I Know Why Marvel Brought Alpha Flight Back

[Le Messor]

Mik...I guess I'm just saying the explanation didn't have to be so ridiculous.

You can react to it how you will... and, as mentioned, I haven't read it.
My take is very general.

- Le Messor
Calvin: I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.
Hobbes: What if you find someone you can talk to while you eat apples on a bright fall morning?
Calvin: Well, yeah... I suppose there's no point in getting greedy, is there?

[MajorMountie]

Cap was killed with a bullet though. A bullet.

I don't know about you guys, but I... absolutely hated that story and it turned me off Marvel for a long time.

In fact, I'd probably still be avoiding the new stuff if AF wasn't coming back.

[DaVeO]

IMHO, the situation with the FF is just as ridiculous...Instead of continuing as the Fantastic Four (bringing in a new member or even a former member...Like She-Hulk, etc...), they change their name, get new costumes as if they're trying to forget Johnny....I find it rather lame....And why does it have to be Spider-Man to replace him on the team (I know part of it is because he and Johnny were friends)? Doesn't being a solo hero and an Avenger keep Spidey busy enough? He'll soon join Wolverine in the "A member of way too many teams for it to be plausible" camp...Marvel's biggest heroes being on nearly every team is getting ridiculous.

Too late, he's already on another team, AND with Wolverine. He's the guy with the guns, right? Or is that the swords? Is white the new red or blue at Marvel?
Attachment 990
Psst, I agree, She-Hulk should be on the FF, not Spidey.
Attachment 991

I really don't understand Marvel's marketing ploys with Alpha Flight either....I've said this before possibly here and on other boards, but wouldn't it have made more sense to capitalize on Alpha's death in New Avengers at the time it happened? Relaunch Alpha Flight when interest and talk was at it's peak around them...Perhaps showing that some of them survived (perhaps Sasquatch, Puck, Mac and Heather?) and their struggle to pick up the pieces and rebuild?

Dana

Because when Bendis killed Alpha Flight with Joe Q's permission there was ZERO interest in the bullpen to do anything with the characters. They were c-listers and failures in their eyes, hence cannon fodder to make the New Avengers look good. So why would they bother trying to put a book together. Besides, back then we may not have had the outstanding creative team we're getting now. It might have just been another half-assed attempt using a flavour of the month or untried team.

Good things come to those who wait.

In this case I think it actually came true.

[Flightpath07]

DaVeO, your linked attachments don't work.

[Phil]

Too late, he's already on another team, AND with Wolverine. He's the guy with the guns, right? Or is that the swords? Is white the new red or blue at Marvel?

That's Deadpool.
I can see why you'd think Spidey though.

[Le Messor]

In keeping with this thread, not that Marvel are cynical market manipulators...

- Le Messor
"To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck the pedestrian."
~ alleged insurance form

[Flightpath07]

It's a truism among fans that no matter how much certain readers complain and complain about books or stories they hate, they just keep on buying them, and thereby support both the books they dislike and the system that keeps producing them.

This seems like the crux of the problem right there.


Moreover, if he suggests that he knows something works, but doesn't know why it works, my question is; Do you really know at all, then? Seems like the consumer industry is a dangerous business to throw blind faith against the wall; "It's always worked before, pissing off fans to sell more comics, so we will just keep going with it" sort of a thing, eh?

Finally, the poll at the end shows all. If people are being honest in their poll answers (I was), then Marvel has dropped the ball and are completely out of touch with reality.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I only buy books that feature characters I've liked since I was young and that doesn't include, any of the Avengers (Cap America, Iron man, Thor, etc...), Hulk or Spider-Man...The characters I like tend to be the underdog heroes (like Alpha, the Shroud, Werewolf By Night and formerly the X-Men). I stopped buying the X-books quite a few years back, because the lost their way IMHO...I haven't gone back, except for Northstar appearances...And I don't even collect all of those.

I began buying New Avengers when it first started, because I love the original Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) character...yet as time went on, I learned I wasn't going to like anything that Bendis did with her (which turned out to be very little). I dropped the book around the mid teens and I got even more irked when it was revealed that it wasn't Jessica Drew I was reading at all. When The solo Spider-Woman series started I bought the first issue and was bored to death...Didn't buy another issue after that (not that this horrible series lasted very long).

I bought Alpha Volume 3 and cringed nearly all the way through it...I even came close to dropping it, which is unheard of for me, because I love Alpha Flight so much.

I can safely say that my loyalty only goes so far (and Marvel has killed a lot of my interest in buying anything from them in the past 10-15 years)...I drop books, when I feel they have nothing of value to offer me...It's just not worth the 4 bucks.

Dana

[Le Messor]

I only buy books that feature characters I've liked... I stopped buying the X-books quite a few years back, because the lost their way IMHO...

Me, too!
I started buying Uncanny again at #505 because of all the Alpha appearances, and am thinking of dropping them anyway. I'm just not enjoying them.

Your and Flightpath's comments bring me to my theory about all this:
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reason people are buying only books that make them mad might be because Marvel and DC have driven away all the readers who read for stories and characters they love. (Would've happened during the 90s.)

I know that the type of comics I love, the stuff that got me reading in the first place, have been the exception since then. I also know that sales are much lower now than they were then. (Yes, both companies love to blame computer games for that; but don't most people love to blame somebody else rather than see a fault in themselves? Hey, I'm just observing all this, I can't help making this post, it's everybody else, uh...)

- Le Messor
"The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none."