Alpha Flight: The Complete Series by Pak and Van Lente

Collects: Alpha Flight #0.1, 1-8 (2011-2)

Released: May 2012 (Marvel)

Format: 208 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785162834

What is this?: The original Alpha Flight team is back, battling a government seemingly gone mad and a traitor from within.

The culprits: Writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente and artists Dale Eaglesham and Ben Oliver

I wanted to like Alpha Flight: The Complete Series. I like Alpha Flight, as a team. The writers, Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, have produced books I’ve liked, such as their Incredible Hercules run. And in this series, Pak and Van Lente reunite Alpha Flight’s classic lineup in its own book for the first time since the John Byrne run.

But it’s tough to recreate greatness a quarter century on. The characters, creators, and readership have all changed. The title changed a great deal after Byrne left, with writers such as Bill Mantlo, James Hudnall, and Simon Furman guiding Alpha Flight for more than 100 issues. After the original series ended, Alpha Flight was relaunched twice: a Steven Seagle / Duncan Rouleau conspiracy story and a critically lambasted Scott Lobdell run. What “Alpha Flight” means changed, so much so we forget the original lineup existed for single issue. Characters have been killed, brought back to life, and killed again. In fact, the last time I checked, everyone starring in this book was dead. Marrina had been dead for decades, killed in Avengers in 1986. Northstar was killed by Wolverine as cheap carnage in 2005’s Enemy of the State. The rest died between panels because Brian Bendis said so.

Unfortunately, there’s no explanation of how Guardian, Vindicator, Sasquatch, Shaman, or Marrina came back to life. (Puck says he escaped from Hell, which at least acknowledges that he died.) Maybe it has something to do with the Fear Itself crossover, which manifests itself in this book as people running around with anime-sized hammers. A little research reveals the Chaos War storyline allowed the team to return, but The Complete Series doesn’t explain the link or mention either crossover. And even invoking Chaos War doesn’t explain how dead liaison / traitor Gary Cody had time to build a political career. And hey — did you know Guardian and Vindicator had a kid? It’s true! And they lost custody to Heather’s cousin? Also — apparently — true. Is it too much to ask for footnotes so I know Pak and Van Lente have created and what they have been saddled with? I don’t think so. Footnotes are your friend. They’re everyone’s friend, and I missed them very much in The Complete Series.

Pak and Van Lente mix the old with the new, which sounds like a good idea but is troublesome in practice. Alpha Flight’s arbitrariness is the main problem with the series. The characters seem to return from the dead for no reason, their personalities plucked from someplace in their histories. The writers have brought some characters back to their roots, regressing them. Sasquatch flirts with Aurora, who still battles her multiple personalities. Despite years with Alpha Flight and time with the X-Men, Northstar is still not a joiner. Puck is still exuberant, although he’s a bit mad now. Snowbird is still slightly imperious and slightly distant, and Shaman is still Shaman. But Marrina is recast into a violent, moody teenager coming to grips with her alien nature. Sasquatch loses his powers, and when he reacquires them, he has a Hulk-like personality. The Purple Girl has grown into the Purple Woman, taken fashion cues from Carmen Sandiego, and become a terrorist.

This mix of progression and regression is bothersome. Aurora, Northstar, and Sasquatch have lost years of development by returning to their factory-new states. It feels like the writers are casting around for a hook for these characters and settling on what’s been done before. Marrina’s new personality is a distraction. As a new character, she might have been entertaining; however, the contrast with who she was is jarring, especially since readers did not see the transition between personalities. And Shaman and Snowbird are both characters who should have something to say to Guardian about the loss of a child, but neither do; this seems less a lost opportunity and more of Van Lente and Pak casting aside or forgetting who Shaman and Snowbird are.

The villains’ plot — which involves mind control — does not help matters, especially given how extreme some of the actions Vindicator takes while controlled are. Aurora, switching between personalities and loyalties on a whim, exemplifies the lack of a core these characters have. Even the familiar characters feel off. Characters can only be remolded so much before they lose the shapes we liked, and I think that’s the case here.

The plot, which involves a Canadian government being controlled by the Master of the World, doesn’t feel like an Alpha Flight plot. Or — to be more accurate — if feels like a generic superhero plot that was roughly customized for Alpha Flight. The government takeover feels too over the top, with mass arrests of the opposition party and the press stretching credibility. The Master is an excellent choice for a foe, but he rarely feels engaged with the heroes, and his end goal — creating a race of humans who will conquer the universe — is power mad but delightfully without a point. Why conquer the universe? You might as well ask why he’s using a Wendigo as an operative. Because it’s something to do, I suppose; it’s always tough to keep busy when you’re immortal.

I enjoyed Dale Eaglesham’s art. It is attractive, and the characters are expressive without comically mugging. His illustration of the Master’s origins, drawn in a child’s style to convey that it is being told to Vindicator and Guardian’s daughter, is especially endearing. I’m not wild about Marrina’s new and occasionally mutating costume, but it’s not like her old costume — a one-piece swimsuit — was worth saving. I’m less enamored of Ben Oliver’s work on #0.1, although that may be the colorist’s fault — the painted-style colors makes everything look flat.

It’s ironic that Pak and Van Lente’s back-to-basics approach gives Alpha Flight an unsettling unfamiliarity. But the writers’ blithe attempts to take the team back to its beginnings leaves me at a loss; are these the characters I’ve enjoyed reading about? By the end I have to say no, even if they have the same names and appearances.

Rating: (1.5 of 5)

Wolverine: Evolution

Collects: Wolverine (v. 3) #50-5 (2007)

Released: February 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 152 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785122562

What is this?: Wolverine vs. Sabretooth, with dreams of prehistoric serial-killing furries.

The culprits: Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Simone Bianchi

The public library system I patronize has a small graphic novel collection — sparse, I’d say, but I haven’t found a good way to browse outlying branches’ collections using the catalog, so maybe there’s more there than I know about. In any event, I’m always interested in how the library chooses the few graphic novels it has — so interested, I wrote a book that was partially about that very question.

Which leads me to the question of why my local library chose to purchase Wolverine: Evolution. Evolution collects Wolverine (v. 3) #50-5, which is not exactly a standout storyline. The library does not have an extensive collection of Wolverine titles or X-Men books or even Marvel works. It isn’t literary enough to fit in the collection’s graphic novels, and it’s too violent to be a good fit for the Young Adult section (although that’s where it’s shelved anyway). Evolution came out in 2008, well before the Wolverine movie, and there are better Wolverine stories to choose from once currency isn’t a consideration. The only thing I can figure is that someone recognized writer Jeph Loeb’s name from Heroes or the book was advertised with that info, and some librarian latched onto it.

Loeb’s story will certainly win no prizes. The plot alternates between Wolverine fighting Sabretooth and Wolverine saying, “Huh?” to whatever nonsensical exposition Loeb has added to the story. At several points during the story, Wolverine admits his befuddlement or complains that whatever has just happened makes no sense. If only some editor had listened to Wolverine and forced Loeb to make the story more coherent, we’d all be better off. Alas …

Evolution decides to explore the mysteries of Wolverine’s past. I too thought we’d put all that behind us, after Logan was revealed as a nightshirt-wearing Victorian and Grant Morrison had Wolverine learn the secrets of Weapon X. But Loeb thinks that vein can still be mined for gold, adding not only a mysterious, powerful stranger who can blank Wolverine’s memory but also delving into the very secrets of the hero’s DNA. Yes, he proposes that Wolverine, Sabretooth, and other mutants with a feral nature could be descended from what Storm calls Lupus sapiens.

Because linking all the mutants with similar morphologies to a common ancestor worked so well for Chuck Austen. Also, binomial nomenclature doesn’t work that way; while biologists may be split on the fertile interbreeding of species (and where to draw the borders of species), breeding across genera is almost unheard of. (Certainly across orders; wolves and humans are in different branches of class Mammalia. Or is Loeb / Storm suggesting a Lupus is a new genus in family Hominidae?)

But putting aside the vagaries of Marvel science and the patent inadvisability of this plot, there is still little to recommend this story, as the fights have no thrills, and most of the characters act like they want to be somewhere else. Wolverine picks a fight with Sabretooth at the beginning of #50, and the fight continues across three countries without much innovation or escalation. The fight peaks at the end of #51, when the two brawlers crash a Blackbird while scrapping. That may sound impressive, but they both barely pause in their fight, and there is no anticipation for the scene, which is barely set up. (Some might appreciate Sabretooth reattaching his own severed limbs as a high point … but when did Sabretooth become a D&D troll?) Storm and Black Panther pop their heads into the story to show Wolverine and Sabretooth an archaeological site relevant to Wolverine’s dreams and then do everything they can to avoid getting involved with the rest of the story in any way. Black Panther, just wanting his wife’s embarrassing mutant friends to go away, holds his temper when Sabretooth kills two of his soldiers. Feral, Thornn, and Wolfsbane show up to round out the ranks of L. sapiens, and only Feral seems eager to interact with Sabretooth or Wolverine. (Perhaps it’s because she’s been sidelined with her terminal non-mutancy for so long.) After being mostly ignored by Thornn and Wolfsbane, Wolverine seems so glad to have someone to talk to that he forgets all about Feral’s murderous, terrorist past. Even Sabretooth is tired of this story by the end, just waiting for Wolverine to kill him.

I think the worst part of Evolution is not its bad ideas but that he bad ideas are so unoriginal; unlike its name; Evolution refuses to move in an original way even incrementally. Fighting Sabretooth, mysterious masterminds, stupid science, Weapon X … Wolverine has done them all so often. For instance, selected events in the history of L. sapiens are revealed to Wolverine through dreams. Putting aside the stupidity of having “true” dreams about things he had no knowledge of, it is a hackneyed way of delivering unexpected exposition. The story starts at the X-Men’s mansion, ends at Logan and Silver Fox’s cabin, and wends its way through Weapon X and flashbacks to Japan and World War II with Captain America. This book shows us Wolverine’s greatest hits, although that greatest hits album should be named Tedium. (I will admit visiting Wakanda is novel for Wolverine.)

The lasting effect of Evolution is to introduce Romulus, the mysterious mastermind lurking behind Wolverine’s life, Weapon X, and the entirety of L. sapiens. He bedeviled Wolverine for a few years in Wolverine and Wolverine: Origins before being exiled to the Darkforce Dimension; here he’s shown only in outline. Wild Child, a L. sapiens who is Romulus’s agent of destruction, tells Wolverine that Romulus is orchestrating the current iteration of L. sapiens’s battle between the blonds and the brunets. (Honest to Thor: among L. sapiens, there’s allegedly always a blond and a brunet battling for leadership. Always, across millennia. Geez.) I — and the Marvel Universe — need another powerful, impenetrable cipher who has been manipulating people and events for decades like Brooklyn needs another hipster.

Simone Bianchi’s art is better than Loeb’s story, but only because it would be hard not to improve on such a dreadful plot. But his work is confusing, and his and Andrea Silvestri’s “washed halftones” give every page an unflattering murkiness it can’t afford. Bianchi’s choices don’t help Loeb’s story, although I’m not sure Leonardo da Vinci’s art would be much help. In one scene, Wolverine is revealed to be chained to an in-flight airplane, but the reveal has all the impact of a Nerf dart. When he’s supposed to draw a fearful Sabretooth, he settles for “contemplative.” He draws Sasquatch as Chewbacca — not merely similar to the Wookiee but a should-be-afraid-Lucas’s-lawyers-will-call copy. He designs Wild Child as a leather boy with multiple piercings, which is sloppy visual shorthand for either “badass” or “I don’t care about Wild Child.”

There are ways Evolution could be worse — Bart Sears‘s artwork comes to mind with a rapidity that shows all those hours of therapy were wasted. The reveal of Romulus’s name could have been strung out over a few more storylines. It could have featured Daken, Wolverine’s son, as well. Wolverine and Sabretooth could have shown no emotions, rather than the one they were allowed to share.

But if any of these had happened, you would have to expect an editor couldn’t have ignored how awful it was and would have been forced to do something. Because, otherwise, what is an editor for?

Rating: (0.5 of 5)

The Three Stages of Man: Stage One: Weapon X

Collects: Weapon X stories from Marvel Comics Presents #72-84 (1991)

Released: 1994 (Marvel)

Format: 226 pages / color / $16.99 / ISBN: 9780785137269

What is this?: Logan gets adamantium bonded to his skeleton by the Weapon X project, the first step down the road that leads to Wolverine.

The culprits: Barry Windsor-Smith

Willy Shakespeare might have been a great writer and all that, but his “seven ages of man” stuff doesn’t really hold water. I mean, I’ve never been a soldier, justice, or pantaloon, and I don’t know too many people who fit those roles. (A few soldiers, a few lawyers, but I’ve never met a person who was also a pair of pants.) No, the Great Shakes had an ear for what sounded good, but he wasn’t about to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Therefore, I would like to suggest my own examination of the path of human life, using the greatest fictional character ever, Wolverine. Therefore, I give you, The Three Stages of Wolverine:

Stage One: The Enigma, represented by Wolverine: Weapon X.

In this stage, man must begin to grapple with important questions of our times: who am I? Am I a moral being? Am I a being of instinct? Are my sensory observations real, or are they merely being fed to me through clunky ‘80s computer technology powered by batteries large enough to give Arnold Schwarzenegger a hernia? Can I take control of my life, or am I doomed to constantly be manipulated by vast international conspiracies of megalomaniacs and supervillains? Although everyone must examine these questions for themselves, Logan answers them, according to his own peculiar circumstances, in Weapon X.

The late ‘80s / early ‘90s was the era in which a straightforward story such as, “Who decided it would be such a great idea to turn a mutant into ‘the ultimate killing machine’ and then never do anything with him?” was so important it couldn’t be answered — well, it couldn’t be answered in Marvel Comics Presents, in which this material originally appeared. So, the Enigma. Writer / artist Barry Windsor-Smith shows how Logan became Wolverine, transforming from a burned-out and falling apart government agent into the feral, adamantium-laced killing machine that is Wolverine. Ultimately, Logan doesn’t learn much about himself in this one, other than he’s a man, not an animal (important), which is good, because Logan is hell on wild animals (not important). But I suppose it would have started him on the path of self-revelation if it hadn’t been for those pesky memory implants.

Weapon X is surprisingly seminal despite its lack of revelations and slight plot, the former dictated editorially and the latter by the eight-page format of stories in MCP. We have the Professor employing disgraced doctor Abraham Cornelius; while starting up their experimentation facility, they hire Carol Hines to run operations. After they abduct Logan, they implant the adamantium onto the bones, and they begin to brainwash him into being a killing machine. And then he kills stuff, in both reality (mostly animals) and in virtual / hallucinatory realm (everyone). The Professor inadvertently reveals he’s answering to someone, someone powerful, but that’s about all we learn.

Despite the eight-page per story format, we do get a good bit of development on Hines and Cornelius. They aren’t shadowy villains; they are scientists down on their luck. Cornelius has legal problems in the U.S. Hines worked for NASA at one point. How do they rationalize the horrible thing they are doing to another human being? It’s an interesting question, and Windsor-Smith does explore the idea, but the lack of a true payoff to the story keeps that angle from being fully fleshed out.

Unsurprisingly, Windsor-Smith’s art is what sticks with the reader. Several panels are iconic, known to just about every comic reader of the last twenty years: the full-page shot of Weapon X atop a pile of soldiers, slicing up more; Weapon X in the snow clad only in batteries and the control helmet / VR gear; shots of Logan in the adamantium tank. The art nouveau elements from his Conan work are gone or muted; the work is bloody, brutal, and dynamic, but it still looks unlike other artists before or after. (Although his characters have a tendency to have eyes like Little Orphan Annie.)

Rating: (4 of 5)

Next: Stage Two: Wolverine: Not Dead Yet

Stage Three: Wolverine First Class: Ninjas, Gods, and Divas (forthcoming)

A Frozen Excuse

I missed putting up a review for three straight weeks. You, the loyal reader, deserve a better excuse than “my personal life was crazy” or “I was crushed by the amount of work I had to do this week.” Frankly, you can get those kind of excuses anywhere, and we all know they’re lies, just excuses for being too lazy to put in the kind of quality work an unpaid “labor of love” deserves. So you get a better excuse. Like this one:

There is a stereotype that Canadians are kind, polite people. That’s true, by and large. There’s also a stereotype that there is a sinister core to Canada, something hostile to America and freedom. And there’s some truth to that.

Not that it’s their fault; they’ve been pushed into it, by a sinister splinter of the Parti Québécois that plots not only the downfall of their neighbors and of Americans but of mankind entire. They have been subverted — some say corrupted, literally reshaped in body and soul — by eldritch ice magics. This magic comes from the most dangerous force on the continent: Santa and his elves.

Santa, whose dangerous omnipotence and time-manipulating capabilities should chill you to his core. His elves, who can make anything — including hideous manikins, mockeries of men who mock our forms by wearing haberdashery — using only snow and spells.

But they can’t stop the North Pole from melting. No, we’ve got them there, taking their frosty lairs from underneath them. But scientists — those stupid, blabbermouth scientists — have alerted them to the danger. And they’re planning to spread south.

Whether those poor Péquistes are their mindless puppets or their motivated underlings, hoping to take their place by Santa’s throne when the conquest is complete, no one knows. All we know is that they must be fought. And who is fighting them on the tundra? While America and other NATO nations are distracted by wars on terror, it falls to the First Nations people to stand between us and subjugation by someone even fatter than Americans.

They don’t do it because they like us. Frankly, they don’t — well, they don’t like you. (They think you smell funny and have a weird accent. Sorry.) But they know someone has to make the sacrifice, and they are the ones it has fallen to. So I’ve been spending this month aiding these brave, brave people who get offended if you ask about their summer igloos. Every November, they make a push to shove back Santa and his minions before they gain their greatest strength, when Santa receives his month — or more — of worship. That is when I make my trek north, to aid their fight. But every year, the advance stalls earlier; every year, Santa’s minions gain more ground. Santa is winning; the only question is whether he will break out of containment before the ice cap melts or whether his frozen kingdom will first slip into the Arctic Sea one tepid summer. It’s a close race.

I work mainly in logistics and supply. I cannot hope to match these people’s skill and bravery. My work is just a drop in an ocean. You probably do more to aid us every day when you let your car idle while waiting for your kid to get out of school. Keep up the good work!

They don’t ask for your tribute. They don’t even ask for your thanks. But when you look to the cold December sky and don’t see a venison propelled missile of death inbound, they ask to be remembered.

And I think that’s the least we can do.