Alpha may have the potential to be one of the most powerful heroes or villains of all time, but in the eyes of everyone he was found lacking. Since his powers were given to him by Peter Parker, they were able to find a way to take them away as well. He was very much not living up to the motto of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and was returned once more to the life of just being a garden variety teenager.
That is until Doc Ock took over Spider-Man’s body and decided Alpha could be a useful distraction. What exactly is he going to be used as a distraction for? It’s still too early to tell as they haven’t given us even an once of information of what he has in store for him. Hopefully that plot goes somewhere before Peter Parker is once again in control of his body.
This is a series that I really have wanted to hate from the outset but the first issue piqued my interest. Let’s just see how the second one stacks up.
In the wake of punching a crook’s face almost right off, Alpha knows deep down that he’s had his one shot at keeping his powers and now they are going to be gone. We open with him rushing the mugger and his victim to a local hospital and is waiting for the cops to take him in. They mildly let him off saying the mugger must have fallen on his face and it clearly wasn’t the kid’s fault.
Alpha has screwed up, but he’s willing to take responsibility for his actions. He’s pissed off at himself for what he’s done and feels bad but he’s realized he made a mistake and needs to own up to it. This is not the Alpha from the pages of Spider-Man. He’s matured as a person and is growing into someone who wants the responsibility with his power and not just someone whose is pissed off that it was taken from him.
They’ve written him as, and I didn’t think I’d ever say this about Alpha, likable.
Now that I got that out of my mouth I did mention that he was angry at himself. On his way home for the day he found a giant monster trying to wreck part of the city and thanked it for being around to relieve his stress on. Honestly these are probably my favorite scenes in the comic. Usually these days I prefer plot over the fight scenes as many feel penciled in for space filler but I really enjoyed the look of the monster they created for this.
Also I’m still not a huge fan of the overall art style they are using here so maybe it’s because this felt a bit more of traditional Marvel.
The rest of the issue is spent with Alpha feeling bad about himself (in a slightly EMO Parker manner.) We are introduced slightly more to a girl whose clearly going to end up being his love interest which also seems like more time killer for what he’s clearly going to do – Tell Peter Parker what happened and lose his powers once more.
When he’s about to confess to Peter what he did though he reads in the newspaper that the mugger is going to live to see trial. He didn’t kill the man after all.
He tells fake Peter he was just in to say hey and runs off to the hospital he dropped the assailant off at. He goes by his bedside and thanks him for not dying which leads us to the surprise at the end of this issue which will lead us into the third. The man not only isn’t dead but he’s also apparently gained some kind of power from Alpha attacking him and wants revenge.
Now the concept at the end was well done but the dialogue had me in pain reading it. For the tone of the comic it almost felt too juvenile for it. I’m still interested in where the book is going if only to see if they can continue to keep a character I hated so much after two issues now be someone I felt sorry for after another two.
Writer: Joshua Fialkov
Artist: Nuno Plati
