Alpha Flight 0.1

Wait, 0.1? We need a jumping-on point BEFORE the first issue proper? How is a first issue not a good enough jumping on point, exactly? Oh well, let’s read this as if it is a first issue, okay?

This is the original Alpha Flight returned from the dead or some such. We get too brief introductions to them, only Northstar, who apparently declined to rejoin, getting enough to tell us something of his personality – he is gay and temperamental. We are in the midst of Canadian elections, and some terrorist types are disrupting it to expose the nature of the new party that is set to win. Alpha Flight take down the terrorists – or I think they do. One must happen off stage, one threat seems not to be dealt with at all but presumably collapses when the leader is taken down, and the leader is defeated in a way that barely attempts to make any sense. The team show no interest in the proof of the secret nature of the political party at all, which I dare say will feed into other stories. Perhaps the apparent terrorists should have dropped some hint that there is something bad in the secrets, something for them to worry about.

The art is very poor – stiff though apparently carefully modelled faces, terrible and cliched action scenes with a number of panels that don’t seem to communicate anything, weird compositions and layouts that distract from the point. No worse than the generic sub-Byrne Jimenez/D’Armata cover, admittedly, but still bad.

Actually this does read more like a rush-job .1 issue knocked off on orders after the first issues had been completed, something to kind of lead into them without interfering with an existing story. It’s dull and attempting to be functional, as if hemmed in by an established plot, forced to exist but without a purpose, by creators who didn’t want to do it. I’m not sure it means that the real comic will be as bad, but it’s certainly far from providing any incentive to find out.