The passing of the Geek Golden Age

I’ve been a bit morose since Revenge of the Sith came out, because I kind of figured that it heralded a certain end to what’s been a remarkable period in which to be a Fantasy/SF/Horror geek. And then today I received a bit of unfortunate confirmation of this, in the form of a news article about the Marvel company’s impending transition of certain comics characters to film. Which characters, you ask? Read on:

Marvel Entertainment — previously Marvel Enterprises — is set to announce Tuesday its name change and completion of its loan package, and also will divulge that superheroes Captain America, the Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack and Shang-Chi will get the feature-film treatment.

Some of those sound promising…but Power Pack?! The Power Pack? This Power Pack??!!

AIEEE!

When I was reading comics back in the 1980s, I read the first dozen issues or so of Power Pack, wondering, “How bad could it be.” Well, it was pretty damn bad. As one MeFi commenter notes:

PowerPack? Seriously? They couldn’t even make it as a comic book, let alone an adaptation of a comic book into a movie. I mean, none of these are particularly good, but holy lord, Power Pack? The only Power Pack related item I ever had was an advertisement they did with Spider Man warning kids to report people who touch them inappropriately.

I suspect that the Marvel folks noted the success of The Incredibles and figured, “Hey, we got our own franchise with kids in the wings!” I wonder if any of those suits bothered to go back and read any of those old comics….