Alpha Flight 80 - Acts of Vengeance

This issue is a combination of one big battle between three different factions and a massive infodump about Llan the Sorcerer and how he's been manipulating a lot of recent events in order to produce the necessary violence to generate a spell to open the "Eye of the World", also known as the "Gateway of Night", in order to access dark power.

Alpha Flight #80

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

The first problem is that the magic used in the story is not made terribly clear in all circumstances. So whilst it's explained that the participants in the fight were all manipulated in order to produce the violence, it's not clear why this has to be done in Winnipeg, a city barely a hundred kilometres from the Canadian-US border and nowhere near the Eye's location way up in the north. If it's because somehow the violence has to be generated on Canadian soil, as the previous issue and Talisman's insistence that the villains be thrown out of the country implies, then it becomes especially silly as the idea ancient magics are tied to modern political entities within artificial boundaries (and it's hard to think of a bigger artificial boundary than the Canadian-US border) is just risible.

Quite a chunk of the story is taken up with the origin of Llan, but it feels a waste as he doesn't directly interact with the fight in Winnipeg. Instead this feels like preparation for future issues of the series which is great for regular readers but there's been nothing in these two issues to encourage people picking them up because of the crossover to hang around. The connection to events elsewhere is tangential to say the least and the choice of villains shows another sign of poor communication as the Owl has been used elsewhere in Fantastic Four and there's no explanation given for him being here as well. The battle itself is intense yet feels strangely inconsequential, with Talisman continuing to manipulate the other members of Alpha Flight to bring a conclusion.

Overall these issues feel very much like they were written parts of a regular ongoing saga then suddenly realised they had to take part in the crossover and so hastily pulled in a few villains from other series with a contrived explanation. The result is another extremely disappointing chapter that just doesn't feel a real part of "Acts of Vengeance" but rather a terrible advert for the current series.

Alpha Flight #80 has been reprinted in:

• Acts of Vengeance Crossovers Omnibus (2011)