Issue: Alpha Flight #0.1 (no story title, I just noticed. Let's call it Unity.)
Writers: Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak
Artist: Ben Oliver w/ Dan Green
Cover Date: none. The inside-back-page-date is July 2011. It's May... wow, I'm seeing the future!
Period in Alpha Flight's history: Now. We're at now, sir. When will then be now? Soon.
Uh, after Wolverine (Hell series) #5, before Alpha Flight vol. 4, #1.
OVERVIEW:
Canadians rock the vote, so a terrorist named Citadel and Persuasion unite the people to put a stop to that. Get rid of the vote so they can stamp out the fascists. Alpha Flight unite to stop them. The machine that goes 'ping' gets a good work-out.
Persuasion asks the time-honoured question: How many students can you fit in a giant?
What non-fans need to know:
Marrina (yellow, crouching in the foreground) is an alien whose fishiness comes from being on the ocean floor as an egg, and whose human look comes from being broken out of said egg by a human woman, and whose attitude comes from God knows where.
Vindicator and Guardian (giant floating heads in the background) are married, and have a young daughter who hasn't been heard from since her first appearance. (Guardian is James MacDonald Hudson. I call him Mac and Hudson interchangeably. I call Vindicator Heather.)
Northstar and Aurora (flying with arms outstretched in black-and-white and yellow-and-white) are twins; he's gay, she has multiple-personality disorder, and do I hear a new sitcom forming? They used to wear identical costumes, but for a while Aurora took the gold-and-white costume she wears on the cover. The stranglers took the Golden Brown costume that has nothing to do with this issue. (Jean-Paul 'JP' and Jeanne-Marie Beaubier.)
Snowbird (in the blue feathery headdress) is a shape-changing demigoddess who used to take the name Anne McKenzie.
Puck (not on the cover) is not appearing in this issue. (Eugene Milton Judd)
Shaman (in green with his legs crossed, his hands radiating green energy) is Michael Twoyoungmen, the best surgeon in Canada.
Sasquatch (the one that looks like a sasquatch) is big, orange, and smashes things. (Walter 'Walt' Langkowski)
REVIEW:
I found this issue really frustrating.
Actually, it was just finding it that was frustrating. My favourite LCS, the one where I had it on order, had been stiffed. Luckily, the guy I was with had bought a copy at the other LCS, so I've borrowed his.
The cover is great. I love the artwork on it; Phil Jiminez has looked at Byrne's Sasquatch before. The colours are a little more muted (and faintly orange) than I like, especially the greens, but it's not done intrusively in this instance.
The cover isn't intriguing, though, nor iconic. It's just a bunch of characters. If I didn't know and love Alpha Flight, this would never attract my attention, let alone make me want to read the book.
There's a frontispiece on the 'previously, in Chaos War' page that I'm not in love with. It adds nothing, and isn't particularly well-drawn (the twins' eyes don't look great).
Colours are one of my major problems with current comics. Does this one solve that?
Not at all. Yesterday, I had guests, and one of them flipped through this comic. With no direct prompting from me (though he's heard me complaining about comics colouring before), he commented how muddy they are. Brighter than usual, but muddy.
I agree.
I won't dwell on that here, but I have an article planned for July all about why I have such an issue (if the admins are willing to put it up, that is).
The book has three major themes: unity, fascism, and vote! You could argue that a subtheme is unity is facism. Also that those three things work together as themes; people unite in a vote, and hopefully defeat fascism.
You see all three ideas - and words - used throughout. The government is seen as a monster ruling from on high with no care for the people.
(Is voting not compulsory in Canada? I know it isn't in the U.S., but it is here (Australia), so I figured. (We're both Commonwealth, after all.))
And, I don't believe the vote counting up there is done in a day! (As this book would seem to indicate.)
The fascism theme and use of the word gets on the nose a bit, which is the kind of question we need to ask: do people want fascism that can be inserted nasally?
The name "La Grande Dam" makes me think of La Belle Damme Sans Merci, and I wonder if that's intentional here. (Yes, I checked, and it's a real place; and La Belle Damme Sans Merci is a poem by Keats.)
There is a lot of talk in here about the Unity Party, and Cody being elected. At the moment, it is (or would be) a bit lost on me (if I didn't know about upcoming storylines). It's a lot of hints about what's to come; there's a certain level of 'what's going to happen?' but a lot of preachy politics. It feels like a lot of whingeing about this new party. They should've been at the last party; we didn't get home 'til three...
There are genuine moments of humour sprinkled throughout, stuff like Marrina calling somebody "Land Mollusk!" (ie: snail), or JP's "Though if we beat up les bleus more often...". They're funny, I laughed at them, but they're the kind of 'bad-ass, I'm so tough, ooh, aren't I sooooo cool!' posturing that we all hoped went out in the 90s.
Somehow, by now, all of Alpha Flight (possibly except Snowbird and Marrina) have the pinger, though several haven't before (Snowbird, Shaman, and Vindicator never had one; Northstar had his removed).
A lot of these things felt like something that, when I read 0.1-8 all in a trade, and know what was going to happen later, I'll be really impressed. For now, reading them isn't all that intrusive, but it isn't helping me enjoy the issue, either.
I'll do something a little different now, and discuss this character by character:
The Hudsons:
This is their first appearance in the book (on story page 2). It shows them shadowy, talking about the (soon-to-be) PM in nasty ways. ('That guy'? Mac was friends with him!) This is a good set-up, if you know the fascist take-over of Canada is coming. Which I do. Though there's nothing shadowy about their conversation, showing them this way foreshadows (no pun intended) where the book's about to go... Though Cody's 'unity' talk is pretty lame when we know it's going to be about right-wing fascism.
Kara Killgrave / Persuasion / Purple Girl / Purple Woman used to be a member of the team; last we saw her, she was a good guy. My first reading kept me in suspense - would they acknowledge this or not? They did, and it didn't take as long the second time around. What turned her? I don't know, but she's not portrayed as particularly evil here, and I get the feeling we'll find out.
Citadel has had, to my knowledge, one appearance before. He died (not a spoiler). At first, when I saw him in the book, I thought these guys were really doing their homework.
Then I realised that the guy who wrote that issue, Fred Van Lente, co-wrote this one. So, no-brainer there. Why was the fact he died not explored, though? Shaman pulled the sheet over his head at the time. You'd think he'd've noticed something. (And, going by X-Men continuity for once, this had to be years and years ago.)
Otherwise, he's written fairly consistently, though his motivation has altered subtly. They do reference his original, though.
There's the whole 'the villain is protesting about environmental degredation and loss of human life - by destroying the world!'. It isn't quite that bad here, but these two villains are doing worse than what they're railing against.
Shaman leaves his body during open-heart surgery.
No. Just, plain, NO!!!
Consistently in fiction, in the Marvel Universe specifically, and in terms of common sense, leaving your body means leaving your body. It should be sitting somewhere in a meditative position, preferably lotus, not performing major surgery. Not something covered by my suspension of disbelief policy, I'm afraid. Has he ever even left his body before? Certainly not to go do unspecified superheroics.
edit: Is this part of his new, improved powers since coming back from the dead?
His 'don't call me Indian' thing came from nowhere in his previously-established character. Especially since he's performing that surgery at the time at the Grand Lac Victoria Indian Settlement (a real place, I checked).
That said, he's otherwise treated with respect, but not really given much to do. Why do I get the feeling Byrne's Shaman would have another solution to the Giant Purple People Eater? Perhaps because he had an alternative to Tundra?
Sasquatch's personality is handled find here, without leaping out as either done poorly or well.
He isn't drawn accurately (and that extends to the flying suit he uses with Aurora, though some of that could be re-design - still should cover his head, though). He kind of looks like the v3 version. Still, this is far from the worst Sasquatch art I've seen.
Snowbird -
Good to see you again, Anne McKenzie! That panel (shown above) when her name was revealed, truly and pleasantly surprised me! Nice.
One of the most common errors for Alpha Flight artists, after really messing up Sasquatch, is her eyes. It's hard to tell in the one panel where you get a good view of them, but I'm going to say the draw-ers got them wrong, but the colourists got them right. (Possibly deliberate?) So, cool overall.
Where are her arms in the team shot?
I don't buy the scene where changing into different animals makes her immune to Kara's power. Others will argue this, I'm sure, but I just don't buy it. If she keeps changing her mind while changing her body, it means her power isn't working properly.
Northstar -
A nice combination of the Byrne years (when he's with the team) and the recent X-Men stuff (when he's with Kyle). Nice way to handle it. I think they did him fairly well. Though he got the most coverage in the book, I have the least to say about him.
Aurora -
Need more info. She's been getting therapy, so she seems to be much better.
I have a problem with her trying to liquefy the bad guy's hand - too unheroic (he was a tragic anti-villain in his first appearance, which makes it worse). I'm hoping there won't be a bunch of unheroic moves like this in the main book.
Puck - really should be written as more in-the-book, but that's not these creators' fault, so I'll skip over to...
No!
But you gotta!
But...
Okay (ugh).
Marrina.
First, her eyes are about third on that list of badly-drawn Alphans. Inside, it's no exception. Byrne's has these almost insect-like eyes, large and solid black. (As on the cover - that got it right). Others draw them as more or less human (which the interior artist did, whites only).
She is quite simply handled atrociously. I'm sorry, I just do not like it. I know she's been through a lot. I know she's been manipulated by her alien heritage into attacking her team-mates, I know she's been killed by her husband, in the ocean, with a sword. Twice.
She's never this bad, though. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes - haven't you?
But...
Ugh.
Sweet, innocent Marrina... turned into this (see team shot above) screaming 90s inyofaceattitude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
harridan? No! Just no.
If the main maxi-series actually takes time to explore this side of her, I could be convinced. Here, no.
Finally, the Giant Purple People Eater...
Okay, it's not really an eater, but...
I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this goes a bit too far. Not deal-breakingly so, I can handle it, but it bothers me.
The idea's cool an' all, but the thing is, it doesn't fit Kara's powers. She would have to do some serious damage to the laws of physics to get that thing workin'.
This is not in her mandate. She simply can't do it.
Also, I know she makes their faces purple as part of her power, but did she have to roll their clothes in mud first?
Today, I saw Linkara make a relevant point; 'This is a comic, so what about suspension of disbelief?' 'Suspension of disbelief lets me believe that Magneto can control the power of magnetism. It doesn't let me think he can do MAGIC!'. Same applies here; I'm okay with 'Kara can control minds', but not with 'she can make that thing happen.'
Another problem is, I've seen the same idea done recently, and much better:
See, in the Spike issue, a demon does it. He sucks up the people so they fly into the giant (Spike calls it a giant, though we never see it). That's point one that makes it cooler: by using a demon, they've done away with those pesky laws of physics that make this thing so hard to accept; and they show us it can make its victims defy gravity. Which Kara can't. She's not magic, this thing is.
Point two? This is set in Vegas. Every one of the people in that thing is an Elvis impersonator.
C'mon, Vegas being squashed by a couple hundred(?) Elvis impersonators in the form of a giant? That's just cool.
One thing neither issue explores, though, is that there is absolutely no way everybody who got sucked up into that monster would survive. Some would get squished, some would suffocate, some would probably get all their bones broken just contorting to the necessary shapes; and when it fell apart, some would die from the fall.
Yes, a lot would survive - but a lot would die. Needs to be mentioned.
Still, as mentioned, this creature isn't quite enough to make me hate the book. It's a niggle at the back of my mind at worst. I can go with it.
There was really no reason for me to spend so much time on it.
Overall, this issue felt like the first Harry Potter movie to me; good and fun and cool, but it skimmed over the top of the book more than actually being it. Every time it did something brilliant, it shot itself down somehow, I felt. It tried too much for attitude and bad-assery, which I just don't like.
There's nothing in here that makes me hate it, but nothing that makes me fall in love with it, either.
As a nitpicker, this comic gave me a feast; really, I should leave starved.
As a general comic, this is pretty good; but Alpha Flight have been in much better comics than this.
Then again, they've been in much, much worse.
Much worse.
I welcome the return of Alpha Flight - the team, not just the name - but I hope for more from the main series.
RATING:
As a comic in general:
(7/10)
As an Alpha Flight comic:
(5/10)
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