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''Power Pack'' was a 1980s comic book series by Marvel Comics that starred four child superheroes. While this concept is not unusual in [[Western Animation]], it was new for the [[Marvel Universe]]. Unlike those of TV cartoon super-kids, most of the Pack's adventures were straight superhero action, with deeper real-world themes as well, such as child abuse, guns in school, bullying, and genocide - the kids were unwilling witnesses to the mass-murder of the sewer-dwelling Morlocks. The mood was lighter than other Marvel fare, but darker than typical super-kid stories.
The series was about the four children of one Prof. Power, a scientist who had invented an antimatter generator. However, a horselike alien named Whitemane tried to warn him that a similar machine had blown up his homeworld. Unfortunately, "Whitey" (as the kids named him) was mortally wounded by his enemies, the alien Snarks, and couldn't prevent them from kidnapping the children's parents.
Dying, Whitey had no choice but to pass on his superpowers to the Power children and hope that they could save the Earth ''and'' rescue their parents. With help from Whitey's living spaceship, Friday, they succeeded, and without their parents finding out about their new powers, to boot!
The four of them then decided to keep their powers a secret, and continued to adventure around New York City as the "Power Pack".
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* [[And Now for Something Completely Different]]: Issue 47 of the original comic is entirely about Katie entering a cartoon bizarro universe straight out of ''[[Little Nemo]]'' and trying to escape. The credits page using TV style credits (For example: Writer Jon Bogdanove is credited as "Script & Cinematography"), events in "Elsewhere" being rendered in landscape instead of portrait (accomplished by turning the book sideways) and comments in the ''Peer Pressure'' miniseries (saying that everyone sees "Elsewhere" differently) all suggest this is supposed to be Katie watching ''way'' too much TV. Katie learns a new power the group's costumes have during this adventure, causing it to be referenced several times.
* [[Arbitrary Skepticism]]: All over the first few issues. News of a UFO is readily dismissed despite several alien invasions of Earth by that point. Also, perhaps most [[Egregious]], is the fact that at one point Jack dismisses the idea that his newfound ability to understand the Snarks' language must mean Friday built translators into their costumes as "[[This Is Reality|too much like science fiction]]" -- while he's a [[Super Smoke|cloud-boy]] floating next to an alien spaceship.
** Franklin's guardians have a bad habit of knowing full well that his dreams [[Dreaming of Things to Come|foretell the future]] and ''still'' passing them off as just normal dreams.
* [[Astral Projection]]: In a change from the [[Deus Ex Machina]] Batman <s>Wizard</s> Psion he was normally used as, ''Power Pack'' consistently limited Franklin Richards' power set to this and [[Dreaming of Things to Come]].
* [[Badass Normal]]: Taken further in the all-ages series, Franklin Richards has ''no'' superpowers, save perhaps for an intellect on par with his dad's and a whole lot of gadgets.
* [[Back
* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: Julie since her appearance in ''Runaways''.
* [[Baseball Episode]]: Nearly an entire issue of the original series takes place at or near Shea Stadium, and a baseball game [[Writing Around Trademarks|the "Mecs" vs. the "Clubs"]]) figures into the plot.
* [[Bequeathed Power]]:
* [[BLAM Episode]]: Issue 34 of the original series. Not only is it never spoken of again, with Katie and Franklin (who feature prominently) wildly [[Out of Character]], [[Canon Discontinuity|it's officially declared non-canon in the letters page of a later issue.]]
* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: Alex/Katie, Jack and Julie.
* [[Blue Eyes]]: The Power children.
* [[Body Horror]]: {{spoiler|This happens to Carmody, who is transformed into a demon.}}
* [[Canon Immigrant]]: Franklin's [[Robot Buddy]] Herbie (all-ages version only)
* [[Cheerful Child]]: All the kids in the Marvel Adventures series are cute, but Katie is the epitome of cute as a button.
* [[Create Your Own Villain]]: {{spoiler|The Pack's [[Arch Enemy]], Douglas Carmody aka "The Bogeyman", is already something of a villain when we first see him (planning to weaponize Dr. Power's converter technology rather than using it to provide cheap power [[Straw Character|and calling Dr. Power a "hippie" for wanting to do any less]]), but he descends into full-blown supervillainy after the converter is destroyed, descending into madness, losing the remnants of his fortune, his marriage, and basically his whole life... which he blames the Powers for.}}
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* [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check]]: Averted by Dragon Man's creator [[Kidnapped Scientist|Professor Gilbert]]. After a cop mentions his robots far exceed those he saw at his recent Disneyland vacation, Gilbert quits his professorship and gets a happy job at Disney.
** Played straight in one late issue has Mysterio try to buy the apartment building the family lives in while getting them to leave via [[Scooby-Doo Hoax]]. This scheme requires not only expensive fiber optics, but also the money to buy an entire building of classy 3 bedroom apartments in New York in the first place. There's an implication there's something special about this building in particular, but this plot thread was never resolved.
* [[Exclusively Evil]] and [[Always Lawful Good]]: The Snarks and Kymellians are shown this way at first. It's eventually revealed most Snarks stick to their own planet and don't try to raid other planets for weapons to use in local power struggles, while the kids learn Whitemane was the last Kymellian to actually uphold the virtues the species was supposedly about.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]: Even though ''Power Pack'' always took itself seriously and wasn't afraid to portray its young heroes realistically and even put them in violent danger, apparently this wasn't enough for some people. At one point, the comic took an angsty turn and started shoving [[Body Horror]] and [[Nightmare Fuel]] all over the place, which was ultimately [[Retcon|retconned]] out of existence by the original creators in a "holiday special", which returned the stories to the "not too dark, not too light" mood it originally had.
* [[Fail O'Suckyname]]: Alex drops the Gee moniker upon realizing how stupid it sounds and becomes Zero-G instead when he gets his powers back years latter. Julie says she would rather have used "Starstreak" over "Lightspeed" when got her initial powers, though unlike Alex she keeps her original name when getting her powers back.
* [[Friends Rent Control]]: The ability for Dr. and Mrs. Power to afford a 3 bedroom New York apartment while feeding and clothing 4 kids as a college professor and artist is hand waved as part of a deal by the college for the apartment, but their ability to live in a nice beachfront property in Maine at the start is never explained.
** Averted in the reboot where Dr. Power holds a much more prestigious job at a space elevator and their mom is prominent enough to be featured in a New York art gallery.
* [[Gender Equal Ensemble]]:
* [[Growing With the Audience]]: Starting with ''Snark Wars'' the series gets progressively darker, fleshing out both of its alien species from their [[Black and White Morality|exclusively good and evil nature]] and [[Planet of Hats|simple one-sentence cultures]], forcing the kids to confront problems they can't solve just by beating them up and witness New York being turned into <s>hell</s> "limbo".
* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Queen-Mother Maraud of the Snarks.
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* [[Klingons Love Shakespeare]]: Whitey's fondness for Lewis Carroll.
* [[Last of His Kind]]: Friday is the first smartship to be upgraded to the latest, newest smartship technology a few issues before the facilities to make smartships are destroyed and their creators swear off technology. Presumably Friday isn't ''the'' last of smartships in general (though part of the few remaining) as they are faster than light capable and their creators survived their last planet's destruction by being away when it happened.
* [[Learnt English From Watching Television]]: The all-ages version has Whitemane learning English this way. It helps that he gets to be [[Klingons Love Shakespeare|something of a movie buff]].
* [[Left Hanging]]: While the Holiday Special does a good job of clearing up all remaining threads, two are left unresolved. Why Mysterio wanted an apartment building and what the deal with the firepowered "Mr. Raymond" was.
* [[Lighter and Softer]]: The out-of-normal-continuity stories are unashamedly "all-ages." They're not bad, actually.
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* [[Most Writers Are Adults]]: Handled far better than in most series involving [[Kid Hero|Kid Heroes]]. The characters actually act like kids and show childlike reactions to the things that happen around them and to them much of the time, but not all of the time. Personality-wise, they act childlike enough to be believable, while still being competent heroes. Dialog-wise, they're... a little smart for their age, though they still say childlike things. Of course, they ''are'' the kids of a genius.
* [[Mother Nature, Father Science]]
* [[Mundane Utility]]: As with many less known heroes, the Powers demonstrate their abilities at the start of most issues. Most of the time this means an issue has a [[Cold Open]] or, more commonly, starts with the siblings doing things around the house with their powers. The most common is using the mass to energy power to dispose of trash.
* [[Mythology Gag]]: Everywhere in the rebooted series, both for the Power Pack itself (their costumes are made of pseudoplasm, a substance introduced in the final issue of the original series) and those they team up with (Wolverine goes to, [[Your Costume Needs Work|and loses]], a costume contest where ''everyone'' is dressed as a different version of Wolverine. Tony Stark opens a museum exhibit on Iron Man.).
* [[Never My Fault]]: Carmody refuses to accept any responsibility for the converter not being ready and nearly blowing up the planet, instead blaming the Pack and carrying out a vendetta against them that is implied to have destroyed his career and even his marriage.
* [[Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker]]: Invoked. The children bring Franklin back to Avengers Mansion after witnessing the Morlock Massacre. When the adults find out about this, Franklin claims he was sleepwalking, and the other children say that they didn't wake him because it would be dangerous.
* [[One Person, One Power]]: Played straight for the whole main series, with the kids getting one power each. However, it turns out that someone could easily [[All Your Powers Combined|hold all four at once]], just like Whitemane did.
* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted. Professor (James) Power exists in the same universe as Professor (Anthony) Power, though they've never met.
* [[Parental Obliviousness]]: At one point late in the story, enforced by mental blocks.
* [[Planet of Hats]]: Subverted with both alien species introduced in the series. The evil reptilian people are merely one of over a dozen factions in a power struggle. The initially presented image of the Kymellians as benevolent spiritualistic mediators is actually a mask for their culture's hard decent into decadence.
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* [[Red Skies Crossover]]: Power Pack is notable among 80s Marvel for consistently averting this. While the Power family may not influence events that much, the events have always been catalysts for major story events within Power Pack's stories. ''Mutant Massacre'' in particular had more of an effect than its native book, as most named Morlocks introduced prior to the event's conception survived, only those in Power Pack's supporting cast and those introduced for the purpose of getting killed off actually died in the title massacre.
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: The Snarks are reptilian. The series latter averts this, establishing that the Snarks seen in the first several issues in-fact represent only one clan over at least a dozen, some of whom are eventually shown as quite noble.
* [[Same Character but Different]]: Julie in her original series is a level headed intelligent girl who likes reading and the voice of reason. Modern versions have her as a [[ditz]] and wannabe actress.
* [[Sapient Ship]]: The group had a sentient "smartship" called Friday.
* [[Sapient Cetaceans]]: In a particularly [[Anvilicious]] [[Green Aesop]] story, the Powers run into a whole pod of these.
* [[Scooby-Doo Hoax]]: Tried by [[Badass Decay|Mysterio]] to buyout the Power family's apartment. It's implied he has a greater reason behind this, but this thread was just abandoned.
* [[She's All Grown Up]]: In the ''Avengers'' crossover mini-series with the future story, future Katie has traded her cuteness for smoking [[Hot Amazon]].
** Gone through and out the other side when a ''much'' older Katie is encountered in the ''Days of Future Past'' future, where she's a plump little white-haired lady (and the last survivor of the Pack, with all four powers).
* [[Shout-Out]]: The Snarks are so named by Whitey (or Julie in the reboot) after the [[Lewis Carroll]] poem "[[The Hunting of the Snark]]" because their actual racial name, "Z'nrx", is unpronounceable by human mouths.
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* [[Touched by Vorlons]]: An alien gives the kids their special powers in the first issue.
* [[Translator Microbes]]: The kid's costumes are capable of translating at least the language spoken by the Kymellians and Snarks. These are apparently ''not'' [[Universal Translator]]s, being incapable of translating Japanese in both continuities.
* [[Trial Balloon Question]]: Seeking assurance from her mother, Julie (who has super-speed and flight [[Powers as Programs|at the time]]) is told she would still be loved "even if you grew wings and flew". This avoids suspicion because she asks it while the two view a news report on super powered children.
* [[Vague Age]]: While the group has official ages, the plots would often ignore them as needed. Jack, Katie and eventually Franklin could act anywhere from just above toddler to near puberty while Julie and Alex could be anywhere south of 18. Once the original series was over and [[Comic Book Time]] got even weirder from their lack of an ongoing this came into full effect.
* [[Very Special Episode]]: The Pack starred in one special anti-child-abuse comic book.
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* [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World]]
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: The original series leaves open the question if smartships are truly alive and, being made to serve till death, should really be mourned.
** In the reboot, in a reference to her problem with the [[Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy]], Katie hates robots. This means not only is it acceptable for her to destroy them, she jumps at the chance to.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Whitemane's entire race gets this when the Power Pack discovers what was done to their parents, in addition to discovering certain... glaring moral deficiencies in their society.
** Among other things, this includes Kofi's uncle essentially tricking the Power Pack -- who are a bunch of primary-school children -- into fighting against fully-trained adults in a gladiatorial arena without any form of defined limits or even actual ''consent''.
** Not to mention they have grown so used to artificial environments as a consequence of destroying their world that natural environments are actually repellent to most of them. Whitemane, it seems, was ''not'' a typical example of his race.
* [[Wolverine Publicity]]: Both exemplified and inverted. Wolverine was a regular guest, even notoriously showing up on a cover of ''Uncanny X-Men'' looking as if he were about to skewer Katie like an olive in a martini. But everyone guest-starred in ''their'' book during its original run, and the new miniseries are almost all team-ups.
* [[Write Who You Know]]: The Kids' parents are based off of Marvel creators Louise & Walter Simonson.
* [[X Called. They Want Their Y Back.]]: Taskmaster's reaction to the Power Pack's costumes. More specifically, "1991 called, they want their big metal boots ba-AAAAAAAAAAACK!"
* [[Your Favorite]]: When Franklin and Friday head into space to rescue the Powers, the Fantastic Four search for him. Some Avengers and Jarvis are staying at the Baxter Building; Jarvis, hoping they will find Franklin (and who at that point knew and loved Franklin as well as any of his family), buys as many of of Franklin's favorite foods as he can remember to welcome him home.
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