![]() ![]() Look at him up there in that panel where he says “Um, hi, Skip!” That’s what got me. There but for the Grace of God… Peter’s flashback made me want to wrap my arm around him and tell him it was going to be all right. This book made me feel. That the ostracized kid who found a little bit of happiness could have it snatched away so grotesquely speaks to the bullied in all of us. But it grabs (no pun intended - GOOD GOD no pun intended) on an adult level, too. The art in both stories captures the pain that only a child can experience, that sense of not knowing what’s happening to them and whether they’ve done something wrong to bring it upon themselves. ![]() The story educates without condescension. Whatever editorial input they had went into honing the message to children, and to that end the job was done masterfully. (Here’s the talent list: John Byrne, June Brigman, Bon Wiacek - Cover/Nancy Allen, Jim Salicrup, Jim Mooney, Mike Esposito - Spider-Man/Louise Simonson, Brigman, Mary Wilshire, Wiacek – Power Pack.) On the inside front cover there’s a long list of professionals who advised in the making of the book, and in this case there’s no whiff of having to many cooks in the kitchen. The tears may not have broken the eye barrier and streamed down my cheek, but the eyes weren’t dry, that’s for sure. The story - stories, actually - are so, SO well put together. I’m man enough to confess that reading about his rough patch brought a few tears to my eyes. The Power Pack segment is just as (if not more) harrowing, as the kids come upon a runaway in an alley, a little girl with good reason to have fled her home: Now empowered, Tony’s webslung to his parents, and things feel a little righter. Peter told his Aunt and Uncle about this, and when Spider-Man finishes his story, he tells Tony that this kid was him. I’m imagining bad stuff, and I don’t think I’m off base at all. A bad something, and, as always, our imaginations are fearsome things when it comes to filling in blanks. We never see what was done to Peter. We only know that something was done. Skip and “Einstein” become best pals, hanging out, doing projects together, and in general giving poor Peter a slightly older friend he so desperately needs. And this is when our hero - and Tony’s hero - opens up to the kid, with an “A Boy I Know” flashback:Ĭoud Peter look any sweeter? And any more unaware of what’s about to fall on his head? Spider-Man breaks things up after Judy threatens Tony with violence if he ever tells. The instigator for the heart-rending Peter flashback is a confrontation Spider-Man overhears in a neighboring apartment, one between a babysitter (Judy) and her charge (Tony), which is prompted by these events: ![]() ![]() That distinction goes to the Parker portion, for the aforementioned reason. I don’t want to belittle the Pack half, because it’s equally well done, but it’s not the show-stealer. This comic is broken up into two different sections, one centered on Spider-Man, the other around Power Pack, and each talking about a different kind of sexual abuse and the challenges a kid would face in trying to deal with it. Someone who for a little while made him feel like he belonged. Why am I so sure? Because an event happens in this thin little tome that is UNFORGETTABLE, and mind-numbing in a sad, searing way. One that would be burned into my consciousness had I ever flipped through these pages in the days of yore. Yes, as alluded to in this post’s title, young Peter Parker, the skinny bullied boy with the big spectacles, whose sweaters and ironed pants were like catnip for schoolyard book-dumpers, was molested. And he was molested by someone he trusted, someone who brought a little bit of light into his nerdy, bleak, lonely, orphaned, library-dwelling childhood. Turns out I never have, and I’m sure of that. It’s definitely one of the most important and venerable of the many free PSA comics that have been put out over the years, and for a long time I thought I had read it. I’ve referenced this comic on multiple occasions, and I figured it was time the Spider-Man/Power Pack sexual abuse comic was highlighted here on the blog. ![]()
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