Sunday Splash Page #443

"All Grown Up," in Avengers and Power Pack: Assemble #4, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Gurihiru (artist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Similar to some of Sumerak's other Power Pack mini-series, this one starts with what appear to be done-in-one stories, which later connect into a larger narrative. First, the kids team up with Captain America, despite his objections about their age, to stop Taskmaster after he swiped some data from a Stark Industries research lab.

Besides Tasky losing first to a bunch of elementary schoolkids, then senior citizens (WW2 buddies of Captain America, but still, no Infinity Formula for these guys), we also get a scene where he mocks Power Pack not only for being kids, but for their costumes. This while rocking his Udon Studios, "my good costume is at the dry cleaners," look.

Then Katie Power zaps him in the face. Deserved.

Second issue, AIM stole an experimental armor (thanks to the info Taskmaster swiped for them), and Jack gets it in his head that if they recover it, Tony Stark will pay them a big reward. AIM is, surprisingly, prepared for the kids, and in an escape attempt, Jack suits up in the experimental armor. Then accidentally attacks Iron Man with it. They free his siblings and stop AIM, but when Jack asks about a reward for rescuing the armor, Iron Man says they can just deduct it from the cost of the damage Jack did to said armor. 

Which is such a billionaire move. It's pocket change to Stark, but he'd rather come up with an excuse to stiff a kid and disguise your own incompetence.

In the last two issues, the Power family travels to New York City on vacation, and the kids try to help the New Avengers fight Kang and his army of guys in suits based on Iron Man's experimental armor, as he was behind the schemes in the first two issues. I guess this is his idea of fighting honorably, stealing period-appropriate technology to fight with. Minus his own futuristic stuff that freezes his opponents in place. So honorable!

How well known the Power Pack are varies from mini-series to mini-series. Wolverine knows them, but they'd been in at least one, maybe two, other mini-series with him by this point. Captain America apparently vouched for them to Iron Man somewhere between issues 1 and 2. Taskmaster knows them, and says they're a joke among the costumed community. As he's running around in a tracksuit and a skull mask like some doofus with an urban explorer Youtube channel, so glass houses and all that. AIM has heard of them, enough to have weapons prepared to counter their powers.

Kang, however, doesn't know them, dismissing them as innocent children, until they attack him. At which point they're flung into a future where Kang runs things and they must team-up with their older selves. How their older selves are there if they were chucked into the future, I don't know. Obviously they make it back to the mid-2000s, but then the dystopian future never comes to pass, so. . . 

I did a longer review of the mini-series 3 years ago. 

What I Bought 6/5/2026

The week is over. Finally. Blessedly. I've been ready for it to be over since at least Tuesday. Next week, I get to return to just caring about my usual responsibilities, and Bill can spend two days trying to get through all his e-mails. I picked this last book up while on the road last week.

It's Jeff! Brand New Week #1, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Gurihiru (artists/color artists), Goodman Yamada, Jim Campbell (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I actually ended up with the Todd Nauck variant. He gives Jeff fingers and toes instead of flippers that can fold or bend in such a way as to form fingers. It's very disturbing.

The material that's actually new to me is a single story where Jeff visits a boardwalk amusement park and uses some magic rock that gives him a bunch of tentacles so he can earn enough tickets at whack-a-mole to win a gigantic lollipop. But once he wins, he finds a fuzzy pink octopus stuck to the lolly, and he can't get it to go away. Gwenpool seems to recognize it, or at least calls it "Ken", but otherwise takes no action.

Jeff and Ken roam around, get captured and thrown in a glass case by someone, all we ever see are their shoes and pants legs. But Ken, who had been grabbing stuff earlier, turns out to be a lot like Captain Marvel's cat, in that it can apparently store a bunch of stuff inside itself. Including a blowtorch, which Jeff uses to help them escape. Jeff notes Ken is starting to dry out being away from the water so long, but Ken refuses to leave his new pal, so Jeff steals a bunch of stuff from various stands to construct a mobile fish tank for Ken to ride in.

The rest of the pages are devoted to Ken's introductions to Elsa Bloodstone and Deadpool, but where I expected these to be humorous new encounters by Thompson and Gurihiru, they're actually reprints of earlier stories. The Bloodstone meeting is a single page from Marvel Comics #1000, and the Deadpool meeting is from the Deadpool series Thompson wrote and Chris Bachalo (briefly) drew. So those were kind of duds.

The art on the story with Ken switches over from Gurihiru to Yamada about the time Jeff finds that fleeing into the Ferris wheel didn't get him away from Ken. Yamada's art is very expressive, in a similar simplified vein to Gurihiru, though I notice Ken is less fuzzy and the red spots far more prominent in his version than theirs. Also, his Jeff is a lot chunkier. Looks about like he did after he ate that entire wheel of cheese in the previous one of these It's Jeff! books. Yeah, it's hell when the metabolism slows down, and you can't just eat whatever you want without repercussions. . .

Sunday Splash Page #416

"Storytime," in Power Pack (vol. 3) #1, by Marc Sumerak (writer), Gurihiru (artist/color artists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

The Power kids' ongoing ended in '91, and then, not much of anything until a 4-issue mini-series in 2000 that I haven't read. But the Nineties probably weren't the decade for a kid team at Marvel. Not x-treme or kewl enough.

In 2005, Marvel got in one of their periodic moods to make some stuff aimed towards younger readers, complete with manga-influenced art from the Gurihiru team, that really emphasizes these characters are kids, as opposed to "kids" that are built more like young adults. So, a bunch of 4-issue mini-series revolving around Power Pack, starting with this one. Katie's hand-drawn retelling of the origin over the first 4 pages aside, it's not an origin series, as the kids have already had their powers long enough to make some sort of name for themselves as crime-fighters.

(There'd be a Power Pack: Day One mini-series covering the origin later, but I don't own it.)

Each issue, Sumerak focuses on one kid, usually them dealing with the strain of being a hero. Katie wants to stop hiding, and tell the story of them getting powers from an alien horse for an assignment about what she did over the summer. Alex tries to juggle responsibility as the oldest with wanting to spend time with a girl he likes. Julie wants to focus on being a regular kid instead of a superhero. Jack, however, wants to spend as much time being a superhero as possible, whether his siblings are around or not. Whether he's able to handle the trouble he encounters or not.

The issues aren't entirely standalone, certain elements pop up more than once. Katie's frustration with her feelings being dismissed by her siblings leads to an outburst of power that leads a Snark to their home. He returns in the final issue, having recruited and empowered a masked robber that escaped earlier in the issue when Julie was being pulled in too many directions at once. Both antagonists are dealt with by letting them get pulled into another dimension by a squid-thing, via a doorway the kids' dad built in their basement.

Which is kind of a harsh resolution now that I think of it. That squid probably wasn't looking to make friends, no matter how silly Gurihiru make it look. Certainly when the portal got opened in issue 2, disrupting Alex's date, the squid was played as a serious threat, but Sumerak doesn't dwell on what happened to the bad guys. Guess we know where Stark and Richards got the idea for their Negative Zone prison.

What I Bought 2/18/2026 - Part 2

The anime re-watch wrapped up Gundam Wing over the weekend. That was fun, since I hadn't watched it in at least 15 years. I forgot how quickly things would change. Maybe one episode spent letting us think Heero died after self-destructing his Gundam, a half-dozen episodes on Relena trying to run a pacifist nation she only learned she was the inheritor of like 15 episodes earlier. She surrenders to avoid more deaths, an episode later she's a figurehead queen. An episode or two after that, she's running things for real, only to lose that one episode after. Gundam creators got no time for decompression, clearly (consecutive recap episodes in the middle of the series aside.)

It's Jeff! Meets Daredevil, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - Those might be the most pronounced horns I've ever seen on Daredevil.

It's another collection of brief Jeff stories by Thompson and Gurihiru. Contrary to my expectations, they aren't focused on Jeff working with Daredevil. Their interactions are limited to the first comic, appropriately titled "Daredevil did it," where DD knocks over a statue while pursuing some thief (complete with a big sack with a $ symbol on it, so you know they respect tradition.) Jeff was sitting on a bench eating lunch in front of it, so the cop that comes along arrests Jeff.

Fortunately, Gwenpool and Kate Bishop hire Matt Murdock, and Jeff is acquitted, while Daredevil is sentenced to the community service of picking up all those pieces of statue that have just been lying scattered around the park ever since? So if you always wanted to see Daredevil doing in that a reflective vest. . .you'll have to by the comic because I scanned a different image. Hah!

The remainder of the comic is Jeff in his usual hijinks, most of which involve food. Although he does get mad when he keeps losing a fighting game and hurls the TV through the Hulk's kitchen window, which I can both relate to and think is an unwise choice. There are consecutive strips where Gwen is trying to make Jeff take medicine for some skin rash he's got, but Jeff proves extremely capable at not swallowing the pills. Although all that could have been avoided if Gurihiru simply drew a picture of Jeff's stomach, allowing Gwen to slip through the gutters to drop the pills in there.

It's cute fluff, but that's fine with me.

Generation X-23 #1, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Maybe it's the angle, but Gabby;s lower body looks majorly elongated relative to her upper body.

Laura and Gabby are protecting a random mutant girl from a bigoted mob. Bigoted, idiot mob, given at least one of them shouts, "Just little girls!" at two girls with very long, very sharp claws extending from the backs of their hands. I'm once again amazed every citizen of the Marvel Universe hasn't managed to accidentally kill themselves trying to gargle bleach instead of mouthwash.

In the middle of the fight, something weird starts happening. Something like stained glass pieces appear from thin air, and as they pass through people, they get switched to, I'm not sure. Gabby thinks she smelled a friend of hers from her days as a sex worker, Kiden, who had time manipulation powers. Except seeing Laura at one point as young girl in a frilly dress, while Gabby looked like some Rob Liefeld creation for a second (sleek, elongated helmet with glowing visor) seems like more of an "unlocking alternate realities," power.

But I never read NYX, so maybe this is how the power worked. Laura follows the scent, finds more of the stained glass, plus a machine with the same claw set-up and hair as her. Beyond that, someone who isn't Kiden, who was looking for Laura, because people are dying from experiments involving mutant DNA. The girl speaks in fragmented and cryptic sentences before aging like she drank from the wrong Grail. Laura tracks her scent to a too-normal looking building, she and Gabby break in, there are more of the robots, and then a bunch of teenagers who are very happy to see Laura.

It feels like Laura is going to assume the teens are victims, while I suspect they're the ones conducting the experiments in order to make themselves more powerful. Maybe Gabby will be more suspicious, maybe not. Houser keeps Gabby as very eager and chatty, while Laura looks after her but plays along in trading jabs occasionally. The way the relationship was written felt right, which is a good sign.

Camagni plays into the characters' personalities by having Gabby be very expressive with her body language and facial expressions, where Laura is more reserved. So Laura will study a "too-normal" building, and all we get are narrowed eyes, while Gabby will stand there with one finger tapping at her lip in a "thoughtful" posture. When Laura tracks the girl's scent back to said "too-normal" building, in a page of her riding a motorcycle through the city, Camagni layers on panels showing the girl's progress as Laura's following the trail to its source. 

What I Bought 5/8/2025 - Part 1

I've eased off recently on playing video games and reading books. To focus on other things, but also because I've got Thursday posts done out to July 17th. Let's hear it for short games and easy-reading books!

It's Jeff! Jeff Week, by Kelly Thompson, Gurihiru and Gustavo Duarte - Jeff has mastered mystic portals. No one's snacks are safe!

You know by now what the deal is with the It's Jeff stuff. Thompson and Gurihiru do a lot of 1-2 pages stories about Jeff getting into hijinks with various heroes. Jeff is disappointed Kate Bishop won't take him on a trip with her, but wait! He snuck inside her suitcase. That must have surprised the security people. Jeff struggles to ice skate, but saves a dog who falls through thin ice.

Jeff steals Hulk's portal technology (which looks kind of like my Roku TV remote) and uses it to rampage through the kitchen, stealing everyone's food, until Hulk gets the idea of hiding Captain America's shield within a pizza. Good thing sharks constantly grow new teeth. It is, as usual very adorable.

Duarte is the writer/artist for the Jeff Week story, which takes up the last 15 pages, and seems to involve Marvel characters playing hot potato taking care of Jeff while Kate's in Japan. Mostly because Jeff eats all their food (X-Men), wakes them up after a long night fighting crime (Spider-Man), or encourages their dinosaur friend to cause property damage (Moon Girl). Duarte's Jeff is longer (especially in the tail) than Gurihiru's, and on the whole, has a lot more cat energy. He doesn't get flustered or spooked so much as he demands everyone else adjust to his needs.

Duarte tends to use fewer panels, and likes the eschew panel borders entirely. Hulk may be in charge of looking after Jeff, until Jeff contacts Lockjaw and the 'port away, and then there's a couple shots of Hulk's face and then one of him walking away whistling with no borders between them, just white space. The Gurihiru team ditch the borders for the final, punchline panel, but all the ones around it have their own borders and gutter space helping to delineate it.

Deadpool #14, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Wade, you're supposed to be shielding your daughter from this brutal violence. The audience is already inured to it. 

Deadpool, Deadpool, Princess, and Taskmaster fight Death Grip and his resurrected minions. Who promptly blow themselves up at their master's command. Guess they didn't teach him anything useful about what exists beyond death. For all the talk about Wade's reduced healing factor, being thrown backfirst into a stone pillar by an explosion slows him down for approximately 5 panels.

A couple of Death grip's minions, plus the portal guy Deadpool was trying to kill in issue 1, attack DP's HQ (a rapidly decaying basement by the looks of it), and Doug only escapes because "Water Cooler Rat" helps him. So I'm guessing there's something up with the rat?

Deadpool finally busts out the mystic sword, but Death Grip seems to be increasingly losing it, given how he struggles to say every other word. Not that it's affecting whatever language he uses for his spells, or that the sword can actually kill him. Despite being slashed with it several times, Death Grip shrugs it off and. . .rips his own chest open, showing an oddly-colored heart in a void, while more spectral arms emerge from his torso?

Boy, I imagine Ziglar has one hell of an explanation for all this planned for next month. Too bad Marvel's gonna stick inside an oversized, more expensive issue I won't buy for months, if ever.

Saturday Splash Page #157

"Super-Power-Skrull," in Skrulls vs. Power Pack #2, by Fred van Lente (writer), Cory Hamscher (artist), Gurihiru and Wil Quintana (colorists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

This wasn't an official Secret Invasion tie-in, what with all the 2000s-Power Pack mini-series existing in their own little continuity. But van Lente sticks with part of the basic premise, as the Power kids are captured by alien bounty hunters and hauled before an interstellar tribunal to face accusations they committed some serious crimes. Meanwhile, 4 Skrulls impersonate them in a bid to get access to a super-weapon via the kids' father's job with SWORD.

The real Pack bust out of jail. . .and promptly begin committing crimes in hopes of drawing out the imposters. Instead, they end up in a search for the identity of legendary figures called "The Annihilator" and "The Protector", who are of much interest to the Skrulls and the Kymellians (the horsefolk who gave the kids their powers.) That part felt like it was more van Lente setting up something for a future story that never took place, as well as a way to keep Power Pack from just rushing home and stomping the imposters.

Franklin Richards is present when the kids are initially captured, so he contacts their ship Friday. HERBIE actually agree to help Franklin, because he's immediately smitten with Friday. This is a recurring bit through the mini-series, HERBIE swooning or trying to act impressive and heroic, while Friday doesn't even remember his name.

(There's also a one-off gag during an interstellar bar fight where a Kree named Noh-Var warns the kids they aren't prepared for his blah blah blah and Katie just blasts him while complaining he lost her six high concepts ago. Even though he's dressed like a standard Kree soldier, it feels like a poke at Morrison's Marvel Boy.)

Cory Hamscher draws the first two issues, then he and Jacopo Camagni draw the next two issues collectively, though I can't find any rhyme or reason for who draws which pages. Hamscher's style is much rougher, much heavier lines. He gives Katie some really aggressive bangs, which are great when the imposter is grinning maliciously (or when Katie herself is trying to act bad), but less so at other times. I assume Hamscher came up with the looks for the Power kids when they try to act like crooks, which are suitably goofy, especially considering they're mostly dealing with aliens who shouldn't have any idea what those clothes would signify on Earth. Camagni has a lighter line. His figures and faces are rounded off versus Hamscher's more squared off look. It's a bit closer to the Gurihiru team's look, but less prone to exaggerate for comedic effect.

What I Bought 11/4/2023 - Part 2

It's actually almost light out when I go to work now, what with the clocks being set back. Of course, I get maybe 3 hours of sunlight to enjoy after I get off work, but I spend a lot of afternoons napping anyway, so that's not huge loss.

It's Jeff! The Jeff-verse #1, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - I actually went with the variant of Jeff and the Black Cat. They were all the same cost, and Jeff gleefully eating jewels was an amusing image.

Much like the first It's Jeff from back in spring, this is a collection of short strips Thompson and the Gurihiru team did on Marvel's digital app first. And so it's mostly Jeff being adorable, or ravenous, or adorably ravenous. (Ravenously adorable?)

Gwen trying to find some way to make Jeff stop pulling at the bandages on his injured tail, and Jeff dealing with the indignity of Cone of Shame. Jeff encountering a toy store full of merchandise starring him. Unlicensed merchandise, no less. Remarkably, the guilty party is not Deadpool. Jeff being caught up in mad science where he's first shrunk and menaced by an ant, and then he and the ant become giant. Which leads to a funny gag of Jeff growing so large he wears part of Avengers' tower as a hat, which he then carefully replaces on the building after he climbs down.

Two of my favorites were when Jeff confronts a bully dog at the dog park, so that all the dogs can play with the ball and have fun, and the one where Gwenpool and Kate Bishop have him try on different Halloween costumes. The first demonstrating it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's that one of the dogs is a shark.

The second for how comically exaggerated Gurihiru depict Jeff's teeth when he smiles, and how dejected he looks when the girls react in horror. They don't have him full on sobbing or anything, just slumped shoulders to go with a single tear in the corner of his lifeless, black eyes. Like a doll's eyes, except not as creepy.

It's fluff, but as before, it's cute fluff.

A Haunting on Mars #1, by Zach Chapman (writer/letterer), Ruairi Coleman (illustrator), Steve Canon (colorist) - Maybe if Carpenter had gone harder on the body horror, Ghosts of Mars would have been a better movie.

A small team is sent to the failed colony on Mars by a big corporation for. . .something. The specifics are not revealed, because our viewpoint character is a hacker the corporation caught after she released a lot of their private information into the world. So the soldier in charge isn't being very forthcoming.

Their shuttle crashes for some reason, forcing them to hike to the destination, where they encounter hungry dogs with big red boils on their bodies. The squad psionic deals with them, but about wipes herself and everyone else out in the process. The empath is not doing well surrounded by all the death and horror, and considering what they find at the mansion, he's probably not going to be feeling better any time soon.

Chapman tries to give a little backstory or a hint of personality to each character, granting that Ryker (the other soldier) has a personality of "complains a lot". Paz, the psionic, seems to have an overachiever thing going, or maybe she doesn't like following orders. They're all in vaguely similar armor, if colored somewhat differently, but Coleman uses enough close-up panels to show their distinctive faces.

It feels like the real conflict is going to be not between the squad and whatever that was on the last page (some horrible melding of man and tubing), but between Cass the hacker and Morgan the leader. Because there's no explanation for what went wrong with the shuttle, or why it crashed, and Morgan admits to the empath he's hiding things, but couches it as relating to the patents they're trying to recover.

When Cass was injured and it damaged the control collar, Morgan injected her with controlling nanites under the cover of sealing the wound. Cass took steps to negate that, so it's a question of if Morgan has figured that out yet, and can Cass figure out what's going on and take measures first? it may just be genre familiarity, but it feels significant we don't know specifically what they're looking for, and that Morgan knows more than he's telling anyone, even the people who aren't criminals doing a Suicide Squad stint.

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

Saturday Splash Page #81

 

"Asgard Babies," in Thor and the Warriors Four #3, by Alex Zalben (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

I reviewed this mini-series 3 months ago, so I'm gonna keep this short.

The Power kids, spurred on by the story of Idunn's Golden Apples that Julie reads in a book of Norse myths a convenient nurse so kindly offers, find their way to Asgard to try and save their sick grandmother. It's all a plot by Loki, which almost backfires spectacularly by ending everything, but the Power Pack and Thor save the day.

This was the last of the all-ages Power Pack mini-series Marvel put out, but they wrapped up with a bang. Gurihiru get to draw a bunch of Thor characters as babies and Beta Ray Bill with a magnificent afro. Plus, there's a back-up story running across the four issues of Hercules babysitting the Power kids so the Human Torch can go on a date, written and drawn by Colleen Coover.

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.

A Tale Fit for Legend

Corrective dental work for those choppers must be hella expensive.

Thor and the Warriors Four starts on a down note: one of the Power kids' grandmothers is dying. Katie doesn't really understand the problem, Jack's angry, Alex is struggling to look after them and be realistic, and Julie's in, I guess bargaining.

Which is where the book of Norse Myths a helpful nurse just happened to give Julie comes in. She gets the idea they just need to travel to Asgard and ask for one of Idunn's Golden Apples, and their grandmother will be fine. An abrupt (and oddly convenient) team-up with the Pet Avengers against the saddled Asgardian wolves offers a way to reach Asgard. Then a helpful old man, who needs one of the apples for his ailing wife, helps them out with clothes that disguise the fact they're mortals, even from Heimdall.

It's unclear how long the kids are in Asgard, as this all seems to take place in the span of one night on Earth, but they develop a reputation as the "Warriors Four" for being very helpful around Asgard. When they even help Thor and Beta Ray Bill fight a frost giant, Thor agrees to ask Odin for one of the apples.

At which point all the Asgardians turn into babies, offering the Gurihiru art team ample opportunities to draw cute stuff, which they are very good at. Beta Ray Bill de-ages too, I guess because of the enchantment on Stormbreaker? The helpful old man shows up to guide them to the path to the apples, Julie, Jack and Katie retrieve the apples, defeating Ratatoskr (called "Ratatosk" here) in the process, over five years before Ryan North used the Norse Squirrel of Mischief in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Loki's really fallen on hard times if he's gloating about outsmarting a group of grieving children. As usual, Loki didn't think things through, and the gods beginning to age to what their years are brings about unexpected consequences. Like Ragnarok. Loki gets his at the end, but I think Zalben missed out not letting at least one of the Power kids give Loki a good sock in the kisser.

Zalben uses the kids' desperation to save their grandmother to drive the conflicts. There's a bit about Alex and Julie disagreeing about magic and science, whether a gold apple can actually give immortality, but it's written so it feels like a defensive reaction and Alex trying to be the older sibling. He doesn't want to get their hopes up (or his own), and to keep them out of danger, so he tries to talk them out of it, to dismiss the possibility anything can be done. Julie's willing to take the risk, take almost any risk, to try and save her grandmother. If that means believing in magic, fine. If that means stealing the apples, fine.

Zalben keeps up the adversarial relationship between Katie and Jack for comedic effect here, with Jack hogging credit for Katie's victory over Ratatosk, and Katie describing her brother to a doctor as 'having dark and is mean.' That, plus Katie's fascination with Beta Ray Bill, or "Thorse", and the various baby hijinks keep things from getting too depressing.

Each issue also has a back-up story written and drawn by Colleen Coover, about Hercules taking over babysitting Power Pack for Johnny Storm, and keeping them entertained by telling about the 12 Labors he undertook to prove himself to Hela. There's also a brief fight with HYDRA (the terrorist group, not the multi-headed mythological beast) when they try to steal some of Dr. Power's science stuff.

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.

What I Bought 3/30/2023

I'm typing this on Friday afternoon, waiting to see if we're going to get a visit from the Tornado and Hail Fairy. Thus far, it's just been a bit of rain, but there's five hours on the tornado watch to go.

It's Jeff! #1, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - Jeff looking so happy to be on the cover of his very own comic. No more scrambling for background space in other's books!

This is a collection of a bunch of short strips that were on Marvel Infinite first, and have been collected in this handy issue. Outside of characters occasionally shouting "Jeff!" when he does something exasperating, the strips are silent. Mostly Jeff roaming about, having fun doing things like sledding or getting stuck in the washing machine. Although Thompson seems to have designated Kate Bishop as Jeff's caretaker instead of Gwenpool or Deadpool. Man, Kate Bishop can't look after a pet.

The Gurihiru art team depict Jeff as something like a very toothy, oddly-shaped cat. Focused more on him being cute than kind of strange or frightening. A few of the strips play with Jeff being a shark. Jeff jumps in the pool in one strip and causes a panic when people see the fin. So when he decides to join some surfers in the ocean in a subsequent strip, he devises a way to put people at ease. Another one involves him getting a stomachache and the vet performing an X-ray on his stomach.

One that actually made me laugh out loud a bit involved Jeff trying to get cool during summer. He tries to drag over the hose to fill a kiddy pool, but is reminded of the dangers of using his mouth to do that. That was actually an unexpected twist in a 3-page story, so I appreciate the swerve by Thompson there.

Anyway, it's extremely inessential fluff, but it's also extremely cute and lighthearted inessential fluff, and I enjoy that from time-to-time.

Clobberin' Time #1, by Steve Skroce (writer/artist), Bryan Valenza (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - It's kind of weird seeing Ben's rocks depicted more like a leathery hide, without losing the "pebble" look of them.

Ben's having lunch with Bruce Banner and Reed (although Reed's got his neck stretched out looking at some gizmo), when a guy in what looks like mish-mash of Iron Man and Doom's armor shows up and dumps them through a gateway to some other world. Where they find a bunch of little aliens being menaced by a giant monster with a lot of teeth. Which is the sort of thing Skroce draws well, based on his Godzilla comic work. Lot of detail into the lamprey like mouth and the skin like spiny plates. The way the fingers are depicted make them look like a hydra, almost.

The monster is just one of many, the leader of which has captured the little guys' defender, their own Sorcerer Supreme. Hulk ignores Ben's attempt at a plan and just smashes the leader and grabs the sorcerer, but right as they're ready to leave, the army of monsters shows up. So they stay to fight, rather than abandon the aliens. Which leads to a double-page splash of Ben and Hulk clobberin' and smashing a bunch of weird monsters. More lamprey-looking things, vaguely crocodile-shaped things. Lots of teeth, lots of purple blood and big yellow eyes.

After the fight's over, a Celestial shows up, looking a bit more textured than usual. I mean, they normally have elaborate designs, but the Celestials also usually have smooth exteriors, whereas Skroce gives them more of a ridged or organic look. Either way, it declares them anomalies, and sends them home.

Skroce adds some humor in with the monster-punching. Hulk calls Ben "road lips" and "crack-face", which I don't think I've ever seen before. Ben makes a few cracks back at Hulk, although the one about Hulk's forehead, where he compares him to Timothee Chalamet, seemed forced. Maybe that's just because I had no idea who that was, but it's hard to see Ben making that reference. There's also a gag about Johnny taunting Ben for having a lot fewer followers on Twitter than Johnny does, and Ben brushing it off as Johnny using bots to inflate his total.

I'm guessing the mysterious armored figure will be the recurring antagonist, although the only hint here would be the fact they dumped Ben elsewhere so easily and we don't know their purpose. But that's fine. It was a good comic full of monster-punching.

Saturday Splash Page #57

 

"Eleventh Commandment," in Unbelievable Gwenpool #20, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Gurihiru (artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer)

Gwenpool wasn't the first Marvel costumed character to be presented as a huge fan of superheroes. That feature was part of Kamala Khan's backstory, for one, and there was the "Spectacular Spider-Kid" from the '80s Amazing Spider-Man comics (although he turned angry in the '90s, because of course he did.)

Gwen Poole was, however, the first Marvel character I can think of who fell into the universe from a stand-in for our universe. Where all the heroes only exist in comics, movies, posters and whatnot. Which means, at least at first, Gwen's superpowers consistent of being a fangirl. She knows everyone's names, powers, and abilities. More important, she's genre-savvy enough to know the only way to survive is to make yourself important enough The Powers That Be won't kill you off (or won't let you stay dead.)

So she finds a woman who makes costumes, gets one in pink - because there's a lot of pink fabric available, though not enough for pants - and starts taking gun-for-hire jobs. This is how she's presented in her earliest appearances, in the Zdarsky/Quinones Howard the Duck series. Although viewed from Howard's perspective, Gwen just seems insane. In her own book, we see Gwen treating it as a game, or a vivid dream. These are fictional characters to her, which means none of it is real, so nothing she does really matters. It's OK to shoot nameless henchmen, or steal a terrible virus for AIM.

What Chris Hastings does is play up the difference between Gwen's expectations and the reality of them. Gwen thinks she's the star, so when MODOK appears, insisting she work for him, Gwen laughs it off. It's MODOK, she's not scared of him. So he disintegrates her new hacker friend Cecil. She's not able to simply instantly learn combat skills. The heroes, like Miles Morales Spider-Man, don't find her willingness to kill people charming. The friends she makes working for MODOK, most of whom are new characters, plus Batroc, get mad when she tries to do the right thing and costs them their jobs.

The final six months of so of the book are Gwen struggling with how to continue existing. Even as she starts to learn how to manipulate being in comics, by stepping outside the panels or dumping villains into the gutters, she may be running out of time. And if the choice is between becoming a villain and staying important, or trying to stick it out as a hero and fading to obscurity, what's she gonna pick?

Hastings fills the book with a lot of humor, whether it's Gwen drawing dollar signs on her eyepieces when she sees how much a job pays, or how other characters react to her unusual behavior. But you also have Gwen's desperate struggles to make herself more relevant by beating Dr. Doom, or trying to help Cecil get some sort of a physical body. Batroc gets written as a honorable rogue who grudgingly acts as a mentor to this crazy girl and the rest of her cast.

The Gurihiru art team does make Gwen look a little young for someone meant to be at least out of high school, if not in her early 20s, but their style is great for the humor parts and the violence parts. Especially when Gwen is still operating under the thought that nothing really matters. It's (mostly) bloodless violence, nobody's getting hurt! Except that guy that HYDRA guy she pushed in the furnace. But whatever, he didn't have a name, and he works for HYDRA!

The book ended in early 2018. In 2019, Gwenpool got a mini-series about trying to remain relevant, which ended with her being retconned into a mutant and shipped to Krakoa, where nobody ever does anything with her. Beats being brutally murdered on-panel (or off-panel) by some hack going for a cheap pop, I guess.

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.'

What I Bought 11/27/2019

The final tally for fiction writing in November was 53,429 words, not counting Blogsgiving last week. Because that wasn't fiction, obviously. Like I figured, none of the stories are anywhere near completion - they're mostly just getting to the part where things really kick off - but it was real progress, so I'm pretty happy with that. Now it's just a matter of keeping going.

Infinity 8 #16, by Emmanuel Gilbert and Lewis Trondheim (writers), Franck Biancarelli (artist) -  That creature in the background looks like something from a more recent Scooby-Doo series.

OK, sixth try at a timeline. This time, it's Leila Sherad, from the Antiquities section of the Customs department. Sherad is a real "shoot first, ask no questions" type. Seems a little careless for someone dealing with antiquities. At least they know to investigate closer to the center, and that the people they want to talk to will emerge in four hours. Of course, that leaves four hours for Sherad to fuck things up somehow. She requests to bring along a historian she hassled at the beginning of the issue, and while he gets a chance to investigate the hyper-sarcophagus of an alleged living god, they find a floating orb that might contain a message, or it might be something else. At the least, there's something else interested in that sarcophagus in the area.

I'm curious how Sherad and this historian are going to mess this up, seeing as there are still two more turns available to use. I guess these two could always get it right and solve the mystery, but I feel like they wouldn't tell you they could use the timeline trick up to 8 times, and call the series Infinity 8, then only use 6. The most likely is Sherad shooting someone or something she shouldn't and prompting a hostile response from the ones responsible for this place. Or a hostile response from just about anyone, really. You would think someone with expertise in other cultures to be a little more diplomatic.

Biancarelli's style makes the space necropolis look more like the deep sea at times, opting for a lot of blues in the sky, and weird bits floating through that could look like air bubbles or something. Little different than most of the other artists. Biancarelli also doesn't play up the T&A factor with Sherad as much as most of the artists have with their officer. That might just be because he doesn't put her in the standard uniform, that skintight blue number with the exposed midriff. She's in what looks like a pair of jeans a white tank top. Which I'm guessing represents her general disdain for regulations or protocols. It's certainly not any sort of normal uniform, since she has to keep telling people she's a cop.

I like the choice of visual for the blaster she carries. The whole panel is colored golden yellow, except for the white lines expanding outward from the barrel of the weapon. It's such a change in color scheme from the rest of the panels it really stands out.

Power Pack: Grow Up! by Louise Simonson (writer), June Brigman (artist), Gurihiru (artist), Roy Richardson (inker), Tamra Bonvillain (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Kitty shouldn't need to phase through that, should she? It's just light.

Power Pack feels like something I should have been into back in the day, but kind of missed for one reason or another (except the issue of Uncanny X-Men where that one Morlock abducts the kids and makes their parents forget about them). I don't even know how old most of them are now in continuity. In this case, though, the story revolves around Alex' 13th birthday, with the main part drawn by June Brigman. Alex is really excited to spend time with a girl he likes, but worried his siblings will embarrass him at the Lila Cheney concert. But the kids are too busy trying to protect their talking horse alien friend from the Brood to do that.

There's a recurring thread of Katie being angry that everyone keeps calling her a baby and treating her like one. Being an only child, I don't know if that's accurate, other than it certainly seems like siblings would pick at each other that way. I did like how there's almost a sense of constantly shifting alliances between the kids. Jack, Julie, and Katie might all be angry at Alex for how he's acting towards them, and therefore defend Katie against Alex. But when he's not around, they (especially Jack) will give Katie grief instead.

I did get a good laugh out of Katie insisting that next time they try to use the "bathroom" excuse to slip away from their parents, it has to be someone other than her that has to go. That seems fair, although I imagine it'll be harder to explain Katie accompanying her older sister to the bathroom than vice versa. But I see her point.

The other story, the one drawn by the Gurihiru team, takes place later that night, and focuses on Katie, who feels bad because she spent all the money that was supposed to be for Alex' present from her on the Lila Cheney action figure she got. Which she did because he was being a jerk, but now that he's acting nicer, she feels bad. Which feels accurate from what I remember being that age. Doing something that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, then figuring out I was being a selfish jerk later on. Ugh, I hated that feeling. Stupid guilt. The resolution is set up by something from the tail end of the first story, and not hard to see coming, but it's nice.

Both Brigman and Gurihiru do a good job being expressive with the kids' faces. Especially Alex, who has some expressions where you'd understand his siblings wanting to pop him in the jaw. Brigman gets to draw some fight scenes, which work pretty well. Nothing majorly creative, just a good ebb-and-flow where the kids have the element of surprise, and then things start to turn against them, as they're pretty disorganized. I feel like Gurihiru draws the kids as taller, but still kids. It might just be because they're really only around each other in that story, rather than giant aliens and adults. There aren't a bunch of bigger characters to make them look smaller by comparison.

What I Bought 10/21/2018

Alex asked me to tag along to a gig on Sunday, and so I took some time to grab a couple of last week's books while I was in town. It probably says something about me that Alex thought I'd be there by noon, and was calling me at 12:10 when I hadn't arrived yet, even though he wasn't planning to leave until 1:30. I don't bat an eye when my dad is 10 minutes late for something, or Alex for that matter.

Unstoppable Wasp #1, by Jeremy Whitley (writer), Gurihiru (artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - It's a cute cover, I really don't have anything more substantive to say.

Well, I didn't read the brief ongoing the new Wasp had a year or two ago, but it's reasonably easy to follow along. Nadia has her own group of young lady scientists, and they invent cool stuff part of the time, and help her fight crime part of the time. Crime, in this case being AIM, back to being evil after that stint where Sunspot was their boss, and doing something to prepare for Hank Pym. Pym being Nadia's father, who she thinks is dead. And who I thought was dead. Isn't Ultron still just Ultron, but he thinks he's part Pym? Or maybe he is part Pym. It was Hank's brain patterns he was based on, so I guess he's technically always been part Hank, the poor genocidal robot bastard.

The book feels pretty cheerful, despite all that looming stuff about Nadia's dad that I guess the Avengers haven't told her. She and her friends seem to be having fun, cracking wise and whatnot. The Guruhiru team's artwork is very bright and expressive. They draw Nadia as having freckles, which, I'm trying to think of superhero characters with freckles. Jimmy Olsen, I guess, if you count "Mr. Action". I feel like Siryn does, depending on the artist. The little drone hovercraft her friends remotely pilot look cool, and fit the wasp motif.

All that said, something didn't click. There's a whole thread where there are going to be a bunch of investors coming by to see if their lab is worth buying into, and Nadia's been slacking on the super-science. I can see how it's important for her character (and a connection to her dad, who probably should have stuck to super-science and stayed away from superheroics). Plus it connects to the friendship between her and Janet (who is helping her with the business side of things), but I feel like it's going to distract from the subplots among her friends, or trying to stop AIM, or Nadia dealing with whatever she's going to learn about her father. The things I'm more interested in seeing play out. So I'm on the fence about buying issue 2 now.

Stellar #5, by Joseph Keatinge (writer), Bret Blevins (artist), Rus Wooton (letterer) - What you see on the cover is pretty much what you get for the first half of the issue. Which is nice. Truth in advertising, and sometimes you just want robot smashing.

So the older and younger versions of Stellar are gone, taken somewhere by Zenith. She's left wandering for some time, asking people if they've seen them, getting no response until someone recognizes the photo and gives her a lead. And it leads back to. . . Zenith, who has made himself a seemingly happy family with them, if the photos on the wall are anything to go by.

That was a little strange. I still haven't figured out the mother and daughter both looking like Stellar. One of them, sure, but both? Zenith sparing her starts to make a little more sense. Why hadn't he killed her like he did all the other members of their team? Well, he had some sort of interest in her. And he feels he's moved on, made a family, has grandkids now (although he's also taken the time to get himself some death bots at some point). Whereas Stellar, hasn't. Even before she was spending all her time trying to track them down, it seems like she wasn't doing much. Almost no friends, crappy little apartment. Is she afraid of wrecking this world, that she'll taint it if she tries to immerse herself in it? So she stays on the fringes, watches, but doesn't really live in it much.

It's neat two watch how Blevins draws Zenith differently over the course of time. We first see him, he's this techno-organic monstrosity. Like he says, reborn for war. When he found her last issue, he's wearing a stylish hat and coat. The power is still there if he wants it, but he's not trying to impress or terrify anyone. By the time Stellar finds him at the end of this issue, he's dressed like a grandpa. Spectacles and sweater vests. Probably about to settle down and watch his programs with a cup of tea (coffee keeps him up nights). He's been the one we keep hearing was so scary, so terrifying, reveled in being this super-power, killing who he wished. But maybe that was who he had to be and he's not that any more. Or maybe he is, he just hides it better. Stellar is still wearing the same kind of raggedy trenchcoats she was wearing when this series began. She's stuck in place.

One thing I'm waiting for is whether we'll see Stellar really cut loose before the end here. The first issue, we kept seeing her as a glowing yellow human silhouette. She hasn't done that since, even when she's ostensibly fighting for her life against Zenith, or lashing out in a fury. I'm curious to see if it comes out here at the end, and what the end result would be. Probably a lot of death and destruction.