I still like Box, Feedback, Puck, Nemesis the best, Pointer the worst (but I never considered him a member of AF anyway).
I still like Box, Feedback, Puck, Nemesis the best, Pointer the worst (but I never considered him a member of AF anyway).
Keep your stick on the ice.
Live it.
Okay, Box I can see (though I don't care for the character myself) - but he appeared a lot, and took center stage frequently. Puck, I totally understand. Nemesis, I can see the first one, because we know her story - but the others, are just ambiguous. But Feedback - this one I have got to hear. He had a very plain costume (reminded me of the Hellfire Club, without their mask), appeared in about a dozen issues, and I don't remember him getting a lot of play - even in those 11 issues. So I'd love to hear why Feedback makes your top choices...
As for Pointer, I'd like to hear why you dislike him (and I agree, he's not really a member of Alpha Flight) - unless your dislike is the same reason(s) as Flight, which I already replied to.
When I said to roll a die, I didn't assume a d6.
Hey, 19! You don't know the queen of soul...
(Mik checks random encounter table...)
You get... Murmur. Cheap rip-off of a previous AF character. Not at all interesting. According to FP's die-roll, my worst AF character is Murmur.
Yay Mokole! Another vote for her.
As I said, assume I mean Byrne's incarnation. I only count that one issue she appeared in - I know Mantlo attempted an origin for her, but it never satisfied me, and never quite fit with the character Byrne had created.
So, issue 7: we have this hugely mysterious character, in red and black, with overtones of vampirism and Joan of Arc, and all kinds of things you can read into her. You have this total mystery about who she is, what she is, and how she's connected to Earnest. (Again, something about Mantlo's version isn't quite right for me - I'd LOVE to know what Byrne's origin for her was.)
Her powers aren't spelled out, but seem to fit with all the above.
And then there's that sword of hers. I love me a good sword, and she has one of the best; "scarcely an atom's width thick, able to cut through near anything by cleaving between the molecules." I've got a shameless Gary-Stu character who shows up in everything I write, (hopefully more as an Easter egg for all my fan than as an annoying Gary-Stu), and his sword is a total rip of hers (but not quite as sharp. I'm always afraid she'll accidentally split an atom with that thing!)
I always loved Byrne's characterisation - he looked weird, but not comic-book weird; real-world weird.
He had the feral powers of a Wolverine clone, but he spoke in quite an erudite manner befitting a scholar. I don't think later characterisations followed that up.
I don't mind the idea of making him look normal through in-story explanations (rather than lazy artists), but I don't like the implication of 'good-looking = good, ugly = evil'.
Very true. I'm a Christian; we're supposed to believe in forgiveness. (We're just not always very good at it.)
OTOH, forgiving him an accident is one thing; him being put in charge of the team that was meant to be the next incarnation of Alpha Flight, and wearing what he wore at the time (along with being a non-Canadian!) left a poor taste in my mouth. It felt like a slap in the face, meaning that poor taste was probably my own blood (trying to un-mix my metaphor here).
I don't mind the first two (and, despite the above, don't care that much about Murmur - she doesn't stand out to me as being any worse than any other v2 character, which is why a die-roll settled it. Flex is the only one I like.) Earthmover is a non-entity, and I like Manikin's power set.
Feedback! Yay some post-Byrne love!
The only post-Byrne character who'd make my list of favourites is DreamQueen. Big shock there.
~ Le Messor
"We tolerate anyone - even the intolerable."
~ Alien 3
Last edited by Le Messor; 07-08-2014 at 05:09 PM.
Wasn't she Earnest's daughter? Or something along those lines? Or am I (once again, misremembering, or is that what Mantalo wrote?)
I am a huge fan of never judge a book by it's cover. One of the reasons I love Nightcrawler. He looks like a demon, but then he's a devout God fearing man, who has a heart full of love and compassion!
See, I wouldn't mind, for example if someone (who wasn't "American") took up the mantle of Captain America. (But perhaps since America is this whole "mixing pot of people" or whatever, that's not the same as someone who represents Canada?) For me, Pointer took on the Guardian costume to make right what he did wrong (even if it was an accident). So I didn't see it as a slap in the face, to have a non Canadian wearing the costume. But it's cool to see different views.
Well for Post Byrne, I actually dug Witchfire... but that's because she has a tie to Belasco, and Uncanny X-Men #160 was one of my favorites back in the day... so, there is that. I enjoyed what they did with her during that one X-Men limited series thing too (not Inferno, but something similarly named)... although I know a lot of AF fans disliked it.
Favourite has always been Mac. My first introduction to Alpha Flight was seeing him in X-Men #120. When I saw that Canada Flag costume... I was hooked forever. A close second would be Snowbird.
Least favourite would have to be Manbot from volume 2. Ridiculous... just ridiculous. I've always believed that Steven Seagle needed another new character for the series and 5 minutes before deadline just decided "Make him look like ED 209 from Robocop and give him a face".
Exhibit A: Exhibit B:
The Flight Forever !
Oh. Good call. Manbot was horrible as well. I think he may have gotten less work/action/development than Murmur. At least with Murmur, you knew she was a (Frenchy) b!tchy character... I can't recall anything about Manbot, in terms of anything he said or personality... or anything...
Here's a hint for writers of comic books. If you don't plan on revealing a character's back story or giving them a personality or developing them as an actual character...don't put them in your book! (You'd think common sense would prevail, here, but apparently not with too many writers!)
Support Artists, Not Companies! Creator-owned comics are where the real art is at!
My new website! http://lifelessordinarywebnovel.com/home.html Follow my super-powered web-novel adventures, "Life Less Ordinary"!
Twitter (1) = @RealWyldeChild
Twitter (2) = @lifewebnovel
FaceBook = https://www.facebook.com/realwylde.child or search for me at " Life Less-Ordinary "
Also 'occasionally' ranting Alpha Flight related stuff at http://canadas-own-the-flight.blogspot.com/
Support Artists, Not Companies! Creator-owned comics are where the real art is at!
My new website! http://lifelessordinarywebnovel.com/home.html Follow my super-powered web-novel adventures, "Life Less Ordinary"!
Twitter (1) = @RealWyldeChild
Twitter (2) = @lifewebnovel
FaceBook = https://www.facebook.com/realwylde.child or search for me at " Life Less-Ordinary "
Also 'occasionally' ranting Alpha Flight related stuff at http://canadas-own-the-flight.blogspot.com/
Devil's due department:
I saw those images before I read the text, and was thinking 'is that some anime thing?', because I didn't recognise ED 209.
SO, I'm going to guess it's the one from the remake (which I've not seen; interest level holding steady a '0', sir), and not the original - which I know very well. The ED 209 in the original looks a lot less like Manbot than that one does - though I still see the resemblance.
(My computer is scanning for lifeforms right now, and that slows it down too much for me to look for images to post, sorry.)
(ED-it: Now it isn't, here's a pic of classic ED 209.)
But that all means, if I'm right, THAT ED 209 didn't exist when Seagle made up Manbot.
So you DO remember him! That's why I don't hate him; there's nothing there to hate. :/ (There should be, though.)
1: not just comic books! Movies, prose books, any work of fiction, really.
b) Sadly, sense does not prevail.
~ Le Messor
"Common sense isn't."
Last edited by Le Messor; 07-10-2014 at 06:11 AM.
Favorite: Puck. I love the depth of his character. Definitely a case of "you can't judge a book by his cover". I'm currently re-reading Alpha Flight vol. 1 for the first time in decades, and I love finding out more about Puck and his fascinating past. The guy talks like a sailor, has been in prison, but reads Shakespeare, can tell you about the burial rituals of African tribes, has been all over the world, speak 17 languages, and is a very empathetic person, especially for a "tough guy". Shaman and Northstar are great, too.
Least Favorite: I'll just quote Legerd "Any of the faux Alphans from the second or third series. I honestly can't pick one."
Besides, my interest in comics mostly just goes up to the early 90's (or even late 80's). Most of the newer comics I've read haven't thrilled me that much.
Last edited by dbutler69; 08-13-2014 at 10:15 AM.
Yes, welcome, DButler.
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
'cept the decades part. I've read the Byrne stuff far more recently than that.
~ Le Messor
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
~ Adlai Stevenson
What good stuff has there been since then? As far as Byrne goes, I did enjoy X-Men: The Hidden Years, but that's the only reasonably recent Byrne stuff I've read. As far as other good comics, I enjoyed X-Men: First Class, Guardian of the Galaxy, and some of the Legion of Super-Heroes stuff, but most of it just fails to wow me. Just call me a grumpy old man.