• Review - Chaos War One-shot, Le Messor's take

    originally posted here
    Chaos War: Alpha FlightIssue: Alpha Flight: Chaos War
    Writer: Jim McCann
    Artist: Reilly Brown
    Date Published: November 2010
    Alpha Appearance: Classic, original team! YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!! (no Puck, though.)
    Period in Alpha Flight's history: Concurrent with Puck in Wolverine's Hell, after the Incredible Hercules Sacred War.

    OVERVIEW: Chaos War is Marvel's latest crossover event. A Chaos King has awoken and is destroying the realms of sleep and death and all the gods and generally messing things up. Yep, it's another Tuesday on Earth 616.
    That's roughly everything I know about it, and all I care about it.
    I'll mention this bit of fridge logic, though:
    By destroying all the realms of death, he's sent all the dead back to life. (Blackest Day much?) By destroying the realm of dream, he's put everybody to sleep. That doesn't make sense! Shouldn't it hit the Marvel Universe like a coffee high? It isn't even internally consistent!

    REVIEW:
    The cover: basically a generic team shot, but all comics covers are generic team shots these days. It makes them easier to package as trades later, but harder to sell on the shelves. This one has the currently living Alphans in front of the currently dead Alphans (who are in the clouds like the last scene in Hot Shots!). Whatever.

    It's orange. I loathe modern colouring.
    Everything but Snowbird looks like it was shot through an orange filter. That is so common in comics these days; everything is so dark, so filtered - it's alienating.

    OTOH, this cover tells me that Marvel is trying an incredibly novel approach for a new Alpha Flight comic:
    They're putting Alpha Flight in it.

    YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

    (see above)

    Somon The ArtificerSnowbird flees her parents' deaths and Sasquatch makes a deal with the Great Beasts. That can't go wrong.
    He wants to bring back the dead Alphans (the entire team was stuffed in a fridge in New Avengers #16. Off-panel. Seriously, one panel they're standing around talking, the next, they're dead. In the snow.)

    They fight the Chaos Demons and argue about whether it's worth being alive if it means giving power to the Great Beasts.
    Technically, that's the whole story. I don't want to make it sound lame, though. It's detailed, it's written by somebody who knows and cares about the characters - and has read their history. It isn't bogged down in details, though.
    The artist is one of the few who've seen Byrne's Sasquatch; though he does make me appreciate Byrne more - I realise how detailed Byrne's work was.




    When I put them together like this, IChaos War: Alpha Flight'm not sure why the new Somon feels so much less detailed than the original.


    The split-up when they start fighting over whether they should win or not reminded me of the first X-Men / Alpha Flight issue, which is always a good thing.

    I love this take on the team.


    It did feel rushed, though. Poor Marrina had almost nothing to do, and Puck, while mentioned, didn't show up at all (he's currently trying to help Wolverine claw his way out of Hell, but I doubt he can get him a good writer).
    I'm not sure the use of Wendigos helped.

    The demon riding a flying triceratops... I love it!

    It brings back Alpha Flight, shows respect for them, and they end the book Alive! (Wait, no, there's no cannibalism. ... except the Wendigos.)



    RATING: