Alpha Flight 79 - Acts of Vengeance

We come now to the first issue of "Acts of Vengeance" featuring Canada's superhero team, Alpha Flight. Or maybe not quite, as this issue comes during a period when the team has been ordered to disband by the Canadian government and replaced by Gamma Flight. However the Alphas are still operating independently out of a new headquarters in Edmonton.

Alpha Flight #79

Writer: James D. Hudnall
Penciler: John Calimee
Inker: Mike Manley
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Colourist: Bob Sharen
Managing Editor: Marc McLaurin
Editors: Carl Potts and Danny Fingeroth
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The problem is that this issue, written by James Hudnall and drawn by John Calimee, isn't very good at explaining the current status quo, with most of the key details coming on the penultimate page. And more generally there's not a great deal to introduce the team and explain who the current members are. Alpha Flight does not interact that much with the rest of the Marvel Universe due to their location and so prior knowledge cannot be assumed. Especially as this story implicitly suggests they have been forgotten by the alliance of supervillains since they aren't specifically targeted. Rather the main focus of this issue is about a load of nasty things coming into Canada from the United States, whether villains fleeing the Super-Powers Registration Act or pollution that's destroying the fish and wheat.

Unfortunately these elements seem awfully contrived. The pollution scenes feel especially tacked on - one is the opening page of the story, featuring characters not seen elsewhere, the other is in a field as Vindicator flies over. Both scenes just push the point of greater pollution being created by Canada's neighbour to the south, in an era when there was a sudden explosion in concern about the environment, but it feels overtly preachy. The villains coming as well isn't convincing either. As seen elsewhere, the Act is only draft legislation before the US Congress and most of the villains are high on wanted lists anyway. The story may be trying to evoke the Vietnam War draft dodgers who fled by moving to Canada but again feels odd. And the reaction from Talisman may be focused on the potential for the villains to become agents of some foe called the Sorcerer (another ongoing plot point that isn't explained for crossover readers) but the response is simply "we have to deport them" in an issue called "Outsiders". This attempt at Canadian eco-nationalist propaganda, written by someone from California, feels very awkward and stilted.

The villains in question are Nekra, the Scorpion, the Owl and the Asp, though the last two are only shown arriving on the final page. All are converging on Winnipeg and so Alpha Flight's Talisman starts transporting individual team members to pick the villains off one by one before they can unite. The fights soon attract the attention of Gamma Flight.

This is one of the weakest issues in the whole "Acts of Vengeance" crossover. There's no real attempt to introduce the current situation for readers brought in for the event (most of whom probably won't have stayed around), some terrible attempts at analogies, excessive preachy points in scenes that serve no other purpose and a rather random use of the cast. The result is a rather tedious slog.

Alpha Flight #79 has been reprinted in:

• Acts of Vengeance Crossovers Omnibus (2011)