It was coffee. Coffee is assault. (Well..it can be if it’s thrown at someone in the right way.) So a policeman was putting the guy in handcuffs, ready to haul him away, when the Guardian told the police officer it was okay...he’s not pressing charges. It’s an emotionally charged moment for a venerable Canadian superhero team in Alpha Flight #1. Writer Ed Brisson opens a whole new chapter in the life of Canada’s superhero defenders with artist Scott Godlewski and colorist Matt Milla. Themes that have been echoing around Marvel mutant titles FOREVER get a fresh look in the first issue of a new series.

The Guardian was being called a traitor when the cup of coffee hit him in the head. They all were being called traitors. The Canadian government is responding to concerns in the populace about the presence of superhuman mutants. The team needs to guard against threats posed by those with power, but there were trusted mutants among them on their own team. Northstar and Aurora used to be on Alpha Flight. Now things are...complicated. The complication is only going to get more muddled as the team navigates its way through a whole new era. 

Brisson establishes an interesting new era for the team as they’re forced to work alongside sentinel robots looking for mutant threats. They have to deal with a lot of they’re going to be able to do the work that they need to do. Politics continue to be a concern as very real threats loom on the horizon and inevitable threats emerge. Brisson directs the flow of action quite well in the debut issue of a new series. He’s working with a lot of pre-existing parts to tell a story that has essentially already been told a bunch of times before, but it’s fun to see it echo into the present. 

Godlewski has a cleverly modulated grasp of subtle variations in dramatic tone. There ARE some fun moments of action in and around the edges of the drama, but Godlewski’s real talent lies in bringing emotion to the page in conversation. There’s a verbal intensity to Brisson’s script that requires an artist who is capable of both action and a whole bunch of different layers of emotionality in a number of different contexts. Godlewski is brilliant with that sort of thing. And while he’s really good at bringing the impact to the page with sharp layouts that slice across the page, it’s going to be nice to see what he can do with the team in a battle that doesn’t have to be crammed into a few pages near the end of the book.

Alpha Flight has been a tricky team to get right. It’s not often that the team’s delicate balance between politics, emotion, and action has been placed on the page in a way that makes any kind of sense. John Byrne did a brilliant job with the first run on the first series back in the early 1980s. The series has been hit-or-miss since. Thankfully, Brisson and Godlewski are doing a good job of bringing it all to the page. 

Grade: B