The Crossover is (still) full of possibilities...
Page 157 in Sean Howe's book MARVEL COMICS, THE UNTOLD STORY sheds more light on the disparity that happens when new creators/creative teams take over than anything else I've seen: "* 'Whatever anybody else did was meaningless', Mantlo told Comics Feature. 'Your job was to come on to a book, and create it out of whole cloth. Marvel history meant nothing, but not because of Marvel history --- just that you were so intent on being better than the past writer, or showing how stupid the past writer was, that you went to great lengths to negate everything he said...Whoever took over was starting all over.' "
The Crossover is full of possibilities, and I think that both Byrne and Mantlo knew it. For whatever reason, though, it didn't work out the way it was planned [from the interviews in Amazing Heroes# 76 and Comics Feature # 42]. Alpha Flight didn't become super-popular on the newstand, and Byrne left the Hulk after his brief stint.
There are some good things that came out of the Crossover: (1) The original Smart Alec was also in the void, which was utilized during the Mantlo era; (2) Snowbird gave the speech that galvanized the team in # 29, and; (3) Incredible Hulk # 313 states the likelihood (I would say the inevitability, but that's up to MARVEL) that people who enter into the nexus are bound to be drawn back to it.
Shaman aloof to the point of being inhumane; the twins fairies; Puck a giant
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Le Messor
...
Then again, replacing all the characters isn't my primary gripe with Mantlo. He didn't suddenly do it all at once, but slowly, organically, over time. And, frankly, I like his new characters - Kara, Laura and Goblyn, and DreamQueen (though mostly under Hudnall)...
~ Le Messor
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?"
"Organically"? This cuts to the heart of the problem with Alpha Flight#s 29 through 66: very little happened organically. Very little happened plausibly. Very little happened logically.
I like Pestilence and DreamQueen; they are interesting, worthy adversaries. However, I think it would have been better if the post-Byrne creative team(s) had started out very soon after taking over (3 to 6 months) with its own characters.
(1) Several things happened to Jeanne-Marie between the time that Walter experimented on her (vol. 1# 17) and when she couldn't touch her brother without negating their powers (# 29): psychic death by Somon (#24); receiving part of Walter's essence (also # 24); having her ribs broken/(bruised?) by Dark Guardian (# 26), and being traumatized in the void (# 27). Picking and choosing (or worse neglecting and ignoring) previous events was probably the key reason the Mantlo era doesn't have internal consistencies.
(2) In AF# 31, "Nemesis" said she killed Deadly Ernest, but it was actually Judd who sliced him up; gray-haired "Nemesis" dissolves into dust having fulfilled her mission, something she didn't do when she "killed" Deadly Ernest the first time (vol. 1 # eight).
(3) Scramble...Madison is going to nominate Lionel for Alpha Flight [a] after Lionel had turned just about everybody in a hospital into monsters, [b] when Madison himself wasn't even an Alphan yet, and [c] when no one except Madison saw Lionel "cure himself" by touching his helmet (in # 30)! It's dubious how much Madison actually "saw", as disfigured as he was at the time.