Power Pack is a team of fictional child superheroes who are part of the Marvel Universe. They were created by writer Louise Simonson and artist June Brigman , and first appeared in the first issue of their own comic book series, in 1984. The series lasted for 62 issues, and the characters have since then appeared sporadically in other books. The Pack is noteworthy for being the first team of preteen superheroes ever in the Marvel Universe, as well as acting with no adult supervision for most of their career. The characters were moderately popular and have loyal fans to this day.

The team is made up of siblings Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie Power. Alex received the power to control gravity; Julie, the ability to fly (leaving a rainbow-like trail behind); Jack, the ability to control his molecular density (allowing him to turn into a cloud, or shrink down) and Katie received the power to disintegrate matter, absorb energy and fire it as energy balls. They have changed powers on more than one occasion, and have had additional members.

History

The children's father, Dr. James Power, had discovered a process to generate energy from anti-matter, and built a prototype generator. Unknown to him, there was an error in his formula, and the generator would have caused an explosion that could destroy Earth. This was discovered by Aelfyre "Whitey" Whitemane, a member of the alien race known as the Kymellians, who resemble humanoid horses. Knowing about the danger of the experiment (a similar one had destroyed his home planet) Whitey tried to stop it, but was mortally wounded by his enemies, the reptilian Snarks. The Snarks also kidnapped Dr. Power and his wife, Margaret, hoping to obtain the secret of anti-matter. Dying, Whitey rescued the Power children and informed them about what was happening. He then passed four of his powers on to them, hoping they could complete the mission for him. Whitey then died.

The children, with the help of Whitey's "smartship", a sentient starship called Friday, managed both to stop the generator test and to rescue their parents (without them knowing about it). They then decided to secretly continue being super heroes. Alex took the codename Gee, Julie became Lightspeed, Jack, Mass Master and Katie, Energizer. They wore costumes made for them by Friday (actually Kymellian spacesuits). Amazingly enough, the Pack were successful as heroes, and at keeping their secret, for quite a while, despite their encountering many other heroes and villains in their adventures. These adventures included more battles with the Snarks, travels to the new Kymellian homeworld, and having their powers switched around a few times. Eventually, their parents found out what they were doing (during Alex's time with the New Warriors), and at first they were opposed to it, but eventually came to accept their children's need to use their powers responsibly.

Three "reserve" members also became part of Power Pack. The fifth member of the Pack was Franklin Richards, (son of Reed and Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four) whose psionic powers had been greatly reduced, under the name Tattletale. The sixth was a Kymellian youth (about Alex's age respectively) named Kofi Whitemane (nephew of Whitey), with the power of teleportation (and later developing other Kymellian powers) and finally, an Elan child who was nicknamed "Marty".

In later years, the children discovered that they could switch the powers among them at will, adopting new identities. Alex also discovered he could steal his siblings' powers for himself, and joined the superhero group New Warriors, under the names Powerpax and Powerhouse, but this caused some friction with his brother and sisters. Alex eventually gave his siblings their powers back, and they all reverted to their original powers and names (except Julie, who was now called Starstreak, the name Katie had chosen when she had Julie's powers).

The Pack is currently still active as superheroes, though most of them are now in high school and junior high. They have also started wearing masks while going out in adventures. Their most recent adventure involved the Snarks again, as both Maraud & her son Jakal attempted another coup to rule Snarkworld.

Some time after that adventure, Julie Power AKA Starstreak did some soul-searching and came to the conclusion that adventuring deprived her of normal childhood. She quit adventuring and moved to Los Angeles, hoping to become an actress. She recently joined Excelsior, a support group for former teenage supeheroes first seen in Runaways. Meanwhile, a new Power Pack mini-series is being published, but it mostly ignores previous continuity and the characters are once again younger.

Bibliography

• Power Pack #1-62 (1984-1991)
• Power Pack/Cloak and Dagger: Shelter from the Storm (1990, graphic novel)
• Power Pack Holiday Special (1992)
• Power Pack Vol.2 #1-4 (2000)
• Power Pack Vol.3 #1-4 (2005)

External links

• The Unofficial Power Pack Site
• Marvel Directory (Power Pack)