to Alex.
Anyway, I am thinking about this waaay too hard, but like y’all, the out-of-character-ness rubbed me the wrong way, even though it was SO COOL to read a Power Pack story (with Magik!) that I’d never known about before. Y’all keep up the good work, and thanks for entertaining us during this crazy time when we really need it!
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The funny thing about doing this podcast is that I am getting schooled on Power Pack all the time. Before we started this, I was under the impression that I remembered all there was to know about this fantastic family of four…how little I actually knew.
I like how hit and miss MU is. Tons of stuff there, but tons of missed nooks and crannies as well. The Power Pack section always kills me as it is about three fifths there.
It is so hard to know what the full back story is about this issue with out talking to the people that were involved with it, so anything is possible. Something to remember to ask about when/if we interview any of the participants.
Glad you are enjoying what we do and very glad to have you come and visit us on our website.
Be well and see you next time.
-Jeff
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