He was depowered? bah! he wasn't listed as depowered before. Damn
Thanks a lot
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He was depowered? bah! he wasn't listed as depowered before. Damn
Thanks a lot
I noticed that too....I'm guessing TPTB wanted to be rid of all the Vol 2 Newbies, but they apparently forgot Flex when they first made their list.
Dana
OK so it did come out this week. We get a nice 1pg summary of Omega Flight, including a mention of the interview between Walter and Pointer previous to the mini-series. I'm still baffled why it wasn't included in the TPB. No mention of Daisy. Anyway, we also get the Silvestri art group shot and a misspelling of, "Langkowski." Oh, well. They did spell it correctly later on in the text. It assigns Sasquatch and Talisman as current members of Omega Flight, which is good news! I thought they left OF as of issue #5, but apparently they are still members. This is good because the MCP thingy could expand to include them.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
Love,
rplass
The entry irked me when they said Guardian saved Sasquatch from suffering a massive beating. Yet Wrecker who was charged with Tanaraq took it to BRB and that wasn't mentioned at all.
At least it had an entry for Omega (inaccurate as it may have been)...I was ecstatic to see an entry for Commander Arcturus Rann (of the Micronauts), after twenty years (who guest-starred in Alpha Flight Vol 2)...Finally! Slayback also had an entry and he has some ties to Canada...Via Deadpool, the Weapon X program, etc...
Dana
Heya gang,Quote:
Originally Posted by rplass
As writer of the Omega Flight entry, I thought I'd drop by and respond to your comments.
First, glad you guys liked the entry! It was tough trying to squeeze OF's story thus far into a single page, but I think (and hope) I did them justice.
Daisy wasn't mentioned as I felt she wasn't crucial to the entry.
"Whoops!" on the misspelling of Walter's name in the members list.
Sasquatch and Talisman are both definitely still members of the team. They've both just taken time off to address personal issues/other commitments.
The BRB/Wrecker clash wasn't mentioned due to space reasons. There just wasn't enough room to cover every aspect of the OF/WC clash, so I tried to hit the major points of the encounter.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
One typo makes the entry "inaccurate"? If you're referring to other aspects of the mini-series not being mentioned, that's not inaccurate, that's just making the best use of the allocated space.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmdrkoenig67
Thanks for the reply back, always nice when a writer from the handbooks such as Stuart Vandal and now yourself visit as we do appreciate your guys works. Overall it was a fine entry, I liked it the entry just the comment that Guardian saved Sasquatch from a beating irked me as Sasquatch has taken far worse and kept fighting. Also Wrecker who was charged with Tanaraq wrecked BRB pretty bad and Sasquatch..well he is Tanaraq's avatar so don't see why Sasquatch was going to get beat up badly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric J. Moreels
Sasquatch just seems to get the short end of the stick in the handbooks as he is listed as class 70, yet he has MANY class 100 feats and has defeated other class 100 characters. Haha, awww..well I could go on a rant but you wouldn't want to hear it.
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/f98/t465150.html
What other enteries did you complete for this handbook?
Sheeesh! Don't shoot me...I'm just saying that another poster here indicated that it wasn't entirely accurate (my exact quote: "At least it had an entry for Omega inaccurate as it may have been")...I haven't even read the entry yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric J. Moreels
Dana
For this issue I wrote Omega Flight, Revanche, Ladyfair and Slayback.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
Just chiming back in on this one - I've just found the volume 1 reference to Puck choosing his name from Shakespeare's elf again. I knew I had read it when I originally wrote his entry, but it's taken until now for me to find it again - naturally when I wasn't looking for it anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Alpha Flight Annual #1, p.3, panel 2
Madison Jeffries "What're you readin, Puck?"
Judd "A play about my namesake, Mr. Jeffries..Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"."
While the argument could be made that the namesake comment isn't definitive (eg even if I shared the same name as someone but the sharing was coincidence rather than design, I could still describe that other person as my namesake), it still supports the "named after the elf" over the "named after the hockey equipment" - and it comes from Judd himself, not a doppleganger of same. And it is where I got the information I used in the Handbook entry.
Oh nice, I'm digging these handbooks as it's bringing back characters we havn't heard from in awhileQuote:
Originally Posted by Eric J. Moreels
Good find I had to look back and read it myself and no I agree it makes complete sense if Puck named himself after a Shakespearean character rather then a hockey puck. Puck was indeed a scholar and several times would actually quote Hamlet in battle. I was confused why he would name himself after a "puck"Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Oh is the discussion of Sasquatch powergrid still open? :wink:
Yes, it is. Looking back, I forwarded your queries and points on to the team, but we were in the middle of a deadline doom, and there wasn't a full response from the writer - it got lost in the shuffle so to speak. I'll bring it up again, and see what the final verdict is.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
:-k Excellent, keep me informed pleaseQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Um...John Byrne mentioned where he got Puck's name over twenty years ago (Indeed, he named Puck after Shakespeare's ethereal spirit...Not a piece of rubber). He mentioned it yet again in the Alpha Flight, Vol. 1, #5 thread (it's also right there in the flippin' title of the issue!) at his website recently (started by Ryan Maxwell).Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/f....asp?TID=21741
Dana
EDITED to fix my issue number flub.
As Byrne himself would point out, a writer's intended backstory means little if not openly used in story and then explicitly contradicted by another story. Look at the final issues of Power Man and Iron Fist - Tyrone King wasn't intended to be Master Khan, Captain Hero wasn't meant to be the Super Skrull, and the Iron Fist who died was intended to be the real Iron Fist (although the original writer, thesedays known as Priest, did have a way to bring him back) - Priest had other plans for all those characters, but when Byrne brought Iron Fist back from the dead, all those unused plans went by the wayside. The title of the issue is a good catch (I freely admit I wasn't paying attention to issue titles when annotating 100+ issues for the Puck entry, so I didn't spot that), and it is a good bit of circumstantial evidence, but it would have been overruled by the volume 3 explicit statement that Judd got the Puck name from the hockey equipment. Even though I prefer the name to be derived from Shakespeare, and I would have been confirming an error on my own part in the Handbook entry, if I hadn't found the reference in the annual from Judd's own mouth, then the hockey derivation would have had precedence.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmdrkoenig67
And the "speed of his namesake" bit in the scanned panels at that link sadly don't lend weight either way to the argument, as both the elf and the hockey equipment could move pretty fast.
However, we now have 3 pieces of evidence for Shakespeare's elf providing the name - 2 circumstantial (Judd is a scholar who often quotes Shakespeare, the title of the Judd-centric story in Alpha Flight #5 which you caught), and one less so (the quote from Annual #1), vs. 1 piece of evidence favouring the hockey equipment (the statement from the faux Judd in Alpha Flight series 3). The elf wins out. And the no-prize explanation for the series 3 comment is my example from Star Trek; the real Judd planting a false memory in the doppelganger to expose it as a fake.
If anything from Alpha Flight V3 is considered canon I think I will scream!!! The V3 quote should be considered nothing more than another feeble attempt to make the story funny! The entire series was a joke, there was little of Alpha Flight in it other than likenesses.
I'm afraid it is canon. Sorry. We don't get to pick and choose only the good bits (otherwise Puck would have always been a dwarf, not a full-sized man who once housed a demon).Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnacle13
Can't we dismiss all the bad stuff by saying that it was just a Skrull at the time?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
It was a Skrull from Earth-A being punched by Superboy as the Scarlet Witch said "no more good plots" :PQuote:
Originally Posted by mreeez
Don't get me wrong there were some redeeming qualities in V3, but there weren't many. Major Mapleleaf Jr actually grew on me after awhile with his Dudley Doright style. Centennial was also an intriguing character and I'd have loved to see the Puckette/Puck relationship explored, but the rest was pretty much a joke (intentionally at that).
Just fyi
http://www.marvel.com/catalog/?id=8227
The Handbooks begin a 12 month A-Z Hardcover reprise of consolidating what we have covered to date, with entries from earlier books brought together into one gigantic A-Z run.
"The most exciting and comprehensive Marvel handbook is finally here! Beginning a twelve-volume guide to the Marvel Universe with more than 100 huge entries in each tome! This issue – from 1602 to Blackwulf! Spotlighting people (Angel, Annihilus, Ant-Man, Apocalypse, Arachne, Ares, Aurora, Banshee, Baron Zemo, Beast, Beta Ray Bill, Bishop, Black Bolt, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow), places (Atlantis), teams (AIM, Acolytes, Agents of Atlas, Alpha Flight, Avengers), species (Badoon), alternate realities (2020, 2099, the Age of Apocalypse) and more!"
But this is way more than just a reprint. Every entry is updated so it covers up to the character's latest appearance. Many have been expanded by one or more pages. Data corrections will be made.
Or to put it another way, the combined page count of the hardcovers is several hundred pages longer than the combined page count of the handbooks it incorporates. And as the solicit text above mentions, there's a number of Alpha Flight entries in Volume 1.
Yay! I can see Aurora on the cover :) and I see her name in the solicit text :) .
I'm glad to see Alpha Flight included in this project and I will definitely get it!
Thanks for the good news!
Love,
rplass
Yay!
Dana
Awesome, I really loved how you guys used characters we havn't heard in awhile.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Are we going to see corrections, say for..Sasquatch here? :wink:
We'll make corrections where we've confirmed stuff in past entries as being wrong or needing updated - can't promise if Sasquatch is one of them, as that one is still under review. Obviously, now is the time to make the case for any and all suggested amendments or corrections to existing entries.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
Well, I'd like to get the "nanotech scorpion" thing cleared up. What was that all about? I'm referring to OHOTMU: A-Z #6. The entry for Major Mapleleaf says, "The Collective quickly defeated the team, overwhelming Mapleleaf and Zuzha Yu with a wave of nanotech scorpions."
Unless that's really what happened but I have no idea where you got nanotech scorpions from.
Oh and also the typographical error: Langowksi. Thanks!
Love,
rplass
and the part saying Guardian saved Sasquatch from a beating from Beta Ray Bill, when earlier a charged Wrecker laid the beat down on BillQuote:
Originally Posted by rplass
Well that's not an error, it was an omission for space reasons. If Omega Flight gets an expanded entry, then we can go into more detail with that particular battle. More than likely, though, if it is expanded, then Guardian's story in Marvel Comics Presents gets priority coverage.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
The scripts for the issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by rplass
That one should get corrected.Quote:
Originally Posted by rplass
Sorry, but it still makes no sense to me to make something like that canon. That's like stating that a deleted scene in a movie is considered part of the story, when it clearly was not. Deleted scenes are removed for a reason, many times because the creators decided that it wasn't the best idea to use it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Including details in the handbook that NEVER HAPPENED IN THE COMIC is unfair to the average reader that has a budget preventing the purchase of the Handbook and/or has no idea that the Handbook adds more details to storylines. Nevermind the fact that I doubt that the next writer and/or editor is going to remember what was stated in the handbook. They have a hard enough time remembering what went on in the actual comic and keeping it in continuity.
Is this gonna offer anything new to existing entries?
ALL-NEW OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z VOL. 1 PREMIERE HC
Written by JEFF CHRISTIANSEN, MIKE FICHERA, STUART VANDAL, MARK O'ENGLISH, SEAN MCQUAID, MADISON CARTER, MICHAEL HOSKIN, RONALD BYRD, ERIC J. MOREELS, DAVID WILTFONG, CHAD ANDERSON, ANTHONY FLAMINI, JACOB ROUGEMONT, GABRIEL SHECHTER, RICH GREEN, CHRIS BIGGS, AL SJOERDSMA, DAVID SEXTON, BILL LENTZ, BARRY REESE, JONATHAN COUPER-SMARTT, MIKE RAICHT & STEPHEN FAULKNER.
Cover by TOM GRUMMETT
The most exciting and comprehensive Marvel handbook is finally here! Beginning a twelve-volume guide to the Marvel Universe with more than 100 huge entries in each tome! This issue – from 1602 to Blackwulf! Spotlighting people (Angel, Annihilus, Ant-Man, Apocalypse, Arachne, Ares, Aurora, Banshee, Baron Zemo, Beast, Beta Ray Bill, Bishop, Black Bolt, Black Knight, Black Panther, Black Widow), places (Atlantis), teams (AIM, Acolytes, Agents of Atlas, Alpha Flight, Avengers), species (Badoon), alternate realities (2020, 2099, the Age of Apocalypse) and more!
240 PGS./Rated T+ …$24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3028-4
Trim Sized: Standard
I'm afraid we are going to have to disagree here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ahab
By your logic, it would also be unfair if another title than New Avengers (say, Ms. Marvel) had decided to include a flashback to the Alpha Flight battle with the Collective, because you might not have the budget to buy that or might not realise they were providing more details about the battle there? But stuff like that happens all the time in comics - case in point, during the original Ms. Marvel run, she encountered a reptilian race living in the desert, capturing humans who encountered them to prevent their discovery, and convincing them to hypnotise their captives to forget the reptiles' existence so the captives could be safely released. However a few years later, an issue of Rom revealed the previously unknown information that an alien shapeshifter had been amongst the captives, and was unaffected by the hypnosis. By your arguement, the writer should not have done this.
The handbooks have always been able to clarify, expand on, or even add brand new information (all with case-by-case editorial approval). It's part of their remit. And yes, there is a risk that future editors or writers won't remember to check the handbooks, but then, as you noted, they may well not even bother checking the actual comic either. Those writers who care about continuity generally will check handbooks, if only to see if there have been appearances of whichever character they didn't know about; a large chunk of why handbooks are there is to summarise all the relevant character information in one easy to reference spot. Those writers who don't care about continuity, well, it won't matter if the details are in a handbook or a comic.
Yes. Existing entries are all going to be updated and in many cases expanded, and there will also be many cases where additional art is added.Quote:
Originally Posted by DelBubs
Are we going to see a class 100 Sasquatch entry? :wink:
Loki,
Just a shout-out to you and your crew.
Keep up the good work.
Flightpath07
I'm ok with agreeing to disagree. And I'm ok with stories continuing or clarifications being made in other books. What I'm not ok with is story gaps being filled in an "encyclopedia", instead of a normal comic. Funny thing about the handbooks - I have never seen them advertising that they are adding brand new information to character histories. That's not to say that it hasn't been advertised. I just don't recall seeing it. I would think that it would be highlighted often as a huge selling point.Quote:
Originally Posted by "Loki
Thanks for all the positive talk, Loki and all. :wink:
As I noted though, if you are okay with the continuation or clarification in other books, then why not the handbooks? Your argument against it being there was based on either not being able to afford the handbooks, or not realising the extra info was there, both of which can easily hold true for any comic. If that's not the source of your problem, but instead that you view the handbooks as an "encyclopedia" which cannot provide new info, then I am afraid you are wrong in that belief. That's always been part of our remit. We are 95% resource, and 5% source, and have filled in gaps from day one, right back in the original 1980s Handbooks. We figure heights and weights, origin details often used to get added in (we tend to do that less now, but still sometimes do add in such info if provided by the original writer - for example, Christos Gage supplied background info on the new Arabian Knight which turned up in his handbook entry), and we can also bridge the gaps between appearances on occasion. We never do it casually, and it all has to be editorially approved - for example, we supplied the explanation for where the new Sunpyre came from and how Humbug survived being fed to fire ants, both cases using information provided by the writers handling the characters - but if those writers or editorial had felt they wanted to save that info for a later story to tell, then we would have simply said something like "Under unrevealed circumstances, Humbug survived." In other words, we don't fill in the blanks if someone else intends to do it in-story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ahab
It's not generally in the solicits, no, but it has been advertised in the handbooks themselves, again as far back as the original series. Here's a quote from Mark Gruenwald, taken from one of the Deluxe Handbook prefacesQuote:
Originally Posted by Ahab
"look at the various gaps in the data, be it a never-disclosed real name or an unrecorded episode describing how an entry-subject got from point A to point B where we see it next. We then solicit original material... We are proud to have certain information appear here in the Handbook for the first time anywhere."
Can't promise it, but we are reviewing all power grids and strength levels as part of the update.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Mungi
And thanks to everyone for the positive words. We're working hard to make sure this is one of the best Handbook projects ever!
Thanks for dropping in and sharing! It's a nice window into how Marvel handles the characters, etc. Take care.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Haha yeah I know, just mostly wishful thinkingQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Also how many hardcovers/paperback are there going to be in total?
Well thank you for stopping by and giving us your input, it's much appreciated.