Opinion: After The Success Of ‘ISOM’, Can Comic Vets Chuck Dixon And Joe Bennett’s ‘Alphacore’ Deliver Another Hit For The Rippaverse?
Marc Clair
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For some, Eric July may be best known as the lead singer of the band Backwordz. For others, a regular political commentator on The Blaze. Others still as the 500k subscriber-having host of For Canon’s Sake, a YouTube show largely dedicated to criticizing ‘woke’ messaging in mainstream comics.
More recently, he’s become known for doing what very few ever venture to do: Looking to grow beyond being a simple critic, July decided in 2022 that rather than just complain, he was going to be part of the solution regarding the comic book industry’s bleeding and dissatisfied customer count.
And thus, the Rippaverse was born.
And despite the best attempts of its detractors to kick up a storm about the price of the line’s books or label its fans a “hate group“, the Rippaverse has been nothing short of a financial success.
The line’s flagship title, ISOM #1, had a huge first-day launch back in July of last year, eventually amassing over $3.7 million in sales. Its follow-up issue, ISOM #2, also rocketed out of the gate with almost $1 million in sales within the first 48 hours of its campaign being live. Interest in the title was eventually able to carry the book to a final pre-sale pull of $2.3 million in sales.
However, while ISOM #1 and #2 showed the comic book industry what July and the Rippaverse could do as a creative force, one could argue that Alphacore #1 presents an opportunity to show what July can do as a full-on publisher.
As of writing, Rippaverse Comics has announced that orders of Alphacore #1, with writing and art by industry veterans Chuck Dixon and Joe Bennett, have begun shipping. Having sold over 10,000 pre-orders for over $1,000,000, the book’s success marks the third time in as many launches that the fledgling publishing endeavor has breached the $1 million mark in pre-orders alone.
However, while fans of July may forgive any creative deficiencies with his first foray into writing with ISOM, no such excuses will be accepted for the pair of industry veterans – both of whom have been the subject of “cancel culture” attacks due to their political beliefs – that make up Alphacore‘s creative team.
Its author, Dixon, is well-known for his work across Marvel, DC, and independent publishers like IDW, having had signature runs on characters like The Punisher and Batman, the latter of which included his creation of Batman villain “Bane.”
Likewise, Bennet has an equally storied career as an artist, with runs on major books like DC’s Teen Titans, and Marvel’s Amazing Spiderman and, most recently, Immortal Hulk, tucked under his belt. The latter was his last mainstream American work before Marvel seemingly blacklisted Bennett due to a political cartoon in support of then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsinaro.
And while the credibility lent to the Rippaverse by these two industry stalwarts is no doubt an upside to this partnership, their addition to the team will also – and perhaps more importantly – energize the creative forces needed to further develop July’s Florespark, Texas-based franchise.
But what do we actually know about Alphacore?
The Alphacore team has already been introduced to Rippaverse readers through brief appearances in both of ISOM’s thus-far two books.
In ISOM #1, we first meet the Alphacore team as they attempt to apprehend Yaira, another character making her debut appearance ahead of her own series debut in 2024. We even get names for the team’s three, all-green clad members: Bryan Solari, who appears to be the leader, the energy-cable-harness-wearing Ingrid Valdez, and the shaded helmet-wearing Braxwell.
We learn little else about Alphacore until ISOM‘s next issue, wherein we see the team in their floating headquarters high above Florespark. Therein, Solari addresses the team about the “disaster” that was their failed pursuit of Yaira. The team argues a bit in this scene, and we get the sense the team has only recently come together.
We don’t learn an awful lot about these characters from these appearances, outside of the fact that they are in pursuit of Yaira and generally seem to be surveyors of “Excepts” – the term for super-powered beings in the Rippaverse.
However, we can glean a little more insight into the plot of Alphacore thanks to the Rippaverse campaign page for the book.
According to the available preview pages, it appears the book will see the titular Except team called in to take care of Except-related problems that the Florespark Police are too outgunned to handle. But not everyone is a fan of their superpowered heroics, with both villains and heroes finding the team’s methods to be less-than-conductive to their respective goals.
As such, when an investigation into a thwarted bank bombing uncovers a string of murders-by-Except, Solari, Braxwell, and Ingrid Valdez must work alongside both their supporters and detractors alike to uncover the identity of the puppetmaster behind these crimes.
Truth be told, the plot description doesn’t provide much to indicate this to be anything more than a standard ‘government superhero team’ type of tale, but the intrigue lies in the compelling story-telling experience that both Dixon and Bennett have been shown to be capable of.
After all, Dixon has seen critical acclaim scripting intriguing government spy drama during his G.I. Joe run with IDW, while Bennet has drawn just about every significant character from the ‘Big Two’ you can think of over his thirty-year career in the industry.
As a general fan of July, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that ISOM has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen in my thirty-plus years as a consumer of superheroes. However, I will tell you that it did provide me with something fresh, something original, and something I hadn’t quite seen before, which is more than I can say for the vast majority of modern mainstream comics.
Will Dixon and Bennett be able to take the Rippaverse to the next level? The answer remains to be definitively seen, but a million dollars or so says that many fans are excited to find out – myself included.
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