Joe Friday 21/04/06

Still, I find the news positive. I mean, "we're all telling the truth" and "fans [meaning Alpha Flight fans] will be pleased/thrilled/very happy..."

So who from AF is likely to be involved? Forget HoM. Forget depowered. Deaths matter, and we don't know who from AF is dead (after all, only one New Warrior survives the start of Civil War; odd that New Warriors fans get to know somebody survived and only one, not Speedball, but we get nothing about dead/alive).

Wild Child? A Guardian (really, there should be a Guardian)? A Hudson? Shaman, Puck, Sasquatch? Diamond Lil? Nemesis? Nemesis' Gamma Flight, sort of?

Don't forget, Beta Flight or Gamma Flight could be the title. :shock:

And that reminds me of AF's 'hook':

- Canadians
- Government-run
- Tiered into levels.

That makes Alpha Flight different! A team aligned with a government department and with training levels. No other team is like that, not the X-Men even (as if they're organized into training levels!).

I knew AF was different from the rest I mentioned and had it's own hook! 8)

One "hook" AF used to have, that has come and gone is the mystical/magical nature of the stories and characters. Concentrating on that side of things would be good IMO

Ben

Agreed, if not 'Dr. Strange' weirdness.

two quotes that sounded extremely positive to me during that interview:

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Odds of seeing a new starring project in the next 2 years:

JQ: Any day now, but don’t hold your breath.

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JQ: What I can tell readers is that they’re just going to have to take me at my word for now, there will not be an Alpha Flight and they’re going to love it!

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sounds to me sometime during civil war, maybe issue 3 or 4 a new series will be announced with some artwork, which joe q seems to not announce a new title unless it's accomponied by some for of art, which will be a new series involving some af mainstays and some major marvel characters (possibly wolverine) which will act as a international task force based out of canada.

hopefully a great artist will be linked to the series, i loved claytons run on the series, such a shame it ended early. mciven or cassady would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Ben

One "hook" AF used to have, that has come and gone is the mystical/magical nature of the stories and characters. Concentrating on that side of things would be good IMO

Ben

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That's what I always thought was the hook. You had a handful of magic-based characters (Shaman, Snowbird) paired with a handful of technology based characters (Mac, Box) and some that straddled the line (Sasquatch's origin revealed as tying into the Great Beasts, not just a Hulk-like science experiment). I liked the idea that there was a mythology behind everything in the Byrne years.

In that light, I suppose there's some way that the botched origin-attempts for Puck and the twins ~could~ have worked, since they at least addressed those themes (poorly in my opinion, but still). The team sort of suffered from the "they're just mutants" catch-all with the later members.

I could see someone writing a really great story one day where it's revealed that Madison Jeffereies got his powers from Somon The Artificer (taking "The Artificer" very literally and tying it to Madison's powers). Mutants are sort of boring outside the core X-Men concept.

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Originally Posted by Adam

I could see someone writing a really great story one day where it's revealed that Madison Jeffereies got his powers from Somon The Artificer (taking "The Artificer" very literally and tying it to Madison's powers). Mutants are sort of boring outside the core X-Men concept.

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That's a cool idea.

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Originally Posted by Snowsquatch

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Originally Posted by Adam

I could see someone writing a really great story one day where it's revealed that Madison Jeffereies got his powers from Somon The Artificer (taking "The Artificer" very literally and tying it to Madison's powers). Mutants are sort of boring outside the core X-Men concept.

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That's a cool idea.

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Except that he's been already identified/confirmed as a mutant...it would be unwise to retcon established continuity/history(example: Puck)...Alpha Flight has been mucked with enough.

Dana

Listen they can call a book "Poop" and I would buy it so long as there are a couple of Alphans involved in a monthly title.

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Originally Posted by PWalk

Listen they can call a book "Poop" and I would buy it so long as there are a couple of Alphans involved in a monthly title.

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As long as you realize that as Dept. H Janitor you're responsible for cleaning up the "Poop". I'm with you though. I love the characters and will just about follow them anywhere. I'd buy "Defectors" if it had a few Alphans in it. But if they do another Alpha Flight, they damn well better have Alpha Flight in it. Otherwise, only us diehards will hang around for any period of time. If Marvel believes changing the title will solve the problem, they are sadly mistaken. Fans want to see the characters they love in stories that matter and I'll concede with beautiful artwork. Once they get those three things straight they should have a best seller.

I thought the original hook waas actually that it was a very psychological book, both in terms of abnormalcy and normal human adjustment. All from the Byrne issues..
Heather: 7 siblings, wanting no kids in her marriage, yet always den mother
Jeanne-Marie/Aurora: MPD
Sasquatch: competitive, something of a bully who experiemented on himself...did he get beat in a barfight before deciding to make himself Hulk-like? The constant potential of loss of control to the monster.
Jean-Paul: sexuality hinted at but not revealed outright or defined, overly defensive whose association with the team remained his desire to connect with his only living relative, and perhaps atonement for his past terrorist connections
Snowbird: rectifying family and friends and the RCMP job, tearing the heart out of one of her best friends then turning to a lover with the plea "show me how to be human". And the constant potential of loss of control to the monster.
Shaman: loss of his wife and child, culture conflict, guilt
Puck: adapting to society that views him as disabled and less of a man, the unrequitted feelings that's we've all had for someone at one time or another.
Marrina: the sheltered girl fully accepted for who she is in her hometown must face the larger world, heritage she had not suspected, and he constant potential of loss of control to the monster.
Mac was the foil to these people. No wonder many readers found him boring! What issues did he have to deal with except his own ethics in an unethical corporate world?

It's funny. I always thought that the core hook to Alpha Flight was that it wasn't really a team book at all. In many ways, the members didn't get along and after Department H initially collapsed, they had no government ties.

I could be remembering this wrong, but the initially team formed for issues 1-4 (I'm not accounting appearances pre-Alpha V1 #1), then Byrne told individual stories 'til issue 12. Then the team didn't get together again until, what, issue 23?

Regardless, this is what made Alpha interesting. They were thrown together mostly through circumstance and stayed together for a variety of fairly complex reasons. The other aspects (magic, etc...) added depth to their characters and gave Byrne interesting stories to tell. But at it's core, Alpha was a team like no other. A bunch of individuals who happened to work together when they shared a common interest. There's a lot of ground to mine there for someone who's got the interest.

Von

A bit like the "un-team" we call the Defenders then, eh?

Hrrrmmm.

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NRAMA: Keeping with the Pittsburgh con, Mike Oeming teased a few things, that he has a “something huge” spinning out of Civil War this September (that is not Thor). We haven’t double-checked to see if Oeming is originally from Canada, but one title certainly springs to mind…

JQ: I believe Oeming is from the barren, icy wilderness of New Jersey.

NRAMA: He also mentioned Beta Ray Bill showing up in a regular series, and reiterated that Ares will be joining a super-team. Anything you can add to any of this?

JQ: Nope, so far it sounds like a plan, but it’s way too early to talk about. But thinking about this, if you’re hinting at Oeming writing Alpha Flight, are Beta Ray Bill and Ares Canadian?

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sometimes the way he words things make me scratch my head.

Well, Joe Q. likes to rag us AF fans, hmmm?