What do a chain-smoking French supermodel and a constantly-speeding Southern firecracker have in common? (Aside from the superpowers, of course.)

There will be spoilers in this post, if you’re still keeping track.

I realized belatedly that contrary to what one might expect from a racist sexist homophobic alt-right publisher like Arkhaven, the Alt-Hero series features a handful of very strong female characters.

In issue #2, Shiloh Summers is introduced peacefully washing her blue Mustang convertible wearing daisy dukes and a Confederate flag bikini top. She then proceeds to drop some red-headed, green-eyed Southern charm to get out of a speeding ticket, specifically aligns herself with Alabama (as a Pacific Northwesterner I really don’t get it, sorry) and speeds on her merry way–right into a trap laid for her by the Feds. Even though she raises “hayell” before getting caught, alas, somebody  has to get broken out of an armed facility, and that person is Shiloh.

Part of the rescue team is another badass female character, Ryu No Seishin, who delivers the immortal line “We’re here to rescue you.” Ryu can shoot flames from her fingertips and has amazing hair. I want to know more.

Back in issue #1, on the other hand, we meet Dominique Jeanneret through a pop and a clap of her powers facing off against the EU. A chain-smoking red-headed supermodel, she puts up a good fight against the regular-guy squad until she gets taken out by a punch square in the face from Captain Europa. And though she is wooed by the Global Justice Initiative, she knows how to negotiate and keeps her option to smoke, always.

Am I going crazy? Two redheads? This is not that big of a comic book franchise (yet), so how could there possibly be room for two such visually similar characters?

Ah, here we go: We have one redhead taken into custody in the EU, fed a pack of lies but offered a lucrative salary, who then unthinkingly joins the bad guys. The other redhead is taken into custody in the United States, but is instead broken out and joins the ragtag band of vigilantes who are, one presumes, fighting on the side of good.

A tale of two red-heads. Two ladies who are, in the core of their character design, offensive to someone, somewhere. Two ladies who are feisty, who can look after themselves, and who are fighting on opposite sides of the line. Mirror images.

If there’s a transatlantic showdown, I hope we get a cover of them facing off against each other.

Back into the world of Arkhaven we go. As with issue #1, we pick back up with the recruitment of superheroes, but this time we have hopped the pond to the states. And topics are now highly relevant: one of our heroes is acting as a vigilante enforcer, ridding the world of MS13 and Antifa one gang at a time.

There are quite a few other triggers embedded in the story, too. You could play bingo with current events.

But the real story is the introduction of Rebel, our Southern Belle superhero. TBH, I’m not sure what her superpower is aside from being hot, flexible, and charming, but I trust that we’ll find out in the coming issues. I have a feeling that Rebel will become a major plot point.

Because this issue focused mainly on two superheroes instead of one, the plot felt a little more disjointed. Not bad enough to be an issue, but there was a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time so don’t expect any hand-holding or elegant transitions.

Which leads me to my major logistical complaint: sometimes I’m still not sure which panel to read in what order, and sometimes panels seem to be jammed into the story without warning. There are a few rapid transitions and flashbacks in this issue that took me a few read-throughs to parse out. (Please note that I’m not a seasoned comics reader so your mileage may vary.)

However. The art is much improved in this issue. So much that I could see someone ripping out a page and hanging it in his wall (but somehow I suspect that is comic book sacrilege). I appreciate enjoyed the range and quality of the facial expressions, and the backgrounds. All those trees!

The coloring is also pretty great, especially the bits with light it fire in them.

Anyhow, this was a fun issue meeting many of the American heroes (including a 100% genuine American badass). Where issue #1 sucked me in with a compelling story, issue #2 presents a myriad of compelling characters.

It’s a nice balance, and I look forward to seeing how the story develops on both sides of the Atlantic.

And maybe the Pacific, based on that cliffhanger!

Okay: there are some things that you should know if you’re going to read one my review of a comic.

1. I’m a reluctant comics reader. I’m not even really a comics person at all, there just happen to be a few that I really like (like Watchmen, Hellboy, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and Tintin).

2. Double that for superhero comics. I couldn’t even make it through the series that the first Thor movie was based on, even though I liked the movie and the writer that wrote both the movie and the comic. And that was when I was actively taking a class on comics because I want to understand.

Basically I’m a comics window-shopper.

So trust me when I tell you that I opened Alt-Hero #1: Crackdown and it’s so good that I read the whole thing in one sitting.

I was just going to open her up, look at a few pages of the art, and go to bed. But no: I got sucked into the story so thoroughly that I was sad and disappointed to reach the end so quickly. Completely forgot that I was reading the first issue of a comic and not a graphic novel.

If you are a superhero comics reader, the structure is very familiar. It’s a superhero origin story, opening into a Eurozone-flavored X-men setup. All the characters are slightly improbably and – well – very superheroesque in that way that the powers really don’t make any sense and it’s all very weird. (Sorry, I told you I could never get into superheroes!)

However, the characters are compelling. Even the ones who are introduced briefly and have few speaking lines – somehow, they are intriguing and I want to know more. I even want to get to know Captain Europa.

These well-drawn characters lead into quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. And I don’t say that lightly – this wasn’t sensible_chuckle.gif but a literal throw-my-head-back laugh. I appreciate that, especially in a comic that tackles dark political themes.

At this point it’s all positive: gripping story, characters that you can tell have deep backstories, and good jokes.

However (you knew this was coming), there are two things that I hope improve in future issues.

One is the placement of the speech bubbles. Sometimes it was a little difficult to determine the order in which they were to be read, and while I think I guessed right most of the time, sometimes it was a little daunting to look at a new panel and not really know where to start.

The other is that I don’t love the art. It’s not bad art, certainly, and it gets the point across, but it’s not art that I would want to look at for an extended period of time. Note that with the exception of Watchmen, my favorite comics all have highly stylized, refined artwork.

In terms of a story-focused approach to comics, which I think Arkhaven is using, I think this is a perfectly appropriate style – workmanlike, not overly realistic or overly stylized. It reminds me of the amount of work put into something like old-school Doctor Who episodes or a pulpy sci-fi novel — just enough work put in to build the world, but that needs the grace and imagination of the reader to fill in the rest of the blanks.

Basically the antithesis of Modern Literary Fiction™, which I would venture to guess that Arkhaven Comics stands resolutely against. All seems to be in order.

I should have probably said this at the beginning of the review, but I was a backer for this run of Alt-Hero and firmly believe in their mission of pushing back against the SJWs in comics.

That said, I still enjoyed the heck out of this comic and can’t wait for the next one to hit my inbox.

It’s available on Amazon for $2.99 if you’re interested.