Alpha To The Core...
A Full Review on Alphacore #1 by Chuck Dixon & Joe Bennett
Author’s Note: This is Cover A and Cover C of Alphacore #1 by Chuck Dixon and Joe Bennett brought to you by Rippaverse Comics. Yep, I bought both of these so this will be an unbiased review and will contain spoilers and references and comparisons to Isom #1 & #2. You’re gonna need that heads up before heading in. Okay? We ready? Let’s Go!
Alright, finally get to review this one. I’m going to keep it straight with you. I ordered Cover A initially because I just wanted one cover that wouldn’t be reprinted ever again. The collector in me wanted the best of both worlds; an enjoyable comic experience and a cover that would become rare eventually. Then…Eric showed off that foil cover and, yep I came outta pocket for that one too. That was the collector in me.
Initially, I had no intentions of ever taking the foil cover (Cover C) out of the bag but I did for a few minutes and then put it back and put it away. Cover A landed the very next day and that’s the one I was going to read. So yes, I did purchase at least one that I have no intention of ever cracking open, full disclosure.
Alphacore, as a team, first popped up in Isom #1. I wasn’t quite aware of it just yet but I was initially under the impression that these were a team of Excepts that had appointed themselves as civil peace officers. Alphacore #1 cleared the air for me, Bryan Solari, Ingrid Valdez and Braxwell are all sworn Florespark P.D. We all knew they had a skybase hovering above Florespark but, this is no Fortress of Solitude, Batcave or S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier. My immediate reaction was, “What happens if the engines fail?” It’s the one thing about sky-based operations and command centers in comics, that one little nitpick of mine is never answered and I might be alone in that. Still, it’s always been the weak point in plot armor. This one does get an iconic name in the form of The Aerie which translates to The Eagle’s Nest. Happens pretty quickly and I’m good with it
From the jump though, we’re given a bit more background on Solari, Valdez and Braxwell. …okay maybe not so much on Braxton as the dude barely speaks but really displays his absolute unit badassery and I think there’s a saying of “by their actions” or something that definitely applies to him. He’s definitely a man of action in all respects. Solari is very much accustomed to a chain of command, being former military and a current cop with a cape. That being said, he’s also fond of stepping in when he feels the situation calls for it, something that lands him in deep water from time to time. He comes across like a younger Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway (played by Clint Eastwood in the movie Heartbreak Ridge) as he’s fond of interpreting some rules on the fly. No pun intended, by the way but he and Braxton both fly for certain.
Valdez is the one with these energy whips that can and do inflict some major damage when employed. She’s also probably the deepest of the characters of the bunch so far as she has a tendency to be somewhat closer to her colleagues on the beat and tends to be more nuanced and thoughtful in her approaches to things and we’re introduced to that via her point of view when discussing what’s in the news with Solari.
The Story:
Now, with the characters out of the way, let’s get into the story. We have to start at the beginning. Not with their face-off with Yaira from Isom #1, but with a standoff at a bank where a masked man holding a gun to a hostage’s head and wearing a vest rigged with a bomb. I mean…that’s pretty tense stuff right there. Hell of a way to kick things off.
As our bomber is screaming and doing the typical “I’ll Do It!” routine with the Florespark P.D. outside, he’s literally snatched away. Solari is the one that swooped in and picked him and then hauled him into the sky asking him if he knew how to disarm the vest. He admits flat out that he doesn’t. Solari rips the vest off of him and tosses him. The bomber falls into a hotel swimming pool. Now I’ve done my share of belly-flops into a gully before and I don’t care who you are, you hit barely-moving water as a squishy human…yeah you’re gonna feel it. Meanwhile, Solari hurls the vest in a safe direction and it blows. As our bomber is getting out of the pool, Solari snatches him up again and flies him back to the scene of the crime where they’re furious at him.
Turns out, Alphacore actually do have guidelines. This wasn’t a “freak call” because the bomber wasn’t an Except like Solari. Remember how I said that Solari likes to kinda “reinterpret on the fly?” Still, no pun intended. That just so happens to be thing point where you get that kinda info. Upon his return to the Aerie, he’s confronted by his commanding officer and that’s when Valdez informs him that he’s all over the local news. The two of them have an argument over whether or not Solari’s actions were justified and whether or not he should have just let the folks on the ground handle it. To be fair, they did seem to have the situation well in hand at that time. Solari, though, is right that he did de-escalate the situation and everyone was going home safe, save for the bomber who is headed to jail…natch.
That’s when you’re clued in that someone else was watching the news and there’s a reason for that. A man named Michael is just relaxing and having coffee when Lilian enters and asks him about the event. Michael is responsible for it as there was money in the vault that he couldn’t justify and he specifically appointed this guy to blow both the vault and himself up in the process to cover up his potentially ill-gotten gains. Solari interfered and now, things are not looking up for him.
In another part of town, there’s a legit “freak call” and Braxwell is dispatched to handle it. A villainous character named Galvan is involved and his power is a directed electricity that he emits. Though the police have arrived to serve an arrest warrant on a woman named Gloria, Galvan has decided he’s going to step in and keep them from executing that warrant. While the police have their hands full with this guy, Braxwell comes in kicking like he’s Bruce Lee and taking him out pretty easily, turning his power completely off for the moment by hitting him with water and shorting him, and allowing Florespark P.D. to make their arrests. Then he just flies off without a word. Toldja, man of action and no words so far.
Back at the station, detectives are grilling the bomber who seems intent on taking responsibility for his little stunt but he’s already being inconsistent when his attorney shows up out of the blue and makes mention that he has representation. Solari is getting read The Riot Act from the chief and what’s really oddball is that the attorney representing the bomber…is also representing our villain, Galvan. No need to guess that the attorney is connected to Michael, the story reveals that pretty quickly along with how he’s “outsourced” the problem getting back to him. I’m going to say this much, Michael isn’t smart about his approach. Galvan overpowers two of the officers on duty and then breaks out of his cell and electrocutes the bomber, Cecil Moreno, to death in such a way that he literally fries the guy. Think the Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix in The Green Mile. It’s really horrific.
Solari and Valdez are called in to investigate and it doesn’t take long before the connection is made between the two, the attorney, Ridley Vanessen.
Did I mention that Michael’s really not that smart of a criminal? I mean this is a money thing and putting an attorney and an accountant in between him and anyone sniffing around, if there even was anyone sniffing around, might have helped his situation but Michael just takes it from bad to worse by employing a criminal to do a criminal deed, wiping out the evidence in the process, then having a single attorney arrange a hit. This guy’s supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain. It’s likely there wasn’t, if any, attention drawn to his financial indiscretion but there will be now, most likely. Had Michael been smart, we probably also wouldn’t have a story, would we?
During the investigation into Moreno’s highly untimely end, we also get to see some tension between the police and Alphacore. Valdez provides a gentle reminder that Alphacore can conduct the investigation on their own but one of the F.P.D dismisses her and says “We’ll see what downtown has to say about that.” It’s almost like a dick-measuring contest trope you’ll see when Internal Affairs, SWAT, Special Victims Unit or just different teams constantly trying to justify jurisdiction while jockeying for position. During the entire mess, they tend to miss the point that they’re on the same team, no doubt just people doing jobs wanting each other to “stay in their lane” while trying to co-exist. Also, in retrospect, Solari has a point that he did help things but he failed to think ahead and now there are farther-reaching and lasting consequences of his actions.
Keep in mind, reader, I’m only halfway through this issue and already, we’re not just in some story about superheroes with badges akin to the early days of The Savage Dragon and Freak Force. This has more depth than what I remember of those titles.
After this point, Solari departs, leaving Valdez behind who meets with a cop named Wilkins who gives her a ride around. As they track down Galvan’s hideaway, we get a nice reveal that Wilkins is also an except but his power is extremely limited. He doesn’t use it often and doesn’t like making an issue of it. The extent of what Wilkins shows us is that he can maniuplate anything metallic to breach a lock and he and Valdez find themselves face-to-face with Galvan and the fight is on.
Let’s get back to Michael for a minute. He’s had to give Lilian more assurances that he’s somehow got this situation handled. When she asks whom he’s contacted this time, he assures her it’s no one she knows. She’s decided that she’s going to step in, being an Except, herself. That’s really all that’s said about it
Enter Billy Bob Quinn, a redneck whom, when he activates, becomes covered in a mass of fire and hot rock for skin. The guy lives in a trailer and is awakened by his grandmother screaming at him and shooting a fire extinguisher at him. Meanwhile, a man walks into Texas Trust Bank and, via the manager, goes into the vault, into the safe deposit box and ensures that a thumb drive is sealed into an envelope and places it inside the box and locks it up again.
From here, the book juxtaposes two different conflicts. Billy Bob Quinn arriving at the bank to rob it while Solari is there and Valdez and Wilkins going toe-to-toe with Galvan. Respectively, after each has a tough battle with Quinn and Galvan, respectively, they’re both defeated. Special Services is called in to arrest Galvan while Quinn, fully activated is trapped in the vault by the bank manager until his fire consumes all the oxygen in there, causing Quinn to completely pass out. Given probable cause and a direction in which box to look into thanks to security footage, Solari forcefully opens the safe deposit box and discovers the thumb drive.
Vanessen is back on TV, calling for the de-funding of Alphacore as part of the police, naturally, opting to use his ability to spin anything into acrimony for the team that responds to threats that normal police procedure wouldn’t be enough to handle. Detectives Briggs and Johnson appear at the studio to speak to Vanessen about his connection, however, he brushes them off and enters the Men’s Room only to be approached by a rather large man and then we’re cut back to the hallway where Briggs and Johnson are discussing the case when they realize that he’s taking a long time in the restroom. When they move in to investigate, they find an open window. Believing he fled, they look only to find that Vanessen has plummeted to his death onto a car below.
Michael and Lilian are meeting again and Lilian let’s Michael know that she’s got everything handled. Vanessen is dead, along with Moreno and she’s assuring Michael now that all loose ends are tied up. When he inquires about what she’d done with the safe box at the bank, she mentions the thumb drive, assuring him that they can become interested but that would take them even further from ever connecting them to the murders they’ve committed.
In a very short-lived scene, Braxwell is responding to another call. Initially, he’s called in for a simple breach but it wasn’t needed as he encounters a chubby man in a Hawaiian shirt, casting him aside when he’s accosted by two larger men, one of them, obviously an Except.
Back at The Aerie, that’s exactly what’s being discussed. Sandy, the group’s tech is telling them, sensibly so, that the thumb drive could have anything on it and it’s not a good idea to just go plugging it in or downloading the information without having a means of isolating malware. Solari, again, just grabs the drive and plugs it into the Aerie’s computer system in a “What could possibly go wrong moment.”
It’s at this point that I want to wholeheartedly thank Chuck Dixon and the entire Rippaverse team. All of them from Eric to the dude that sweeps the floors because, remember that nitpick I had mentioned earlier? They Address It And Then Some!
Naturally, everything starts going wrong and The Aerie starts falling all the while being controlled by remote by Lilian. She’s aiming The Aerie directly toward the Florespark Police Department building. Two birds; one stone. Here. We. Go.
Solari is outside trying to move The Aerie out of it’s current path and get it somewhere safe so that there’s not a preponderance of collateral damage. Braxwell, fresh from his call, is pulling people out of the path as fast as he can as safely as he can before joining Solari. Both are having trouble moving the airbourne behemoth.
When it does hit the ground, it’s still heading for the Department building when we see Wilkins, having been informed that they are all to evacuate, see what’s coming and decides to act. He puts all of his concentration and focus on stopping The Aerie and barely succeeds but dies in the process.
After the funeral of Wilkins, our team heads to the airport to meet Michael and Lilian on the tarmac where a private jet awaits to take them to Cabo for a weekend. They let the duo know that their companies of which they are majority shareholders respectively have been connected to a series of murders, arson, robberies and acts of terrorism, though they haven’t connected the dots just yet, they’re onto the pair. Lilian says something that provokes Valdez who informs them that their flight has been delayed after she whips the wing and engine and tells them it’s engine trouble.
Okay, that was a lot to have to put out there and I’m summarizing some parts and simplifying others, let me tell you, Eric told us this would be part police procedural and I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the case and it was well-done.
My favorite part is obviously going to be Wilkins stepping in to keep The Aerie from hitting the building codenamed: The Barn. His exclamation right there towards the end is an absolute masterpiece and I still want a t-shirt with his dying words “I. AM. DOING THIS!!!!” He was an unassuming man who demonstrated that sometimes, not all heroes wear capes. Now, for anyone asking that insipid-ass question, there you go. Prove we aren’t reading these goddamn things.
To sum up, I’ve seen some sentiment stating that this is where the Rippaverse really kicks off and that Isom #1 and #2 were great to establish and build the business but this is where the stories really start kicking off and I have to agree. I enjoyed this book more than the two previous Isom comics. I think Chuck’s writing is still dead-on, Joe Bennett’s artwork is still awesome although, Solari looked a little too baby-faced to me, I really think his facial features should be a bit more mature and possibly hardened.
Honestly, my criticisms with this book are so few that I’ve already mentioned them all and I think Dixon’s writing will elevate the brand. I can’t wait to see how the stories of The Rippaverse grow and mature with age. Like I’ve said before, this isn’t Shakespeare or Bulfinch’s Mythology but it doesn’t have to be; it just has to be enjoyable and fun escapist stuff to read and The Rippaverse delivers on that and then some. Though I do have criticisms with story and the odd directions and diversions they take, I’m still taking that wait-and-see approach rather than making demands and just popping nit-picky things that really won’t make a difference in the long-term. The expectation that I mentioned a few lines ago still rings true, just make comics, make them fun, make them to have as few plot holes as possible and that’s it. I think the team at Rippaverse are absolutely delivering on the promises set forth by the Code of Ethics and I’d like to point something out I forgot to point out with Isom #1.
The Matte Cover. I still don’t understand why that’s such a criticism with some. I thought it was a nice departure because, far too often, when faced with a glossy cover, my initial thought is that it’s probably just a very glossy turd but, in the case of Isom #1 it seemed to compliment, rather than detract from it.
The foil cover of Alphacore #1 is absolutely gorgeous and I think it’s worth it for you to pick it up as well as Cover A.
This is a serious banger of an issue, a great introduction to the team, a deep and thoughtful story where the team’s leader isn’t always brilliant and he’s a little brash himself. Valdez was a very deep character who was thoughtful, brilliant and held her own really well but I feel Braxwell needs a little more to him other than just the strong, silent tank of the group. Again, I’m going to stick around with my wait-and-see approach. I may be in for surprises, who knows?
Also there’s the price point, you’re not paying quite as much as you will for Isom #1 and, if you haven’t gotten caught up on Isom or Alphacore, get your issues at the link here.
Don’t miss out and don’t sleep on this one.
Make Mine Rippaverse and then tell me one thing in the comments down below…
What Was Your Favorite Part?