Nobody’s Favorites has been a regular feature on Armagideon Time for almost nine months now, and it has been a easy enough task to suss out the motivations — be they sadly misguided or simply mercenary — that led to the creation of the forgettable and excremental characters discussed so far.

Even a complete stinker like Jamm exists within a certain historical and creative context. He may be the absolute worst example of what happens when creators try to ride the coattails of a poorly understood popcult trend, but he’s far from the first one. Similarly, in light of the massive (if transitory) success Image Comics experienced in the early 1990s, it is understandable why DC decided to give fallow properties like Dr. Fate and Manhunter ill-conceived spikes-and-shoulderpads makeovers.

The business of superhero comics isn’t exactly inscrutable; it wears its heart (and gallery of pilfered influences) quite prominently on its sleeve…

…which makes the existence of Wolfpack even more baffling.  Lacking any compelling reason for getting published, the 1988 Marvel miniseries is truly awful for the sake of awfulness.

The brainchild of Larry Hama (who must have pitched the concept at an eighty-martini lunch while dangling the revenue figures from his G.I. Joe comic in front of editorial’s bleary eyes), Wolfpack tells the tale of a group of South Bronx teenagers who are recuited by an inner-city Mr. Miyagi (“Mr. Mack,” actually) to fight crime.  If you find the idea of child endangerment via vigilante activity to be somewhat problematic, don’t worry.  It is all in accordance with an ancient pact made between some Chinese ninjas and one of the lost tribes of Israel.

No, really.

As the ancient Sino-Hebrew gurus possessed a mystical foreknowledge of late 20th Century action movie tropes, Mr. Mack acts in accordance to their scriptures in choosing a correctly polyglot assemblage of caricatures to battle the forces of the fearsome Nine.  There’s “Slippery” (an Aryan Roy Orbison), Slag (an African-American strongman), Sharon (a mixed-race acrobat), Rafael (a Puerto Rican street fighter), and the team’s ”tactical genius,” a wheelchair bound teen named — of course — “Wheels.”

After Slippery met his demise at the wrong end of a Glock, Malcolm — a preteen victim of child abuse — stepped up to take his place.  Take that, Kick Ass.  Wolfpack beat you to the punch by a good two decades.

As bad as Wolfpack‘s premise was, the execution was even worse.  There’s no real narrative to speak of, only a succession of poorly illustrated action sequences and laughably over-the-top melodrama.  (Kyle Baker did his best to make sense of Ron Wilson’s pencils, but left after a couple issues to reveal Wilson’s handiwork in its anatomically inconsistent and terrible glory.)

Oh, did I happen to mention Hama’s efforts to add the correct urban flava with some contemporary slang?  (If not, it was because I was too busy pounding my head against my monitor)

“But, Boss! I heard WACs recruited old maids for the war!”

“Shut up, fool!  Wolfpack isn’t one of those.  I’ve known them all these years!”

Having read — or rather “having attempted to read” — the entire dozen issues of the series in a single sitting, I strongly suspect that Hama pitched Wolfpack without having a sense where he wanted to take the concept.  This is especially true in terms of the overal theme, which veers wildly between Welcome Back, Kotter, Death Wish, and Chuck Norris’s Karate Commandos territory from page to page, and occasionally within a single panel. 

Hama left the title early in the run, and Wolfpack eventually settled into a two-fisted, first-run syndication action show groove towards the end of the series – which prominently featured the enemy-turned ally “Missionary,” a low-rent Punisher sporting a hair-do inspired by both J. Jonah Jameson and Colonel Guile.  Where Mr. Mack’s mystical mumbo jumbo failed to get the job done, the Missionary’s mentoring methods were more in tune with the late Eighties zeitgeist…

…which is to say “get a shitload of guns and blast the living crap out of everything.”  Yes, everything — including the drywall and every fancy monochrome CRT monitor in the enemy HQ.  (Remember: The VAX terminal you spare could be the one that returns later for some payback on your loved ones.)

Poorly conceived and poorly executed, Wolfpack exemplifies an era when it was assumed (often rightly) any staple-bound lump of turd would sell as long it bore Marvel indicia on the cover.  As such, it has earned the privilege of being this week’s Nobody’s Favorite.

Related posts:

  1. Nobody’s Favorites: Buggin’ out
  2. Nobody’s Favorites: Sin and punishment
  3. Nobody’s Favorites: Make me feel so sad