When I heard that Marvel had relaunched Alpha Flight, I have
to admit I was intrigued. Then I found
out that Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente where the guys that were writing the book so
I could not refuse to pick it up and give the first issue... eh, point one issue a shot.
The new series of Alpha Flight takes place after the events of
Chaos War, where some of Earth's mightiest heroes were brought back to life. Among them were members of Alpha Flight and now
the original members of the team are reunited and have taken the call of
protecting Canada from any and all dangers that might come their way including parking tickets!
The first issue of Alpha Flight reads very slowly and it
failed to keep me excited after the initial idea of the book. It almost felt like Episode One of Star Wars
where you know that Star Wars is good, but when you get to the story of the first
movie it turns out to be a political
movie with some action parts. That’s
exactly how Alpha Flight felt. The
introduction to the characters felt quick and without a lot of depth which
could leave some newer readers in the dark about who these characters really
are and why we should care about them. A
good example of this was Marrina’s appearance when she busts out of nowhere and
starts fighting with Citadel, leaving
you asking yourself who she is and why is she helping this team. The action was
quick as well but it didn’t really explain who they were fighting and
what was the villain’s mission.
The art in the book on the other hand was great. Every level
of detail looked great and the characters looked elegant and real. The areas where I really enjoyed the art were
in the panels with Guardian and Sasquatch. Truly a lot of attention was given
to making the characters looks heroic and very beautiful.
Although a little slow moving and not very well explained, I am
still going to give Alpha Flight another shot. The book has a lot of explaining to do
and I am hoping that by the second issue more questions have been answered and
the whole political parts of the book are moved away from, except the parking tickets that was great *cough* sarcasm *cough*
Overall Score - 5.5/10