Alpha Flight #1 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Dale Eaglesham (pencils), Andrew Hennessy (inks), Sonia Oback (colors), Simon Bowland (letters), Jake Thomas (assistant editor), Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Alpha Flight is called into action to save Vancouver from one of the hammer-wielding “Worthy” of Fear Itself.

What’s Good: This is a title that had a LOT to live up to.  When I was a kid, everyone read Uncanny X-Men and while we all loved those stories, the “cool comic kids” read Alpha Flight.  I was lucky enough to catch the first 25 issues of John Byrne’s initial series and thought it was outstanding.  Then I missed all the later stuff that I know some people have derided, so I really hoped that this issue wouldn’t do anything to damage my memory of those first 25 issues from the early 80’s.

This isn’t a perfect comic (more on that below), but it’s pretty darn good and worthy of the Alpha Flight name.  The basic set up for the issue flings us right into the action as Attuma and his fancy FEAR ITSELF hammer storm ashore in Vancouver and start smashing stuff.  Alpha Flight joins the fight and in the matter of a few pages, the creative team has introduced us to the entire team by name and shown us how their powers work.  The whole issue is mostly a big, fast-paced fight scene that works really well and is enjoyable to read.

Dale Eaglesham is just a really solid superhero artist.  There’s a lot of different stuff for him to draw in this issue: muscular guys like Guardian, attractive women like Vindicator & Aurora, hairy & hulking characters like Sasquatch, and the whole pile of Attuma’s Atlantean forces.  Eaglesham nails them all.  The issue is also nicely inked and colored.  It is a very attractive superhero comic.

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of May 18, 2011

Try as we might, there are always a few comics that slither through the cracks and don’t get the full review treatment here at WCBR.  Still, it probably makes sense to tell you whether we generally liked the issue or not.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews….

X-Men: Prelude to Schism #2  – In the category of “blatant money grabs” we have Prelude to Schism.  The Schism event itself should be pretty hot (written by Jason Aaron and a host of A-list artists), but clearly someone at Marvel figured that if they published a title like Prelude, the hardcore X-fans would buy it even if it wasn’t telling a necessary story.  We are now two issues into Prelude and we still don’t know what is really going on any more than we did at the end of issue #1.  All we know is that something horrible is coming to Utopia and there is a question of whether they should evacuate and that somehow Cyclops and Wolverine will fight over it (although we only “know” that last part for promotional materials/interviews).  It seems that this series will consist of Cyclops getting counseled by his various chief advisors.  Last issue, he got advised by Xavier.  This issue we get Magneto’s advice which comes wrapped in a pretty good story about Magneto’s origins as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.  Not bad, but we already knew that.  Art is not great as the wonderful Roberto de la Torre (who drew issue #1) is replaced by Andrea Mutti who I just personally don’t like as much.  Grade: D+ 

Generation Hope #7 – After a really shaky beginning (due to odd publishing decisions), Generation Hope has kinda found its footing as a series.  This second story arc was pretty solid as we saw Hope and her “lights” (with Kitty Pryde along as chaperone) head off on a mission to find yet another new mutant.  If you like stories about new characters, you’ll like this series because we’re still learning who these kids are, how they behave, what their powers can do, etc.  Also, from a sheer conceptual standpoint, there were some winner ideas.  For example, the new mutant is an unborn baby who is so afraid of being born that he is using his power to turn everyone around him into mindless attack drones.  Or you can look at how the good guys avoid this power: by having Kenji extend a meat-tentacle and “plug in” to each of their brains via the back of their heads.  Freaky.  It also led to a moment when they wanted to plug into the unborn baby’s head and my brain quickly said, “NOOOOOO!  They’re not going to show that are they?”  Thank goodness the meat tentacle just plugs into the back of the mother’s head.  Whew!  I thought some tentacle porn was coming!  So, the story in this issue was good and solid.  I still question whether we really need more mutants when there are so many who don’t get enough time in the main X-books.  Salvador Espin’s art is very solid from a storytelling standpoint, but isn’t otherwise good or bad enough to spend much time on.  Grade: B-

Alpha Flight #0.1 – How’s that for stupid numbering?  In theory, the whole point of Marvel’s .1 initiative was to create jumping on points for fans who were maybe afraid of jumping into the middle of a series.  Why you need a .1 issue when #1 is coming out in a few weeks is beyond me.  And, I’m giving the creative team a bit of a pass because this issue stinks of “publishing gimmick”.  The story really isn’t that compelling because I don’t think what we got in this issue is “the story” that we’ll get in the true #1 issue and it doesn’t even do that great of a job of showing new fans who these Alpha Flight characters are and what they can do, nor does it do lots of things to appeal to fans of the original John Byrne Alpha Flight from the early 1980’s.  If I had to guess, Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak had a really cool story for the “real” Alpha Flight series and someone in editorial or publishing said, “Hey!  The fanboys are positively salivating for this series.  Let’s come up with a quick .1 issue because they’ll buy it.”  I didn’t think the art got the job done either.  Alpha Flight needs old-school, superhero art.  Someone like Tom Grummet would be perfect; or Dale Eaglesham who will draw the regular series.  So, this issue wasn’t great, but I still think the regular series is worth checking out.  Grade: C

Astonishing X-Men #38 – Another creative change on this series after we got the much-delayed issue #37 last week.  Now we have Christos Gage writing and Juan Bobillo on art.  The summary is that the story is pretty good: The Astonishing X-Men go into space to rescue Agent Brand from a research facility overrun by the Brood.  It’s fun and jaunty and I LOVE the Brood and they will always have a soft spot in my heart because my first issue of Uncanny X-Men was #162 which was kinda the beginning of the original Brood story.  [God that was a great story!]  The thing holding this issue back from a higher score was the art, so we’re ending up with a pretty average issue.  I generally like stylized art, but this was just not working for me as a lot of faces (especially Beast) just looked bizarre and detracted from my enjoyment of the whole issue.  Nice job on Storm, though.  Grade: C

-Dean Stell

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Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 – Review

By: Jim McCann (writer), Reilly Brown & Terry Pallot (art), Val Staples (colors) & Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: A resurrected Alpha Flight gets summoned into the war with the Chaos King.

What’s Good: This is going to be a “must read” for fans of Alpha Flight because it feels an awful lot like those early 1980’s John Bryne Alpha Flight issues that a lot of comic fans are so nutso about.  It isn’t the best comic book story ever, but it hits the appropriate notes, explains who the various characters are and uses the “great beasts” mythology of Alpha Flight in a way that makes sense with Chaos War.

In some ways, it is actually hard to review this comic on its stand-alone merits because McCann leaves the team in a pretty tantalizing place: Marvel could totally bring this team back if they wanted to.  Considering the number of “meh” characters/teams that they’ve tried to give ongoing series to, why not just have Fred Van Lente write an Alpha Flight ongoing now that his time with Hercules is wrapping up?  I know Agents of Atlas is probably a bad example since it got canceled, but Alpha Flight would have to sell better than Atlas, right?

The art is serviceable and captures all the characters looking as they are supposed to.  The only quibble was that in a few panels Guardian looked a little too short and squat, but that’s a minor quibble.  Overall, I liked the art.

The Great Ten #1 – Review

By Tony Bedard (writer), Scott McDaniel (pencils), Andy Owens (inker), Harvey Richards (assistant editor), Michael Siglain (editor)

The Story: In China, over a period of 13 years, we watch young Corporal Yao of the People’s Army follow his conscience instead of his orders and set himself on the path to becoming Accomplished Perfect Physician, one of China’s meta-humans. Serving the Chinese state hasn’t gotten any easier, but there’s now a bigger problem than getting along with his teammates on the state-sponsored Chinese superhero team the Great Ten. The old gods have returned to challenge the new.

What’s Good: The story concept is excellent. This is really a big idea story, well-executed, and set up with lots and lots of conflict that will need to be resolved. Perfect Physician doesn’t get along with anyone on the team or in the party for reasons of conscience, and Bedard suggests barely-subdued tension between the others as well. And, as you must in any good first issue, Bedard has launched a strong plot question for this 10-issue series: In a cultural conflict between old and new China, whose gods will win? The writing, the flashbacks, and the pacing are all well done, which is no surprise for anyone who has followed his writing and plotting in R.E.B.E.L.S.

The art told the story clearly and dynamically, although I tend to prefer artists with a more realistic feel. If you like more of a cartoony look, then you’re going to like McDaniel’s art. Owens on colors had some interesting effects, especially on some of the flashbacks that had grayed, roughed-up feels, as if we were looking at old magazines with a few crumple marks.

What’s Not So Good: Despite a really strong opening story, I’m wondering how many superhero books set outside the USA can really flourish. Alpha Flight (Canada) stuck around for a good while, but the excellent Captain Britain and MI 13 (UK) folded after less than 20 issues. I wonder if DC hasn’t taken a gamble here that has nothing to do with the quality of the story, but with what their audience wants.

Conclusion: Going offshore for the main characters adds a lot of freshness to scene, story and theme. I hope it pays off. I recommend this quality book and I will certainly be back for issue #2.

Grade: B+

-DS Arsenault