Issue(s): Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #16, Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #17
Cover Date: Sep-Oct 93
Title: "Crusaders against hunger" / "Enlightened allies!!"
Credits:
Gregory Wright - Writer
Steven Butler - Penciler
Pam Eklund - Inker
Lynaire Brust - Assistant Editor
Craig Anderson - Editor

Review/plot:
These issues are the prime example of what happens when a book is forced to tie-in to a crossover that it doesn't want to be a part of. Ok, we had Terror Inc. #13 which took the route of essentially ignoring the crossover altogether. But these issues acknowledge the effect of the crossover and then immediately contrive to cancel it out.

The whole premise of Infinity Crusade at this point is that the Goddess has eliminated crime and war on Earth, so how the heck does this story become a major war in Somalia between Hydra, SHIELD, the Wild Pack, and a group of Somalian super-characters (the Bio-Genes)?

The answer is that one of the Bio-Genes, Leecher, has the convenient ability to cancel out the Goddess' effects.

On top of that, Baron Strucker has just remained evil by sheer force of will, and it seems like the same was true of a fair number of Hydra agents as well. Of the "many" that were affected by the Goddess, a little psychoanalysis has set them straight.

As for the good guys, it seems they feel "compelled" to act as peacekeepers, which means doing exactly what they would normally do.

So basically, sure we know about the crossover, but fuck it. In the middle of the Goddess' Peace on Earth, there's going to be a massive war.

To be fair, the ending is sort of dependent on the crossover, since the Goddess' suppression is said to cause Fury and Sable to hesitate when they have a chance to kill Strucker.

If you can change a couple lines of the script to remove references to a crossover and still have the exact same story, it's really not a good tie-in.

I might even find this stance to be admirable if it were in the service of a good story. But this is just a chaotic mess. The Wild Pack have been hired to hand out food to refugees, but they get wrapped up in an attack by Hydra and the Bio-Genes. They fend off the attack and convince the Bio-Genes that they mean well, and that's it.

One thing to note is that the super-powered members of the Wild Pack (except Battlestar) have been branched off into a new team. So that's Sandman, Paladin, Man-Eater, and the guy that doesn't like to be called the Fin.

They call themselves "the Intruders" and it probably wasn't the best idea to debut that name on a mission involving going to a region in Somalia where people were upset about American invaders.

One of the Bio-Genes, Lightbright, will continue to appear.

Other developments: we saw last issue that Silver Sable was featured in a nude magazine. We learn here that she didn't authorize that, and that it was arranged by the Foreigner, although he's framed Sable's friend Jacques Girard. This sort of thing never happens to Captain America.

Both of these issues have notes begging people to write in, and issue #17 can't even fill its lettercol. As i've noted before, this book will continue to be published for quite a while, but sales weren't that great and i guess it wasn't getting a lot of engagement at this time. Not sure if i'll be able to point to anything in particular that turns things around for a while. I highly doubt that it was these tie-in issues.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: There are a few scattered scenes from Infinity Crusade.

The last scene seems to show the Silver Surfer approaching the heroes. But that's nothing like the scene in Infinity Crusade #4 where the Surfer and Thanos approach the heroes. So i'm assuming that's just a symbolic panel and placing these issues between Infinity Crusade #3-4.

References:

• Most of the scenes from Infinity Crusade are of the Goddess recruiting people, from Infinity Crusade #1.
  
• Crippler is captured and tortured by Baron Strucker, since Crippler was originally a Hydra agent as seen in Daredevil annual #7. Of course Crippler likes being tortured (there's also some lip service about him being affected by the Goddess, but again the scene would work the same without that).
  
• Nick Fury says that he knew Baron Strucker wasn't dead after Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #47.

Crossover: Infinity Crusade

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A