You can listen to the episode by clicking: Episode 74.
And welcome to the beginning of the end of the regular series. We are not going to sugar coat this folks. This is where the series starts to take a big, huge tonal shift from everything we have known before. New creative team, new story, new characterizations.
So when we say “new”, what do we mean. Well, the letterer and the editor in chief are the same, but the rest of the team is different. That can be a problem to the readers when they are expecting a story or narrative to follow through. Without someone to keep it all consistant, things get left behind.
“Gosh, you guys are sounding so serious, where are the funny jokes?”
Good question disembodied voice. Well, we felt the need to give our listeners a warning, and we like to change things up sometimes. I mean, poor Rick is sitting there, typing non-sense at 2 in the morning on the weekends. At times he forgets what he is talking about or what he is doing. Can you imagine what the stress is doing to him?
Maybe his hair is coming out, we really cannot be sure. One reason is COVID, the other is we know he owns super glue. But we digress.
And there is nothing to bring us back into focus than Galactus. I mean, he commends respect when he enters the room…..or the planet….if the planet is a room size…..Galactus is big folks. Do you GET IT!
Maybe Galactus is not big and tall and powerful. Maybe he just has good lighting…hear me out. If we look at the heralds he has had, like Silver Surfer and Nova, we see that he chooses beings who can cast just the right illumination on him. I think it is all an illusion.
Jack has just reminded me that this is a Power Pack comic, and I should talk more about them. Honestly, I forget they were in this issue. But now that Jack is a buffed up little ball of energy, I will not refuse his request.
Most of the action in the book is with Nova and Star Stalker fighting on an abandoned and dead planet while a weird being called an Elan lies dying nearby. And Power Pack makes and appearance.
On a completely different note, our friend Gary gave us each an amazing gift. He hand made us each a coaster in resin with the Power Pack logo’s inside. It was a very thoughtful gift that we both appreciate
Don’t forget to support us on Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/JeffandRickPresent. We have started to release monthly episodes for our Energizer and greater tiers. We are covering the alternate versions mini-series that started in 2005.
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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/ Hit the Streets v2 by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3878-hit-the-streets-v2 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Jeff and Rick Present 
I vaguely recall a gag in some Marvel letter’s pages, maybe Power Pack maybe not, about them fighting Galactus just because it’s a huge mismatch. This issue shows somebody saw those gags and thought, “Hey! We could do that!” Oy.
I’ll concur, those coasters are sweet!
Great episode, my Pack-Men!
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Thanks for listening and enjoying it. We are hitting the wave of “What are you doing!?”, but I have to say, they are not fighting Galactus. A homeless person and a ghost child are asking for a borrow of an item…which is super exciting. So, as you say, oy.
Digging the coaster… Not using it as much as I should, but still, totally digging it when I see it.
Later, Tim.
-Jeff
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This is the period of stories I actively avoided when they were being published. A combination of adolescence and changing reading habits had me sojourning off into X land through mail subscription. I got to see Jim Lee blow up on his tenure of Uncanny, and delegated Power Pack as a “baby book”.
Thanks to the fine site mycomicshop.com I was able to pick up this last run of issues. I gamely read the stories and it really is bittersweet to read. Your discussion of Michael Higgins made me think he was the Zelig of the Marvel Comics line.
Two immediate takeaways in reading this issue I would have maybe picked up back at 14 years old.
!) It is incredibly hard to accurately script believable kids dialogue. Some of the dialogue would come off as a pastiche of cliche or too smart for their age. Granted, the Power siblings are smart, but, they aren’t leveling Aaron Sorkin monologues. (that would be pretty cool in a future Power Pack tale)
2) It is doubly hard to accurately draw children. Tom Morgan is not a bad super hero artist. I just looked through an issue of West Coast Avengers and it was serviceable. The work he does in here is telling when there is a comfort in drafting Nova than any of the kids. My twitter buddy Matt Roberts had an amusing thread showcasing the difficulty of drawing kids showcasing John Byrne’s questionable images of Vision and Wanda’s twin boys.
This is going to be a chore to read through gentlemen. That being said, I am looking forward to the next episodes. One thing I have always found likable about the program is the nascent good qualities are discovered in a badly produced story. Unlike most fans I have known who mercilessly drag a story for attention and giggles, you two still find things to admire, even if the overall execution of the story was whiffed. It has always shown to me you have respect for the hours of work that goes into the making of a monthly book.
I love the coasters! Between that and the poster you guys received, the little podcast fanbase seems to be a real great group of supportive people.
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Let me just start off by saying that we have the best fans. Then I will follow up by saying that “we have fans” makes me feel weird and disingenuous. I like to think of it more as we have friends that we haven’t met yet that like to listen to what we do. And when they engage with us? Forget about it. Blows me away every time.
It is funny, everyone seems to have a “I got out of comics when” story. Mine was when all the titles had MASSIVE cross over storylines so I had no idea what was happening at all in the books that I wanted to read. I wasn’t willing or able to shell out an infinite amount of money each week.
Now to your bullet points:
1: Kid talk should just be talking. Know how the characters would behave and just let them go. What we have here is just filler speech. Characters behaving mostly out of character and stating a complaint argument that is immediately forgotten. Comes out of nowhere and goes to nowhere. Things get forgotten about so much that it reminds me of me walking into a room for something.
2: I don’t know why artists have such a hard time drawing kids, as there are so many of them around that they could use as a reference guide. They don’t have to invent an alien race here or anything, yet so many of their attempts are comically bad. I tried looking up Byrne examples, but couldn’t find any real quick and gave up. I think he did some Franklin ones that we tore into a year ago or so though, so I might have some experience with it.
We do try to find the good in what we cover, and sometimes that is hard. It would be a lot easier if we weren’t family friendly and just burned stuff to the ground for laughs. That said though, we put a lot of work into what we do and we realize how much work goes into making the comics we cover. We get the luxury of not having the deadline pressure that comes with working in an industry as well and can come up with (maybe) better story ideas by building off of the work that they have done. Building on the ruins, if you will.
Thanks for taking the time to listen to what we do and to write us. It really does blow us away when people engage with us about how we are doing and the subjects we are covering.
-Jeff
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