THE ALTERNATES #1 / Story by PATTON OSWALT, JORDAN BLUM & TIM SEELEY / Art by CHRISTOPHER MITTEN & TESS FOWLER / Colors by IAN HERRING & TESS FOWLER/ Letters by NATE PIEKOS OF BLAMBOT / Published by DARK HORSE COMICS
Twilight City has many heroes and The Alternates were among the least of them. Made up of the misfits who didn’t fit in with the mainstream heroes in The Continuum, The Alternates still sacrificed themselves to stop an invasion from another dimension.
For three years they were trapped in the multiverse, experiencing lives they might have lived elsewhere. It has been two years since they returned, to the surprise of everyone, and now they are still struggling to move on.
Now The Alternates are more support group than superhero team. But when a new threat from the strange dimension called The Ledge threatens Twilight City in the form of a new drug, The Alternates will rise again to be the heroes they once were…. won’t they?
Minor Threats was something of a surprise when it came out in 2022. With Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum (who produced the animated MODOK series) behind it, a deep dive into superhero subculture and a spirited satire of the usual cliches was expected. What stunned audiences was that, amid the jokes about the realities of being a low level supervillain, they also spun a truly touching story of several lost souls who had reasons for becoming villains and (for one night) very reluctant heroes.
The Alternates continues this trend, focusing upon a team cut from the same cloth as James Gunn’s The Specials and the Doom Patrol. We still get the expected jokes about anti-social geniuses and the sex lives of beast-folk, yet there is heart among the comedy. This was all reportedly the idea of Tim Seeley, who was inspired by Minor Threats and asked to play in the same sandbox. It is hard to say how the workload on the writing was split, but it is a worthy continuation of the original series.
The artwork equals the story, evoking the spirit of 1990s Vertigo in every panel. Again, this is not surprising, given Christopher Mitten’s previous work on Hellboy and the return of Minor Threats colorist Ian Herring.. There are also some beautifully painted pages by Tess Fowler, which depict the secret life of Mary Marie the Multi-Monster.
If you enjoyed Minor Threats, The Alternates is a worthy sequel that expands the same universe. And if you haven’t enjoyed Minor Threats (which just came out in TP), it will still appeal to anyone who enjoys tales of weird heroes in a world they never made!
The Alternates #1 arrives in comics shops everywhere on September 13, 2023.