The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1583: Power Pack #27, December 1986

I never was too keen on Power Pack, and rightly so, as it was aimed at a younger demographic than what I was when the series began. Just about, anyway. This is not to say that the series is not entertaining, provocative, or well-rendered. Louise Simonson and (original artist/creator) June Brigman are amongst the powerhouse women who persevered in comics at a time when female creators were a true rarity. And the longevity of the characters attests to the talent and inspiration that went into the original series.

That said, this issue is almost, but only almost, one that could be skipped in the crossover. The Pack descends into the Alley to help their young friend Leech and runs afoul of a number of Marauders. There's something interesting to be noted here about tailoring a story for a demographic, and also of age-related inflection across multiple series. Other titles in this crossover have been very, very bloody, and the Marauders shown as a team that can take down both major teams of X-Men. So to see Power Pack take on Sabretooth, Arclight, Scrambler, and Harpoon and survive with barely a scratch takes quite a bit of suspension of disbelief when reading from the perspective of the rest of the story. What the comic is accomplishing, I think, is what many stories for younger audiences do: showing kids that they have agency and can take power in their own lives. On the metaphoric stage of the superhero comic, this makes itself known in the ability of these children to repel even the most brutal of killers.

I don't know whether this issue or tomorrow's Uncanny #212 was released first, but if it's Power Pack, the cover may well be the first skirmish between Wolverine and Sabertooth. Although, in a bit of false advertising, the two don't actually meet in the pages of this comic. But tomorrow...

"Let's see how she likes getting slammed with a condensed rock hard Julie hammer!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1580: X-Factor #10, November 1986

Sorry for the pause. Went camping for a couple of days. I find it very therapeutic.

A commenter on my Instagram mentioned how much they enjoy this crossover, and I have to agree. Basically what we have is the original X-Men and the current team stumbling back from some serious beatdown into the middle of a massacre. Someone is just outright slaughtering the Morlocks. And, as of this issue, they've had their asses handed to them again and again, and only just escaped death themselves, so they're picking everyone they can and getting the hell out! Both teams! In contrast to so many of the crossovers we see now, this one is pretty tiny. The surface world would be affected in no way. But the fashion now is for the heroes to throw themselves at it, whatever the magnitude, and just trust that they'll win. I kind of appreciate seeing one where the heroes are thinking "Fuck! This is insane. We gotta rescue who we can and get the fuck out!" We don't see nearly enough of that.

The other great thing about the crossover is that it works. It's a wonderful meshing of stories, there are a mere 5 crossover issues, and only 3 in each main series are given to the story. The first X-Men and X-Factor titles are really more epilogues to their previous stories, the massacre itself only happening on the last page or two. Two of the five crossover issues are actually not completely pertinent to the plot, offering more a view of the consequences, rather than the action, of the events of the main story. Regardless, it's a neatly told story, and I think serves as a template for these kinds of "Events." Rather than involve everyone, make them more intimate. This story is claustrophobic and unpleasant, and is super-effective, much more than the yearly get together to save the universe.

I have discovered of late that there is an issue that crosses over that isn't on the map in the back of the comics, Daredevil #238. Off to the shops I go!

"It'll take more than that to stop me, little piggies..."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1000: Superman: Save the Planet #1, October 1998

This comic entered my collection just over 19 years ago this month. On November 4th, 1998, I walked across the road from the hospital I'd been in for the last day and a half and bought myself a couple of comics from the convenience store. Then I walked back and quietly re-entered the room where my exhausted wife and 4-hour old son were sleeping.

I wanted to read something special for my 1000th day, and this comic, though not particularly memorable as a comic, is memorable for when it entered my life.

I have to say I'm a bit amazed that I made it this far. I'm very good at starting projects but my follow-through on them leaves a bit to be desired. I suppose it just took finding the right thing to apply myself to. I have, over the last 1000 days, read some really remarkably bad comics and some really remarkably good ones, and I'm happy for both of those extremes. Some comics are so bad that they are good - it's interesting that it doesn't work the other way around.

The 90s Superman comics were a bit of a shit show, in my humble opinion. You'll see down in the bottom left corner, just above the bar code, a triangle with a number in it. If you wanted to read Superman comics in this era, you had to pay attention to those numbers, because Superman's stories were told through 4 monthly ongoing series that continued from one to another. What this meant was that it was virtually impossible to buy just Action Comics or Superman: Man of Steel, as the next part of whatever story you were reading was going to be in one of the other titles, rather than being continued in the next issue of the same series. Add to this various specials like this one, and you were dropping quite a bit of money just to keep up with the adventures of this one superhero. Not a great idea, as I've noted, but it continued for a very long time, so there must have been a few people who liked it.

The story is okay, as is the art - much as I love Superman, I've never really been into his ongoing series. I think it must be hard to write the adventures of this character on a monthly basis. He seems so much more suited to the big adventures, rather than the little, down to Earth ones that inevitably come with a monthly title. Perhaps, though, I'm not giving the character, or his writers, enough credit. Is it time to jump back into Superman comics? Maybe I'll start with Supergirl first.

So, 1000 days. Thanks to those of you who've managed to keep up with the project for a little while. I'm excited to get to some of the other bits of the collection. 1000 days seems like an awfully long time, until I realize that that is approximately 1/15th of the comics I have to read. To be, as usual, continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 995: The New Mutants Annual #4, 1988

I was almost not going to read this issue, as I wanted to leave it until I eventually (and perhaps sooner rather than later) get to reading all of The New Mutants. This was absolutely one of my favourite comics in the 80s, and aside from some of the crappy Liefeld stuff at the end, I have the whole series. But here I am.

As I noted in yesterday's post, I'm still not seeing much of a through line to these stories. That's okay in this case, as I'm familiar with the characters and situations, which convinces me even more that this crossover should be seen as a series of discreet stories, rather than one long, interconnected one.

Contrary to the cover up there, the High Evolutionary doesn't even show up in this issue, but his cronies are tasked with removing Magma's powers because she might one day cause some catastrophe that will endanger evolved humanity. Again, I'd ask wouldn't this simply be something that the evolved humanity would be able to deal with with the god-like powers about to be bestowed upon them? The Evolutionary likens himself to a god at the beginning of the crossover, and hopes to "elevate" humanity to his level - so surely they'd be able to take care of themselves in the face of a single young woman like Magma.

What's quite good about this issue is that it really does shift the paradigm for one member of the team, and then the backup feature explores the ramifications of that change. Very often a crossover will have little to no impact on the stories being told in the regular series, so it's always refreshing to see a fundamental narrative shift like this come from what really could have been a throwaway story.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 992: X-Factor Annual #3, 1988

"The Evolutionary War" was the first cross-Annual crossover, a notion that became par for the course in the early 90s. We don't see Annuals much anymore, which is kind of a pity and kind of good. Annuals were always nice for the longer format stories, but those stories weren't always of the highest caliber.

Being that it's the first Annual crossover, it begins in medias res, with the High Evolutionary's forces well underway in their quest to exterminate evolutionary dead ends. You get the sense that a lot of this extermination/sterilization has taken place under the radar of the dominant human species, which adds a fairly chilling aspect to this story. The High Evolutionary, much as he keeps telling himself he's doing good, is really quite fascistic. He's an evolutionary fascist? Which makes his conversation in today's comic with the uber-Darwinian Apocalypse so interesting. I feel like, had this conversation been written about 20 years later, it would have been really quite poignant. Here, it skims the surface, and really offers a nice look at two opposing villainous impetuses that seem to be attempting similar goals.

X-Factor themselves are kind of incidental. And I really would like to know what happens to the mutant Moloid (Va-Lor) after this issue. We probably never see him again.

Dear gods, I have to read The Punisher tomorrow. I'm not a fan.

To be continued.