Family Problems Lead to DOOM

Truly, Latveria is a land of contrasts.

Fantastic Four and Power Pack: Favorite Son is not so much a team-up between Power Pack and the FF, as it between the kids and Franklin Richards. The Fantastic Four are basically background characters through the whole thing. Johnny Storm has literally zero dialogue across 4 issues. It's at least a different approach than most of these other Power Pack mini-series took.

The Power kids are having some turmoil because Julie and Jack want to stop hiding their powers from their parents, but Alex is dead-set against it. Julie thinks it would make their lives easier without the need to lie or sneak off. Jack just wants an easier path to stardom and attention. Katie wants to go along with what Alex wants, as van Lente writes her as seemingly closer to and more protective of Alex than her other siblings.

Enter Franklin Richards, who's convinced his parents to let him attend public school in an attempt to get out of his family's shadow. Except he becomes popular immediately because of his last name, making Jack jealous and ending up as the target of the Wizard's son. When Jack fails to keep his identity secret, Alex blows up at him. With Franklin angry at his parents for deciding public school is too dangerous and he can just learn from HERBIE, the two boys decide to run away and become a crime-fighting duo.

It says something about how sheltered Franklin is that he thinks "Smarty Pants" is a good codename.

All this gives Dr. Doom a chance to put a plan in gear. A plan involving Kraven the Hunter, body-swapping, throwing a fight against 4 children, and delicious Latverian chocolate froth. The last one doesn't sound too bad. The plan ultimately fails because Doom can't stop monologuing about it, and because Franklin's not bad at coming up with plans of his own. Which is how he gets to be part of Power Pack, although I don't think any of the other mini-series used him.

van Lente doesn't use Jack picking on Katie nearly as much as some of the other writers, maybe because Jack's around Franklin so much, or because Julie and Alex are the primary source of conflict in the team. Alex is sort of a know-it-all, bossy older brother, while Julie is the one most likely to call him on it, and the most booksmart of the group. Although Katie happily having a pen pal ends up being a big help, as does her distrust of all robots. She doesn't exhibit the "boys are gross" attitude she would in the mini-series Marc Sumerak wrote