While Avengers: The Initiative is upgraded to an ongoing series, Omega Flight has the misfortune to go the other way.  But after reading the first issue, I can see Marvel's point.

The basic idea is that the Civil War in the USA over the Superhuman Registration Act has led to criminals taking refuge in Canada, and a new crime wave emerging.  This doesn't really make sense to start with.  The villains weren't directly involved in the Civil War.  But in any event, they're in Canada now and causing trouble, which prompts the Canadian government to reform Alpha Flight.  Except this time, they're called Omega Flight, and half the team is made up of Americans.

At a push, this is a concept for a single story - the team is brought together to deal with the temporary problems caused by Civil War.  But it certainly isn't a premise for an ongoing title.  The entire book can't be about people running away from the war that finished a few months ago.

The big problem with Alpha Flight has always been the fact that it's a weak premise.  Some of the characters are rather interesting, but most of them are dead.  Remove those characters, and you're left with the concept of the Alpha Flight team itself - which is no more than "They're Canadian."  In the past, writers have tried to make something out of the fact that they were a government sponsored team, but Civil War has actually removed that as a viable distinguishing feature.

In theory, I suppose you could have done a book about expatriate American superheroes fleeing to Canada in order to set up the sort of team that the Superhuman Registration Act no longer allows.  That might actually have given the book a clear reason to exist, since it would have been able to tell a type of superhero story that the rest of the Marvel Universe titles can no longer do.  But they haven't done that.

Instead, it's a government-sponsored superhero team, comprised of some loyal Canadian superheroes, and some registered heroes on loan from the USA.  There's an attempt to stress the links with the old Alpha Flight by building the first issue around Sasquatch and, to a lesser extent, Talisman.  But really, it's just another superhero team.  And it's not even a Canadian superhero team.  It's a half-American superhero team, based in Canada.  That's not a premise.  That's a location.

I don't get it.  I really don't get what the big idea of this book is supposed to be.  Surely it's just a random assembly of superheroes who happen to be in Canada but are just doing the same sort of stories as registered heroes in the USA?  I don't see anything in it.  What's the point?  If this is the concept then they made the right call in cutting it down to a miniseries.  If there's more to it, well, it's a shame they didn't manage to communicate it in the first issue.

Without a strong concept behind it, there's not much more to be said.  It's a generic superhero comic, done quite skilfully, and making the most of what it has to work with.  Michael Avon Oeming has written some good stories in the past, and he does the best that could be expected of him with such a shaky premise.  There are plenty of nice details, and artist Scott Kolins has always been a sound storyteller.  In fact, it really feels as though the creators care about this book, which is the one thing that genuinely marks it out from the pack.  And it makes me feel a little bit bad about the fact that I can't honestly say I share their enthusiasm.

As with Fallen Son, there's nothing really wrong with the execution.  In fact, it's better than many books in that regard.  It just doesn't seem like an especially great concept to start with.

Rating: B

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