Alpha/Omega

[maniac mike]

I don't think the guy with the shield is John Walker/USAgent. Why? you ask, simple Walker would be the first guy for registration of heroes and to go after heroes who refuse to register! Thats how blind he is, all for glory, none for honor.

My guess is that it's Steve Rogers/Captain America, of course he can't go by C.A. anymore so my thought is he returns to his "NOMAD" identity without the old costume.

That's my thought.

MM

[Mokole]

To me, I think it is USAgent. Millar did say Cap was not going to Canada and I read, somewhere, that he's leading New Avengers. Of course, people will then say, "It's not Steve Rogers in the Captain America costume" and round and round it goes.

I also read that USAgent was supposed to leave the U.S. but not quit the biz. I'm too lazy to go looking for that all again, I'm tired. Very late night ad all the Omega excitement...

Of course that doesn't make it John Walker for certain, but if a patriot like Rogers can be anti-SRA, then so can Walker.

As to who Guardian is, the idea that it's the mailman is laughable. Think of it from Oeming's perspective: go in and pitch Omega Flight, and say that since Bendis killed them off the mailman feels guilty, eventually, and makes amends by asking Department H for the Guardian suit, to which they heartily agree. Does this sound, in any way, like a realistic thing Oeming would say??

Is the mailman living by a code of scrub baseball?

I'm not treating this like an English major or poetry reviewer. Sure, I don't really know who's on the team but Omega Flight will, if the preview image is accurate, be made up of Talisman, Mac Hudson Guardian, USAgent, Arachne, and Beta Ray Bill. If I said how confident I was about each one I'd say:
100% about Guardian
99% about Talisman
80% about Arachne
75% about USAgent
60% about Beta Ray Bill (Mainly because the character looks bigger and more armoured than Bill).

In a week I could be proven very wrong.

Sure, I'd prefer Box and Nemesis and Witchfire in the team but I'm not writing it. I'm not worried, either, Oeming will do right by the characters and style.

[Mokole]

I don't know much about all the supposed characters, but I like better Beta Ray Bill than Thor and if it's US Agent, it would be nice to see that right wing guy confronted to east canadian culture, which is more liberal or even worst get to read a cereal box on the french side not realising he can turn it around and read it in english (I don't know him, I just imagine him been a little bit slow in the head).P

I knew of a student from Illinois who went to McGill and after 4 years he and his back-at-home buddies still considered Canada communist

I agree Sylvie, I'd rather see characters like Bill and Arachne than Thor and Scarlet Witch, not only are they second-tier right now who can grow but it leaves room for other characters to get the attention, Guardian and Talisman

[Capt.D]

I am an Alpha Flight fan since the Byrne run and I've really enjoyed this site to get my Alpha fix. I've been following the OF discussions on this and several other boards and figured I'd put my 2 cents in.

1. While I do hope it's Mac in the Guardian suit, I would say it's probably someone new. The Canadian government likely has the plans and tech to rebuild the suit or they reclaimed the one he was wearing after he died.

2.I think the guess about Spider woman is pretty well 100%, plus it makes sense. She's on the run and Canada would be a good place to be.

3. I sure hope that isn't Cap. in the picture. The whole "I'm tired of being Captain America so I'll take another name and do something else" bit is getting a bit tired. I mean how many times has he done that? After 2 or 3 times I think the US governement and citizens would get tired of him and just say piss on him. He gets upset and throws in the towel too often, I don't think Canada would want him. I hope it's more likely a new character modeled after Capt. America... maybe Capt. Canada or something. After all there is a Capt. Britain and in the Ultimates book isn't there a whole bunch of Capt. "insert your country here" characters? Maybe they borrowed a page from them.

4. As for Beta Ray Bill joining, all I can say is why? He's not even from earth, if I remember correctly, and don't most of his adventures take place in outerspace? Also in the picture I don't remember seeing a Thor like hammer. Could it be a new Thor like character? Maybe a Box Thor as previously suggested? I'm not a huge Thor fan and I've always thought the whole multiple Thors was kind of stupid. I sure hope it's not him.

5. I agree with everyone so far about Talisman. I think that is pretty obvious.

6. One thing that is bothering me about the picture is the fact it pretty much looks like a B-list Avengers. There is the Capt. America knock off, the Thor knock off, the Spiderman knock off, plus Talisman and Guardian could be seen as Scarlet Witch and Ironman knock off but the other three are very obvious. That's kind of insulting. The only way they feel that they can get people to pick up the book is to make it look like an Avengers book? Why not just put X-23 and a female Thing in the group. How about a female Human Torch and Vengence so they can have a knock off of Ghost Rider and cash in on the upcoming movie? Let's put Shang Chi in a Daredevil-like costume and call him the Chinese Devil while we're at it.

Don't get me wrong I have been waiting for a good Alpha Flight book for a very long time, I just don't want them to take one of my all time favorite books and make it the Avengers Canada. I quit reading X-men because they started putting out 50 X-books per month and 49 of them suck, including X-men England. Canada may be part of North America and share a lot with the US, but they are a different country and deserve their own heroes. Plus us AF fans deserve better than a simple "what if the Avengers lived in Canada" book.

I understand from business perspective that Marvel has to make the book sell so that the die hard fans will be happy too, but they don't have to put so many 2nd rate Avenger wanna bes on the team. I could live with one just to drive the sales, but couldn't they do that just as well on the merit of the creative team? Every character/book can be great if the right people get a hold of if. After all even the X-men got canceled once and now they are one of Marvel's premiere franchises.

I'm sorry if I went on a rant for a minute and I hope that my assumptions about the book are completely off, it just pains me to see them possibly soil the memory of one of my favorite books. I can deal with the old team dying, I can deal with a new team stepping up to bat, I just don't like the idea of the new team being composed of knock offs of American heroes.

I will give the book a go and I am eagerly awaiting it's release so that my concerns can be proven unfounded. I have been reading comics for a long time and unfortunately the crap they have done in the name of sales(clone saga, death of superman, inferno, the continued revival of Phoenix, Batman breaking his back, Hal Jordan going evil then he died then he got better then he was good again, Green Arrow coming back from the dead...ad nausium) has made me just a little cynical about there intentions. I truly have a great respect for most of the creative minds that work in the field including those working on the upcoming OF book, unfortunately I have seen more of what they and/or the suits want to put on the shelves, than I have seen books the fans actually want to read.

[mos_def]

I wonder if Ben knew about this. Even he did he couldnt let it out. If Mac and Liz are on the team that would be great. Julia Carpentor is cool and Beta Ray Bill is a little odd choice but I can take it since we are getting something back.

So, are the New Avengers Collective team dead-officially now? Geez, I hope not.

[Mokole]

Good to have you aboard, Capt.D. I figure the speculation everyone brings about who is who is great. After all, I argued against Zuzha Yu being Puck but I was way wrong, so I can still be way wrong. It'll clearly be a good book for AF fans, since it'll be a direction that the original version took, and it'll include AF characters along the way, maybe even in the team. Who knows, maybe only one of those 5 isn't an old AFer somehow. It's fun to guess, keeps the brain happy.

Hope Ben gets back from his honeymoon soon, he'll go bonkers if he goes online here and sees 1,280 new posts in only 4 days

[Mokole]

I wonder if Ben knew about this. Even he did he couldnt let it out. If Mac and Liz are on the team that would be great. Julia Carpentor is cool and Beta Ray Bill is a little odd choice but I can take it since we are getting something back.

So, are the New Avengers Collective team dead-officially now? Geez, I hope not.

Ah, I'm betting nothing is ever official at marvel until it appears in print in a book, which it hasn't. New Warrior fans know their guys/gals are dead because it's been mentioned in She-Hulk, Civil War, Wolverine... But AF? Not a word.

[mos_def]

OMG actually still has some characters to choose from if they do make Vindicator, Puck, Sasquatch, Snowbird, Shaman,Zuzha Yu, Major Mapleleaf dead. It would suck to leave the first three out cuz of their HUGE fan base but still, he would have

Diamond Lil
Madison Jeffries
Northstar
Aurora
Yukon Jack
Manbot
Wildchild
and others though the previous have some problems of their own right now

[Canucklehead]

OMG actually still has some characters to choose from if they do make Vindicator, Puck, Sasquatch, Snowbird, Shaman,Zuzha Yu, Major Mapleleaf dead. It would suck to leave the first three out cuz of their HUGE fan base but still, he would have

Diamond Lil
Madison Jeffries
Northstar
Aurora
Yukon Jack
Manbot
Wildchild
and others though the previous have some problems of their own right now

There's probably a couple dozen they could use and don't forget Snowbird. There's many characters in the Alpha Universe that could be written in, but would they be as big attention grabbers as Beta Ray or Cap/USAgent? Probably not. Which is the point of the series, to stay afloat. I'd be happy if there's a team up every now and then with Persuasion, Feedback or Windshear etc. We shall see what happens.

Edit, hell who says there can't be an Alpha Flight working in the background as it has for so many years. This is an Omega book, doesn't mean Alpha can't still run in the background, or as unlikely as it may be, get another Alpha series down the road.

[DelBubs]

Ben is back from his honeymoon, but is busy moving into his new apartment. He did say that he will have some time on his hands soon and can get back into it. The only thing he's scared of is all the updates he has to do

[jay042]

One theory I heard suggested maybe the Captian America doppelganger might be Taskmaster.

[DelBubs]

Adding to the mix, just re-read this at the Joe Friday Thread

"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?"

[Mokole]

Just makes it more likely that Beta Ray Bill is in Omega Flight. Could Ares be in the Thor Bot? Could he be not in the image? In the USAgent uniform?

No way Ares is the other three, or Beta Ray either.

I'm thinking Ares may join an Avengers title, especially if Hercules is dead.

Still pumped about this super-hero action series. Fighting mutants, teams, mystics, extra-dimensional threats, more paranormals, more teams, AIM,....

[mreeez]

A couple of things I think:

1. While it has been said over and over that Alpha Flight is dead, that doesn't mean the characters are dead, it could just be the name is dead.

2. Who says that the supposed Talisman in the Omega Flight picture is Shaman's daughter? Whoever has the talisman is Talisman so it could be someone else. Scarlet Witch perhaps?

3. Oeming says that he sees only one Canadian in the Omega Flight picture and I would think it rather silly to have a non-Canadian in the Guardian costume. That would be like having an American in the Captain Britain costume or a Canadian as Captain America.

[DelBubs]

Further tidbits here.

NRAMA: Fair enough… So starting from the right, Joe Quesada told us straight away just a few weeks ago in New Joe Fridays that you’d be writing Beta Ray Bill again in a title (as opposed to a Beta Ray Bill), so that one is a lock and we’re not letting you off the hook.

What can you tell readers about his inclusion on the team? Was he someone you enjoyed writing so much you just wanted to include him, or does he have some sort of other logical connection to this team?

MO: Okay, I'll give this one up because I love you and Beta Ray Bill. Plus, 90% of the posts I read already guessed it and the other were thinking it was something like Thunderstrike or a robot Thor, no one fell for it as being Thor himself, however he is returning- so yes, that clearly is Beta Ray Bill!