Issue(s): New Warriors annual #1 (Speedball story only)
Cover Date: 1991
Title: "To bounce or not to bounce"
Credits:
Dan Slott - Writer
John Calimee - Penciler
Don Hudson - Inker
Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
Yes it's another short Speedball story, but this one is not another leftover from Steve Ditko's Speedball run. It's a little comedy story by Dan Slott.

We start with a training sequence where Speedball first starts getting the idea for his Penance costume.

Then he unquestioningly swallows a potion provided by Genetech to help test his abilities.

And the rest of the story consists of him trying to turn into Speedball via a variety of methods that would kill a person without his powers. But super-heroes that don't recognize him as Speedball keep saving him.

And then of course the punchline is that the potion he drank has actually temporarily shut down his powers.

Cute filler.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I'm placing this directly before the main Kings of Pain story that is in this annual. The appearance of Katie Power as Counterweight is potentially tricky. We last saw Power Pack getting ready to go into space in Power Pack #62, the final issue of their series. They will return in the Power Pack Holiday Special, which wasn't published until 1992. But they come back with their classic powers, so Katie would be back as Energizer at that point. Of course, the Power kids switching powers again wouldn't be so surprising. But alternatively, the Power family may not have left yet. Maybe they heard about a few more possible cures for their parents on Earth that they wanted to check out before leaving.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This was Dan Slott's first work for Marvel.

This annual was an early comic for me so I loved all the stuff in it. I think this back-up story is pretty good even without the effect of nostalgia.

By the way, i love how Speedball not only recognizes a member of Power Pack, but even knows her current codename.

Quick question though. What indicates that this takes place before the Kings of Pain crossover? It's prety obvious that the "main heroes" would survive so this story could have easily taken place after the event (which is how i always mentally placed them. Indeed, except for the Freedom Force tale, i just assumed EVERY other story in these annuals take place after the "KOP" storyline.)

There's nothing that says this story should go before or after the main story. The Artie/Leech/Wiz Kid back-up in the New Mutants annual makes more sense prior to Kings of Pain since they are hospitalized in KOP, and based on that i put all the back-ups prior to KOP (when there weren't other considerations). But for this one, it could easily go either way.

Was there a reason you didn't just lump most of the backups in with the main entry like you normally do?

Yeah, it's because the main story continues directly from other parts of Kings of Pain. The New Warriors appear in the KOP story in New Mutants annual #7 and that appearance continues directly in the New Warriors KOP story, and then the Warriors appear directly in Uncanny X-Men annual #15, etc.. So this Speedball back-up would have to take place before or after all of KOP.

That's different than, say, Iron Man annual #12, where the back-ups featuring Iron Man could have taken place before the main story even though the Iron Man annual was part 4 of Subterranean Wars. Because Iron Man wasn't in the first two parts of Subterranean Wars and his story doesn't have to begin directly after the previous part ends.

I know that it is damning with faint praise but Calimee' s art has improved since his Alpha Flight days.