Issue(s): Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #8, Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #9
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 93
Title: "War criminal" / "Origins"
Credits:
Gregory Wright - Writer
Steven Butler - Penciler
Jim Sanders III - Inker
Lynaire Brust - Assistant Editor
Craig Anderson - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue starts with Silver Sable vacationing with a Jacques Girard.

But she leaves for a mission to hunt down a Nazi war criminal with the Wild Pack (and Paladin) in the South American rainforest.

The goons they are fighting are part of the Genesis Coalition, an offshoot of Hydra led by Dmitri Petrovitch, who we've seen has a personal history with Sable.

The Coalition are working on turning the local people into animal men. One of the Coalition's leaders, Ivan Trekov, has the ability to pronounce the hard C sound in such a way that we can be sure he's using a K.

In fact, all of the Nazis have barely comprehensible cartoon accents.

The Wild Pack infiltrate the Genesis Coalition's base. Silver Sable is hard on Sandman for triggering an alarm.

This gets him thinking about leaving the Wild Pack and joining Next Wave (we saw him talking to them in the last arc).

The Wild Pack rescue the animal men, with various degrees of sensitivity.

It's almost like the Beast is guest starring.

Sable kills one of the top Coalition guys after his lampshade comment. It's a weird kind of combination, really. The Nazis sound like Colonel Klink and are making goofy animal-man hybrids, but they're also making references to Auschwitz. Comic book Nazis meet real life Nazis in a way that makes it hard for me to know how seriously i'm supposed to be taking all of this.

But the big news is that Dmitri Petrovitch tells Silver Sable that her father is still alive.

Her shock allows Petrovitch to escape.

Issue #9 has Sable and the Wild Pack back at their base. Sable freaks out during a training session, and then apologizes to everyone. Most of the issue is a flashback showing exactly how Sable's mother died and why Sable has daddy issues. We already knew the gist of it and i don't know that we needed to go over it again in more detail. I mean i get that Gregory Wright kind of had to go into it, but i don't really need to read it. Her mom was killed by Nazis, her dad kind of blames Sable for leading the Nazis to her, he trains her to lead the Wild Pack without ever giving her the affection she craves, and eventually her dad is (seemingly) killed by Nazis too (Ivan Trekov, in fact). Mom made her promise to leave the violence behind, but Sable only promised to do it after avenging her. Dad kept trying to get her to keep her emotions in check, which is how she developed the cold front that she has today. I guess it's worth noting that Wright avoided the temptation of giving Silver Sable's hair a special origin; she's just said to have gone prematurely silver.

At the end of the issue, Sandman quits the team for Nextwave.

This is another book where i feel like the writer should have been the editor. Wright has actually built up what should be an interesting team. Crippler is a weird guy. Powell, as a racist, potentially adds some interesting conflict (someone writes in to issue #9 praising the depiction of a racist as someone not as cartoonish as Skinhead). Amy Chen has potential. Sandman and Battlestar add some super-powered flavor and are good characters. But Wright doesn't give the cast much time for characterization, and when he does it's rarely subtle. Similarly, Wright has been building a complex web of a plot here and in his SHIELD run, but it's not really happening.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: At the beginning of next issue, Sable has spent "weeks" away from the Wild Pack. So she shouldn't appear elsewhere - at least with her group - between this issue and next. Baron von Strucker will appear in Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #11 in a scene seemingly meant to take place before his "death" in Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #45, so all of Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #8-10 also need to take place before the Nick Fury story. That causes Sable's issues to get pushed back in publication time, which is why this story with Jan-Feb 93 cover dates has been placed in the 1992 year.

References:

• We learned that Dmitri Petrovitch and Silver Sable knew each other in Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Krap.