Comic Review: Omega Flight #3

Omega Flight #3

Written by: Michael Avon Oeming
Art by: Scott Kolins
Colors by: Brian Reber
Published by: Marvel Comics

Ok, confession time. I’ve been an Alpha Flight fan since their first issue came out in 1983. So anytime I see someone is giving the Canucks another shot at a series, I get both excited and apprehensive. I mean, let’s face it…Alpha Flight series have as much trouble staying together as the Alpha Flight team. Seagle’s 1997 series was cool. It lasted 20 issues and got cancelled before everything could be resolved and some of it just got dropped. Lobdell’s 2004 series was fun, but I could tell it wouldn’t last very long (this time 12 issues), and again some stuff just got dropped.

Which brings us to Oeming’s Omega Flight. Oeming has done what both Seagle and Lobdell did and just created the team from the ground up. Throw in a couple of the original Alphans and then just build around them. Oeming, however, didn’t create new characters, he pulled from the existing character pool, and some of his choices really intrigued me. I mean, a Canadian team with the USAgent on it? Spider-Woman? Sorry, I mean Arachne. And the strangest addition…Beta Ray Bill? I know, I know…Oeming wrote the Stormbreaker series.

This series is already set to be a limited series, so I assume that too much won’t be left dangling, but I’ll expect some danglies. I figure they’ll use the success of this limited series to determine if Omega Flight gets a regular, on-going series.

Well, we’ve gotten to #3 (#4 is supposed to come out July 11th, so mark your calendars). We’ve gotten to the third issue and we don’t even have a team yet. The Wrecking Crew (talk about a villain team you love to hate) is wandering about trashing stuff with an injured Sasquatch in tow and they still can’t get themselves together. Talisman, whom I’ve never liked because she’s always been a bitch, is, well, being a bitch. She blames Michael Pointer for the death of her father and refuses to work with the team because of his involvement as the new Guardian. Funny, I remember her refusing to work with Alpha Flight because she was pissed at her father. To compliment her attitude, we have USAgent, an ass, doesn’t want to take Pointer to rescue Sasquatch because he’s “a rookie”. Arachne’s keeping quiet in all this, but she’s still got her daughter Rachael tagging along.

Ok, as much complaining as I can do with this team, I think it is very well written. Of course Talisman is reacting like this, and if I saw her playing nice I would be upset. If USAgent wasn’t being the USAss, I wouldn’t know what to do. One day someone is going to do something with or to Rachael Carpenter and I can’t wait. It’s a really well written book and reminiscent of Byrne’s work with all of the infighting.

Kolins’s work is good. I am impressed because I don’t like a lot of his older work, but he’s doing a great job here.

So Oeming’s Omega Flight is a good read, but don’t expect a feel good story. It’s overwrought with intense, negative emotion, but still a good read.

Rating: 3 1/2 Worms - I'm concerned that we really don't have enough time to see what they will be like as a team, which, I feel, helps determine my level of interest in the book. The first Alpha Flight comics got the team together in one issue, although it was a double-sized issue, and we got an idea of how the characters relate to each other. We're three issues in and not anywhere close. I hate Bendisized plots.