News you're not gonna like...

[Alpha Rider]

That's what happens when you just look at the bottom line. If DC never did their #1 thing, maybe Alpha wouldn't have got canned. These suits can't tell their asses from their heads. I mean we can all see that what DC did is just a cash grab, to get higher sales, but as everyone knows as most of those series continue the sales of those books will drop. Dispite all the #1's out by DC, AF did respectably well selling over 23,000 copies.

This what Marvel suits are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA2LQfKMZNA

[Jason Eberly]

Maybe they are going to launch a new title starring the same exact characters called "CANADIAN AVENGERS"!

Oh, they'll probably have to add Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Luke Cage as members, though.

Isn't that Marvel's modus operandi these days?

[Flightpath07]

this is bad. kiss my Canadian, Tim Horton's lovin' arse, Marvel. again.

[EccentricSage]

This is some ****ing bull****. Why don't they just downgrade the paper quality or something? And maybe cancel a title that ISN'T selling as well? WTF?

Itr's a real shame I just never cared about DC's characters or universe. Marvel has such great history and characters, and such a big name, but they never seem to know wtf they're doing with it!

They almost had me on board as a fan again, too. ****ing Marvel.

[varo]

i really wish we could get the real story as to why this series is being ended. its not based on sales as 3 other titles with similar sales are in the same boat(avengers academy, xfactor and thunderbolts) heck, black panther and daken are even lower than alpha's sales.

so please, some adult, not some marvel editor thats going to speak to me like a infant, i would love to hear the real reason why this series was so mistreated.

[Phil]

i really wish we could get the real story as to why this series is being ended. its not based on sales as 3 other titles with similar sales are in the same boat(avengers academy, xfactor and thunderbolts) heck, black panther and daken are even lower than alpha's sales.

so please, some adult, not some marvel editor thats going to speak to me like a infant, i would love to hear the real reason why this series was so mistreated.

It was purely about sales.
Let's not get back to this conspiracy theory.
If you check out Rob's thread elsewhere in this forum you'll see that, as you pointed out, AF was only outselling 3 ongoing titles, the reasons for why or why not they haven't been cancelled I've outlined.
The mini was losing sales on a rapid slide.
Yes X-Factor & the other titles you mentioned were selling similar, but they hadn't dropped dramatically over the course of 4 issues.
It's not the sales of a single issue it's the dramatic rate at which the book was losing readers, as I tried showing in the sales figures articles, without going into pessimistic mode.

The only real confusing thing is the ongoing announcement.
Did Marvel genuinely think the #1 numbers would sell or were they just telling Canadian fans what they wanted to hear at the Con in order to avoid a weekend full of AF questions, because it was an easier option.

The timing of the cancellation isn't out of the blue & the news of all the editorial firings hints that Disney are taking a very different route with Marvel than Time Warner did with DC.

[Alphan East]

The only real confusing thing is the ongoing announcement.
Did Marvel genuinely think the #1 numbers would sell or were they just telling Canadian fans what they wanted to hear at the Con in order to avoid a weekend full of AF questions, because it was an easier option.

I think it was a little of both. I believe they wanted to look good up here and get the people at the Expo excited enough to go out and buy more Alpha Flight, hoping to get the numbers increased.
I think its a rotten thing to play with Alpha fans like this. They dangled a carrot in front of us and then yanked it away when we didn't put enough money in their profit line.
I understand that, in the end, it's just business... but its an unethical business.
If they think that all Alpha fans will simply put their money into other Marvel books instead, they are mistaken. I just came back to Marvel after a 10 year absence because of this title. Since Alpha returned, I have also bought a few other titles to show my appreciation. But that loyalty only exists as long as Alpha is around.
This version of Alpha Flight is well-written, well-drawn, and extremely enjoyable to read. But when they are gone from Marvel... so am I.

[Flightpath07]

It just seems like Marvel had a con in Canada and wanted to give the sales a temporary spike and didn't want to take **** from fans all weekend so announced an ongoing they were never going to keep.

Unfortunately Phil, i agree with you.

To me, this shows Marvel as a spineless, no-class, lying company...which I have known for quite some time that they are!

As well, i beleive we will shortly see a big push forward, to try to get all or most of their comics as 'digital only', thereby massively reducing the cost to the company.

In the end, despite what many of us feel is an I-hate-Alpha-Flight slant from some of the suits at Marvel (right or wrong, the perception is there, and has even been fed by some of those very same suits), this is about DC kickin' Marvel's arse.

i wrote on another thread somewhere that what DC did with their company-wide relaunch was very ballsy. Short-term (long-term won't be known for quite some time yet), it worked, and worked well.

Marvel panicked. That is what short-sighted, stuck-in-a-rut executives with little business sense do; they panic.

Unfortunately, long-term, the future of comics IS digital comics, like it or not. Kids don't read books anymore. And WE are all getting older...

[varo]

i understand that, but didn't the readership also start to level off with only a 4% loss in readership from 3 to 4?

[Sasquatch17]

I wonder if any Alphans will join the Avengers?

[cmdrkoenig67]

I wonder if any Alphans will join the Avengers?

Hopefully not (IMHO). We've already seen Alpha Flight as written by Bendis.

Dana

[varo]

also, if marvel is only allowing a series to trend out for only 4 issues, they have some seriously poor decision makers with very bad attention deficit disorders.


sorry. i'm done with my rants. this one really annoys me though.

[Phil]

It's not a poor decision at all though, it's a case of stopping thousands of dollars from slipping through their fingers like grains of salt.
You HAVE to see it as a business point of view.
Writers and Artists can't be expected to work for free. Nor can the people above them, and nor can the people every step below them from printing to distribution to sales.
I know I couldn't finance a title personally, and that's still essentially what Marvel/Disney execs have to do on a daily basis.

Feel free to rant, it's part and parcel of this place and you're not being offensive.

[Flightpath07]

I understand that, in the end, it's just business... but its an unethical business.
If they think that all Alpha fans will simply put their money into other Marvel books instead, they are mistaken. I just came back to Marvel after a 10 year absence because of this title. Since Alpha returned, I have also bought a few other titles to show my appreciation. But that loyalty only exists as long as Alpha is around.
This version of Alpha Flight is well-written, well-drawn, and extremely enjoyable to read. But when they are gone from Marvel... so am I.

Completely agree with Alpha East. I'm in the same boat. I came back to comics (and Marvel specifically) because of the news about Omega Flight. I stuck around, but now i am done with Marvel. I'll collect any Alpha stuff that is good and that i want to read and own, but other than that they can't have my money. Image and Dark Horse and DC can have it, but not Marvel, not any longer.

[Alpha Rider]

I'm alot like you FP07 I only collect two tiltes from Marvel AF and GR. That it. If Marvel wants my money they better make those series into ongoing ones and not canncel it after a few years as they did to the last GR, 35 issues then canned only to bring it back three years later because of the movie? Why not just keep it going? I guess it's better than nothing.