Alpha Flight is one of those perennial fan-favorite teams that never seems able to really support an ongoing series, but they get a revival every few years anyway. Mind you, part of the reason why this team can't sustain a series has to do with the utter failure of most creative teams to figure out what makes the characters interesting. Certainly the decision to put Scott Lobdell, one of the worst-regarded Alpha Flight writers in history, onto this revival, is puzzling. The decision to make Alpha Flight a comedy book is even more puzzling. The result, unsurprisingly, is a horrible mess, failing not only as an Alpha Flight relaunch but even worse, as the comedy book that it's supposed to be.
The higher-ups in the comics industry, like every other entertainment industry, seem to have this idea that the best way to relaunch a cult favorite or nostalgia property is to change everything that people have a fondness for about the property. Fans who were waiting for an Alpha Flight relaunch were hoping to see their favorite characters again, to see their stories continued, not just to have another title called Alpha Flight in their collection. Lobdell builds his new team around Sasquatch, and includes one former Alpha Flight villain, but generally has decided to craft an entirely new team for the book.
Of course, this kind of thing can work as well, but the first issue isn't off to a good start. Sasquatch is out of character as a hapless doof wanting to put together a team (at a stretch, in a comedy vein, you might make this work with one of the Vindicators or Guardians, but it's never been what Sasquatch is about.) The other characters include a character named Major Mapleleaf doing a riff on the Tick-like overly sincere boy scout, a beastmaster in the vein of Tarzan or Aquaman, a villain being pulled in under duress, a sassy and sexy bartender and an old retired hero with no real desire to come back. Or, to put it in one word, cliches.
In terms of art, Alpha Flight is also not really spectacular. Clayton Henry's work is starting to take shape, and this is much more impressive than his Exiles work, but it's still somewhat plain and yet over-exaggerated at the same time. Henry's storytelling in general is much improved in these pages, and the overall style reminds me somewhat of Ed McGuinness, but he has a tendency to push the exaggeration too far (Nemesis's busty anorexic look is pretty weak, for example) and almost all of his backgrounds are pretty sparse.
Lobdell used to make his living as a standup comedian. I say this not only to give a little background, but because really, if you read Alpha Flight, there's no way you'd ever guess it. The operative phrase with these gags is "trying too hard" with a touch of "out of date pop culture references" thrown into the mix. Forget about the hoary old gathering the team plot and the dream sequence, which is rarely if ever a good idea. Alpha Flight fails not only to recapture the magic of any of the older series, but it fails to hit its stated new reason for existence. It's not even remotely funny. And really, making fun of Canada should be like shooting fish in a barrel. But tagging "eh" onto the end of every sentence, for instance, doesn't really qualify as insightful and witty commentary on Canada.
