Alpha: Big Time #4

[stolisomancer]

Andy "Alpha" Maguire, that kid from the Dan Slott plotline from last year that had everyone rolling their eyes, is currently the star of his own miniseries, written by Joshua Hale Fialkov. Some of the guys at the SA comics forum mentioned that Fialkov was doing a pretty good job redeeming the character, so I checked it out.

What I wasn't expecting was a moment with Thor that struck me as pretty fun.


Andy's parents moved with him to Pittsburgh after he lost his powers, but Otto-in-Peter's-body promptly showed up and returned a sizable fraction of them. Andy's current power set includes flight, strength, energy projection, and being a lunkhead.

One day, a renegade ex-employee of Tony Stark's shows up in Pittsburgh to steal some tech, and is wielding a hammer with matter-transmutation abilities.





You know, I could read a book that's just Thor mentoring younger heroes. "This is going to rock eventually, kid, but first you gotta hang in there. Seriously, we're going to save the world fifty times and then we're going to party."

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

Alpha has the potential to be as interesting as the post-Crisis pre-Flashpoint Superboy. Superboy originally was all "Who needs a secret identity or a real name or a family? I'll live in Hawaii because why not?" Then he grew up... sort of.

[captainbellman]

If Slott gets a hold of him again, it seems more like he'll end up as Marvel's Superboy Prime.

[nefrekeptah]

Why? It's not like Alpha was going on about how super-heroes suck or how better things used to be. He was just an ordinary kid that stumbled into incredible power and let it go to his head.

[chrisdv]

Alpha's real name always makes me smile.

But what a shock, someone does a better job at writing a Dan Slott character than Dan Slott.

His costume still sucks, though.

[stolisomancer]

So does his hair, but when the whole point of a character is that he has no idea what he's doing, it's somehow forgivable.

[icon_uk]

The chartreuse, and a deal of the personality,keeps making me think of Risk from the old Teen Titans, back when he had arms.

[benuben]

I don't get the hate. Alpha was supposed to be annoying asshole and representation of what would happen to Peter, if he didn't learn the whole power and responsibility thing. What did they do wrong?

[stolisomancer]

The problem with creating an annoying asshole is that if you are successful, you still end up with an annoying asshole.

Plus, you know. Slott. He's burned enough bridges at this point that if he came out in favor of cute puppies, quite a few fans would go looking for a dissenting opinion.

[benuben]

Still failing to see the problem with making character you are supposed to hate a character that you hate.

[sir_razorback]

They went so far over that edge that there was completely nothing likeable about the guy. Admittedly this is the first panels I've seen of him since he got de-powered, but already I'm liking him more. He actually has HUMILITY, which is an excellent start. That and the Vulcan salute doesn't hurt, either.

[benuben]

I know. He was not supposed to be likeable.

[starwolf_oakley]

Well, the thing about "power and responsibility" is that it made Peter Parker obsessed to such a degree Bruce Wayne would say "Take it down a notch, kid."

In THE OTHER, Mary Jane said Peter had a death wish over Ben Parker. He feels so much guilt his career as Spider-Man is really massive "suicide by super-villain" attempt. And they never really explained why that wasn't the case.

It is rather simple: Peter Parker sucks at being Peter Parker because someone always needs Spider-Man to save them. This is why Otto Octavius is better at being Peter Parker.

Perhaps Alpha is an attempt for someone to learn "with great power comes great responsibility" without also being an obsessive emo.

[zabilac]

*snort* Like Bruce Wayne is any better with his "crusade against crime", but I get your point.

[captainbellman]

What you also miss is that Alpha was created as someone who radiated mediocrity. Slott (I surmise) thinks that your average comics-reading kid of today is less likely to empathise with the "Peter Parker" archetype, who has had a passion since childhood and is following it with dedication and hard work, and prefer the sort of person who never tries hard at anything or applies themselves in any way, hoping that they'll stumble into greatness (as Andy did) through blind luck.

Which is, to say the least, problematic

[sir_razorback]

Hey, there was a time when nobody had anything positive to say about Damian, either. It can be done, in the right hands. Although I give Grant Morrison ALOT more credit for talent than Dan Slott, hands down.

[md84]

Given the way Damian's story arc ultimately ended, that doesn't speak well for Alpha's future.

[twomasks]

Hee! Mohawk Storm cameo in the bottom left of the last panel. Cute.

[thanekos]

Not being drawn by Ramos really makes him a lot less punchable.

[blunderbuss]

Y'know, this seems so damn obvious I wonder why they didn't do this with Alpha in the first place. A punk-ass kid has god-like power? Then send him to work with some actual gods in order to get some perspective. It really is easy to see normal people as 'tiny' when you're that powerful, and many gods had that problem. Hell, Thor was a lot like Alpha when he was young and that's what got him humbled in the first place. Thor is a much better choice of mentor than Spidey.

[icon_uk]

Sending him to, say, Asgard, as a place where the average member of the population would share his worldview wouldn't help him much would it? Thor had to learn his lesson in humility amongst humans, so does Alpha.

[q99]

Probably they didn't because he's supposed to be a spider side character.

[alan_smithee]

Thor's dialogue is not quite right in some places "Are you okay?" is not something I can hear coming out of Thor's mouth?

[stolisomancer]

Yeah, he seems to be floating back and forth between the faux-Shakespearean dialect and his current, slightly less antiquated style. I suppose you could chalk it up to him auto-translating himself for Alpha's sake. The kid's enough of a fucking goober that he's going to stare blankly at you if you bust out "Art thou well?"

[cypherfdp]

Can someone please get this boy a barber?

[cainofdreaming]

He'd probably just end up going to the same one Norman Osborn goes to. The barbers in 616 are pretty twisted lot.