Alpha Big Time 1
Andy Maguire was once a normal kid with everyday problems, however when he was hit with Parker Particles he became ALPHA. Having misused his powers when the original Peter Parker was alive, Parker decided to shut off ALPHA's special abilities until he was ready to live up to his responsibility. Now, with a Ock in control of Parker's body, is Andy ready to become Alpha once more?
The Good
I believe that Alpha is in good hands with writer Joshua Hale Fialkov. Alpha's introduction in comics was in 2012, at first it excited me to think that Spider-Man would be a bit more like Batman at mentoring a young hero. However, it came to my thinking that Marvel had already done this multiple times with other characters [Captain America and Bucky, Hulk and Rick Jones, Captain Mar-Vell and Rick Jones, etc]. So thankfully Alpha having misused his abilities was a better turning point for the character instead of him eventually becoming the Robin of Marvel comics and eventually Spider-Man getting a Spider-Cave.
Joshua Hale Fialkov made a good choice at having Alpha be bit of a solo hero with Ock-Parker mentoring him from a distance. This allows readers to get to know Alpha a bit better while his character is being developed. Ultimately with hopes that Alpha could become a household name. Anyway, Fialkov did a good job with this first issue and the pace. He kept Alpha's non-super powered side of the story short and dived head first into the main conflict.
After the events of Peter Parker revealing that he is only using Andy to perfect the Parker Particles it'll be interesting to see if Andy doesn't fall to the dark side if he finds out he's only a tool in Parker's toolbox. Also, it will be interesting to see how Andy handles killing someone and how Ock-Parker will react. Joshua Hale Fialkov really did a good job at giving readers a reason to come back.
The highlight of this issue is the art. Nuno Plati's artwork fits this title as it captures the kid like nature of Alpha's character while envisioning all of Joshua Hale Fialkov thoughts and ideas in art form. The bright colors and the dark ink reminds me of Mike Allred's art style for MADMAN.
The Bad
What made this issue sour was reminding the reader constantly of how Alpha lost his abilities. Before you read the comic an entire summary of what has happened to Alpha is given with the goal to catch up the reader. That was really good, however Joshua Hale Fialkov did not have to remind the reader every page or two that Alpha had lost his abilities thanks to Horizon Labs and Peter Parker. This issue would've been better without the references.
The Verdict
The creative team behind this series have their ideals in the right place. ALPHA is not like other Spider-Man books as it does not mainly focus on Spider-Man and the character has no Spider related abilities. Which is good. Joshua Hale Fialkov and Nuno Plati pull off a good issue with the story telling and they found a way to integrate Alpha into Spider-Man's world without the story pulling towards a Batman and Robin type team.
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