Alpha: Big Time #4

Background

As you should know, Andy Maguire got powers, then he lost the powers, and now he has them again, thanks to The Superior Spider-Man. With the powers, he's been going around town, helping put out fires, killing giant monsters and falling in love with disgusting, bratty girls. Last issue, a mugger that he shot came out of his coma and turned out to be a monster...or something. Yeah, the series is as bad as it sounds, and it only gets worse. Bear with me with this one, friends...

Story Details

In Pittsburgh, PA, Alpha is fighting a supervillain called The Miller, a "disgruntled ex-Stark enterprises engineer" who has a hammer that apparently transmutes matter. Sadly, Alpha only knows what two of the words in that sentence means. This is what the youth of America has come to. Anyways, The Miller is wearing a brownish suit with a wielding mask. Yes, he is a sucky villain in a sucky miniseries. I'm not surprised.

Alpha dodges his hammer and punches him, but he quickly recovers. Alpha then charges at him at full speed but is hit in the face with his hammer. And he is sent in to a building. Yes, the boy who supposedly has more power than any other hero in the world was just taken down by a guy with a hammer. "You're just like them...those #$%@#$s stole my inventions!" the almighty Miller yells. So now we know his motives are stereotypical and lame now too. "I'm sort of new to all of this, could you explain what "transmutes" means? And also "matter?"" Alpha asks. And suddenly every scientist reading this comic threw it in the trash is frustration.

"You're kidding, right? What do they teach you in--" Miller asks, voicing what we are all thinking ourselves. "Psych! Learning is stupid!" Alpha yells as he picks up the Miller and flies into the air. "Speaking of learning..." a voice calls from the sky. "Thou shouldst learn not to steal someone else's style." Suddenly, lightning shoots from the sky and electrocutes Miller and Alpha. Thor flies down, catching Miller, and asks if Alpha is okay. Thor says that he heard he had his powers returned and knew his lightning wouldn't hurt him. Apparently, Thor isn't bright enough to call the Avengers to depower Alpha, knowing how much damage he did before.

"Uh... Can I go to jail now, please?" Miller asks. "This was another epic adventure, my young friend," Thor says. Clearly, Thor doesn't get out of Asgard enough to know this is as lame as comic book plots get. He then offers Alpha some advice, "When I was a young welp like you, I thought the only thing that mattered was adventure and mead and women. I learned, though all three of those are of the utmost importance...so are the precious lives Odin bestowed upon all that walk. We are merely above them so that we can raise them up." What a movie moment. "What about mead and women?" Alpha asks. "They shall come in time," Thor answers. Movie moment over. And a giant waste of time.

Thor bids Alpha a "fare thee well" and takes Miller to Stark. In the observing, a man that looks Edward from Twilight talks to somebody on the phone, revealing that he's following Alpha. He is part of the group from last issue's cliffhanger. I just don't care enough to look up his name.

At John Forbes High School, Alpha is running up to the entrance, repeatedly reminding us that he's late. In the hall, he meets the principal, who apparently just stands in the halls because he doesn't have a school to manage or anything. Andy says that he was in the bathroom, but the Principal doesn't buy it. He suspects that he was smoking cigarettes since he smells "like an ashtray." He has detention for the day.

After staring at Soupcan during class, debating if she likes him or not and wasting a page, he runs after her once the bell rings. He asks why she's been ignoring him and she snaps, "You're cool and I don't hate sitting with you. And I'm grateful you saved me and everything, but-- No. Just no." Andy should just move on. She's playing hard-to-get, but she is extremely ugly. So, Soupcan's stupidity matches her looks.

Andy is depressed and watches Soupcan walk away. Suddenly, he hears a cry for help and flies out of his school. "Didn't want to go to trig class anyways..." he says. The man who looks like Edward watches him leave and informs his boss that he's left and his house is clear.

At Allegheny General Hospital, a doctor is happy that, in his words, "Nova is here!" Sadly, Jeph Loeb is currently writing Nova in a different, much more enjoyable book. The doctor's stuck wit Alpha. A blue ooze is bursting from the hospital doors. Apparently, according to the doctor, the mugger "got up and started absorbing people!" They tried to quarantine it at first but in the morning it got up an, get his, ate at least 400 people! And he didn't even call the police or six Avengers teams or anybody! IS EVERY FREAKING PERSON IN THIS COMIC DUMB AS $#%$!!!!!????? I give up!

"Nova, are you okay?" the doctor asks. "My name is Alpha!" he yells as he punches the monster. Sadly, it absorbs the energy from his punch like the monster from issue 2 because Joshua Hale Fialkov is too lazy to give it another power. Then, it starts...eating...him. No wonder sales for this book are so low.

Back at Andy's house, his family is watching him on TV. So, a news crew was able to get into the room without the giant monster eating them? And the Avengers or police couldn't?! I give up. Again. Back to the actual story, Andy's grandma asks...oh god. She asks Andy's mom if that superhero looks like Andy. Where is her seeing eye dog?! She must be blind! Andy's mom says that she knows it isn't because she knows he didn't get his powers back. "I AM his mother--" she says. Yes, she is his mother...and doesn't even know what her son looks like! This proves my point in capitalized letters in the ninth paragraph.

Suddenly, two men knock at the door, one of them is the man who bears resemblance to Edward (I'm just going to call him Edward now) and a Russian guy. Edward walks in with gasoline and say they have a "message from Boss Cohen." Andy's mom runs to the kitchen and grabs a knife, telling them to leave. Edward drops the gasoline on the floor, then a lit match. "Tell Alpha Boss Cohen says hello," he says.

Back at the hospital, Alpha hears his mom cry for help and leaves the hospital to help her, leaving the monster to devour the MULTIPLE NEWS CREWS AND CIVILIANS. I'm not even going to get started. Andy flies as fast as he can home, resulting in him looking like a chipmunk. When he gets there, his entire house is on fire. Every good superhero story needs their house to burn down right? It happened in Iron Man 3...

General Comments

I had fun writing this review. I'm also giving this issue the official Cody Wilson: Stupidest Comic Book Written in 2013! Congrats, Fialkov! You should be so utterly NOT proud of this! Prepare a speech for the Cody Wilson: Stupidest Comic Book Written Awards! Legendary writers like Daniel Way, Terry Kavanagh, and Howard Mackie will also be there. I can imagine your speech now: "I have to thank my dog, Rufus, for giving me all of my ideas for Alpha."

Yeah...the story is that bad. I may be the only one in the world buying the next issue. This whole issue was like a filler. What was the point of Alpha's beginning fight and team-up with Thor? To fill room in the script and hopefully raise sales. What was the point of returning to school for three pages for nothing to happen? To fill room in the script. What was the point of the monster that absorbed 400 people? To fill room in the script. And it was done so poorly, I laughed. People, if you want a good story, please go and pick up Nova. It's like Alpha, but with 205% more logic.

On the bright side, this is probably Nuno Plati's best issue. I don't know what about the colors I like, but it really adds some depth to the art. Plus, his Thor looks totally awesome, as unnecessary as his appearance was. The only bad part of this issue art-wise is the spaghetti monster.

Overall Rating

This is crap. Complete and utter crap. I really thank you if you read all the way to this part of the review.