Power Pack 63 - Inferno

Katie writes about the time the Bogeyman attacked her family.

(This one-shot was released in 2017 as part of Marvel Legacy, a big relaunch focused on the classic characters which included a number of one-shots for series no longer being published with most continuing the classic numbering.)

Power Pack #63

Note confiscated from: Devin Grayson
Margin doodles by: Marika Cresta
Demonstrating perfect penmanship: VC's Joe Caramagna
Caught coloring outside the lines: Chris O'Halloran
Graded by: Sarah Brunstad
Cover Artists: Mike McKone and Rachelle Rosenberg
Variant Cover Artists: June Brigman and Nolan Woodard; John Tyler Christopher
Executive Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor in Chief: Axel Alonso
Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada
President: Dan Buckley
Executive Producer: Alan Fine

(Oh for the days when credits were simple!)

Katie stays behind after a class to discuss her essay for a speculative fiction assignment. The first draft tells how during a heatwave she and her siblings were suffering from a fever when her father's old bass Mr Carmody came into the apartment and the whole family fled to the lift where Carmody went off with the parents. The children agreed to go after them but Katie ran off on her own and hit Mr Carmody. The teacher finds the story hard to follow as it's not clear why the parents leave the children in a lift or why Katie hates Mr Carmody. Katie is told to try again with a greater focus on horror and super heroics. She makes Carmody into a real Bogeyman who can possess people and wants to destroy four siblings called Power Pack who he blames for his downfall. He invades their flat and possesses Alex leading to a battle in the street with the other three siblings. As the battle rages she confronts her possessed brother and tells him Carmody can't make her blast her brother and can't make him squash her. The teacher comments how this is a better draft and asks how it ended but Katie just says, "I'm here, aren't I?" The teachers notes how Alex is clearly a source of security for Katie who says her brother is now travelling and suggests she call him.

Okay there's some pretty major continuity errors that stand out when this issue is read in close proximity to the original stories. And that's not just because I chose to include it in this look at Inferno but also because it's included in Power Pack Classic Omnibus Volume 2. For starters just how old is Katie meant to be in the present day? She's at PS 87 Magnet School which in the original run was the number designated to the elementary school (first/lower/primary) she started at just after the events of Inferno (and Julie finished as Katie began with Jack overlapping on both his sisters' times there). In the original run Katie was two years younger than Jack who was three years younger than Julie who was two years younger than Alex. The intro page here establishes that Julie is now in college (university) and Jack in high school so Katie is presumably at least 13 (and even if Julie and Jack are especially young prodigies, the teacher calculates that Alex would be in college by now). Katie and her classmates are certainly drawn looking older than 11. Other latter day appearances of the Pack from the mid 2000s onwards also have her siblings older than the equivalent ages if she was 11. Also her teacher remembers Alex but in the original series he was already in junior high school (middle) when the family moved to New York. Then there's the Pack themselves. Alex is using the codename "Zero-G" for a story set during the original run but he did not adopt that name until the 2000 limited series (the same would happen in the 2019 one-shot Power Pack: Grow Up! which explicitly states it is set around issue #18). More notably the Pack are all using their original powers when Inferno was set after the first swap around. And for a retelling of a story in the original of which their parents learnt about their powers, it appears in both versions the parents already know, having been told by Carmody on a previous occasion. Oh and Katie is blonde like Alex whereas in the original stories she was a redhead like Julie.

I suppose one could explain that the teacher has transferred from the junior high school to the elementary school and so knew Alex from there. Or that there's been some reorganisation of the New York schooling system that has merged the elementary and junior high into a combined/combination school. Or that New York is just very confused as to how the school numbering system works. And perhaps even Katie's first draft has rewritten the Pack's powers so that she's able to hit back against Carmody with the energy powers rather than just chase him with the flight powers. But it does all point to a rather casual approach to continuity which is especially surprising for a one-off special in a line that was pitching a more classic approach and even using the traditional numbering for the series.

Part of the problem is that it is very difficult to bring Power Pack back as they were in the here and now. Appearances by the characters in the 1990s and 2000s saw their ages creep up such that the 2000 limited series was probably about the last time it was possible to have the story of four children together in regular continuity. Since then both Alex and Julie have been shown growing up on other teams, with Alex actually ageing even faster due to his work across time for the Future Foundation, and, as Katie sadly remembers, is now off in space. Nothing is impossible in comics but finding a way to de-age the characters and put them all back together as they once were is too great a task for a one-shot which is why both the 2010s one-shots have instead gone down the route of telling stories set during the classic run. Or not quite.

As well as the wider continuity errors Katie's telling of the story is somewhat distorted from the original. There's no mention of the wider events of Inferno beyond the heatwave and the streets seem normal. I suppose it's possible given the reference to Carmody possessing Luke Cage that the second version could in fact be a later encounter set after the original series (and after Carmody's apparent death in Cage's series though it wasn't the first time he seemingly died) but the implication is that this is Katie rewriting the original events. As a result of all this we get a rather condensed fight scene that climaxes in a showdown based on how two of the siblings care about each other... and no actual conclusion.

It's nice to see Power Pack got revived and this probably led to two more recent projects but this one shot is just not the way to go. Either a reunion years later or a flashback to the old days is workable. This format results in a confused retelling and then rewriting of a past tale with no clear conclusion. And the Inferno connection is so slight that this issue does not need to be included in any future collection of the crossover; indeed including it alongside the original issue #44 would make the discrepancies stand out the more.