Youth vs. experience takes center stage in Marvel Comics' Outlawed event, featuring the return of the superhuman kid team Power Pack. The first official details for the Pack's new mini-series finds the squad facing imprisonment and (possibly) seeking adult guidance. Outlawed is set to debut in March, and the much-anticipated storyline is likely to send multi-generational ripples throughout Marvel's multiverse.
An adult-free team of super-siblings informed by Lewis Carroll and quantum physics, Power Pack was created in the 1980s by writer Louise Simonson and artist June Brigman (notable for the era, the characters are the invention of two women creators). Following their original monthly series, the Power kids reappeared off and on in the Marvel Universe over the decades, with some variations in their canonical pre-teen or teen ages depending on the very flexible rules of time in the comics medium. Their influence is seen in most of Marvel's youth-oriented teams, including the Runaways, the New Warriors, the Young Avengers, and the Champions.
Marvel's solicitations for May 2020 offer a preview for issue #2 of the five-part Power Pack series from writer Ryan North and artist Nico Leon. The premise of Outlawed focuses on a generational rift between the young and old superheroes, arising from a newly-imposed ban on "youth" vigilantism. Here's the advance look:
- POWER PACK #2 (OF 5)
- RYAN NORTH (W)
- NICO LEON (A)
- Cover by STEFANO CASELLI
- Variant cover by DAVID LOPEZ
- DARK MARVEL VARIANT COVER BY GURIHIRU
- THE PACK IN PRISON?! Okay, so MAYBE it’s illegal for minors to fight crime in costume, dispensing vigilante justice as they see fit. MAYBE. But not if they have a mentor! Then it’s totally fine! So now all the Pack need is an adult willing to let them do whatever they want. It’s a voyage (or at least a two-page spread) across the Marvel Universe to find a mentor! But what if everything doesn’t go smoothly? What if there’s CONFLICT and EVENTS? The Power Pack faces adversity, betrayal and more in this Alex-narrated issue!
The synopsis suggests that an adult mentorship can bypass the youth-superhero embargo, which raises all sorts of timely questions. How are adults more qualified to be vigilantes than children? What constitutes an adult in the erratic aging of the Marvel Universe? Does the regulation of costumed superheroes involve a double standard, or any standard, of justice? And all those logistics aside, who is best-suited to be Power Pack's adult chaperone/mentor/supervisor? Outlawed naturally invites comparison to Marvel's Civil War storylines, presenting readers with genuinely challenging moral paradox, couched within superhuman escapades.
The Power Pack foursome has always had strong parallels to the Fantastic Four, both in the symbolic distribution of their powers (the elemental FF representing air, water, fire and earth, PP using fundamental forces of physics relating to gravity, mass, energy, etc.) and in their sibling/family dynamics. Their sisterly and brotherly interactions generate what may be Power Pack's most relevant and relatable power: the ability to investigate superhero tropes through a youthful perspective that is truly multi-dimensional, and essential to whatever lies ahead in the issues of Outlawed.
Source: CBR