I really want to join with others in saying how great this is. The concept of the main story is a great one, but honestly, in this first issue, it doesn't really go anywhere, but rather seems to revel in its own cleverness. Frankly, it comes across as a little bit smug. Yes, Earth Alpha did remind me of reading Batman as a child, but at the same time it was too accurate, so that I was simply irritated by it.

I'm hoping that having set things up, the following instalments will deliver on the premise in a better way. The pastiche of the "silver age" is simply too heavy-handed in this issue: it is too knowing, while the modern Miller-esque Earth Omega gets too little attention. It all starts getting interesting at the end of the strip, but then it is cut short because of the need to cram in a pointless "silver age" Stinger strip (wow, I can live without that). Giving those extra pages to the main story may well have delivered a more even first instalment.

As for the Grant Morrison prose story? Oh sweet lord, save me from ever having to read something like that again! Grant appears to have turned in one of his efforts from when he was 12 years old and his English teacher said that the class had to use similes and adjectives in their story. It is full of nuggets of pure turgid reaching for competence. Morrison can write great comics, but his prose is awful. Some of my particular favourites of clunkiness are,


"Every tattoo told a story, of course - the winking, lascivious merman he'd earned after his battle with the Fish-Priests of Mandaloo told the story of Basic Instinct, the 1992 erotic thriller, starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas." Awful.


"On his hairy, burly forearm, a long dead Azerbaijani miser had inked a gaunt and spectral Grim Reaper, clad in sepulchral sacerdotal robes, with a full-length scythe clenched in one overly-knuckled fist; this stark image condensed the complete story of the 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle You've Got Mail..." Please, shoot me now. (And what on Earth does "overly-knuckled" mean? FFS).

Truly terrible writing.

The magazine approach is clearly different, but it all feels so forced; "Look at me! Look at me!" it cries. I appreciate that AHOY want to set their stall out as something different from other publishers, but this is just too try-hard for my liking. I will read the next issue because the central premise of The Wrong Earth is an interesting and strong one, but Tom Peyer has a lot of work to do from hereon if he is to realize the potential. And please, no more arch "silver age" backup strips, and definitely no more of Grant Morrison's school work.