I think it was because he killed one character and that that was his plan from #1.
I think it was because he killed one character and that that was his plan from #1.
I think it's all your answers, but mostly that last one. He did it WELL. And often. Mantlo did it way too much.
Some people count Walt, too, which would double your count.
~ Le Messor
Guest: "Is Jean Grey here?"
Xavier: "I'm sorry, I'm afraid she's dead."
Guest: "That's okay, I'll wait."
Hmm.. True.
I was trying to wait before writing something like "When are the powers-that-be @ MARVEL going to realize that killing Alpha Flight characters isn't funny, anymore...if ever it was?", but the indiscriminate deaths that have happened (and apparently are still happening) make it difficult not to chime in. One writer used his storytelling abilities to tell stories that resulted in death: AF# 12 and AF #s 23 & 24; another writer was allowed to get rid of the originals in ways that really have (little-to-) no plausibility [Shaman & Talisman, AF# 38], direction [Michael and Elizabeth plus Snowbird (and her baby), Roger Bochs, and Puck], or logic [Aurora and Northstar].
Please, PLEASE, PU-LEASE don't sell your soul...SPOILERS...
If MARVEL isn't above gutting Talisman*, there really isn't any character from ALPHA FLIGHT that is safe. MARVEL seems intent on continuing to kill off these characters. Why? I don't know. For how long (will they be dead)? I don't know. It doesn't make people happy when they do it, though, yet MARVEL keeps on doing it.
* from behind, which is cowardly to me
Again, one writer pretty much stuck to what he said he was going to do [as outlined in the interview in AMAZING HEROES # 22], and one writer pretty much reneged on just about everything he said he was going to do [as outlined in AMAZING HEROES # 76 and COMICS FEATURE # 42]. Did Alpha Flight sell better on the newstand after the switch, or did it go direct-sell only? Did Alpha Flight become more of a family-oriented team, or was it ripped apart so that "craptastic" characters could replace the originals?
The difference with Walter's death is the team's immediate determination to save his soul, which was unexpected (for me). And that Walter ends up saving Liz, Jean-Paul, and Jeanne-Marie was also appreciated.
It is difficult to find what redeeming results came out of AF#s 29 through 66; there may be some, but they are few and far between.
Last edited by Garry/Al-Fan; 07-14-2014 at 12:25 PM.
Once upon a time, they exploded from the pages of The X-Men. For a moment, they were "Canada's answer to The Avengers."
They were ALPHA FLIGHT....
...once upon a time.
I count Walter's death. And I WAS sad, but it was done interestingly, and seemingly with heart. And made for a great story, imo.
No, it seems to make some people happy; some people who work for Marvel.
Considering that Alpha Flight has had a longer run, and been in more comics, than some of the characters that Marvel keep trying to push onto their readers, AF REALLY deserves more respect than some of the people (note I said "some of") who work at Marvel give them. I know I can't be the only one who wonders if some people sit around at the Marvel offices, joking day after day that if any writers need a character to do something horrible to, why not just grab one of those AF characters; nobody cares about the wacky Canadian characters anyways, eh.
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They may joke like that, I don't know, but I imagine you're only half right.
I suspect they think 'We need to kill somebody off to prove it's a real threat. Is Guy Fleegman available? No? Let's see... who doesn't have a book right now?'
Then somebody like Alpha Flight, or Cloak and Dagger, or Power Pack, or whoever gets it.
~ Le Messor
"We've got to get out of here before one of those things eats Guy!"
~ Galaxy Quest
Skimmed the Yost/Kyle interview. I get Wendigoes are dangerous---deadly, even, but...
A death an issue? Really? Please tell me it isn't so.
Yeah, i miss the day when heroes saved the day, without having to bump people off. I miss the day when skyscrapers (full of people) didn't have to get trashed in every super-fight. I miss the days when villains didn't detonate themselves and kill children.
I seriously miss those days. i'd rather that was an extreme that we only saw once a decade or so, rather than the norm. At this point, these people stop beign heroes, to me; they're soldiers.
I want comics the way they used to be.
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"!
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I miss those days too. But there are some comics about that have such things; New New Warriors seems good that way. Um... uh...
Nightcrawler.
I'm out. (of Marvel.)
~ Le Messor
"Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed?"
~ Solomon Short
I find myself feeling like Claremont's Nightcrawler is (so far) lacking...something.
I cannot exactly pin-point what it is, but it's lacking.
It all seems surface to me. There doesn't seem to be any meat to it. Rushed and heartless. Maybe it'll get better once Amanda and Margali are out of it. Though, he IS doing a great job (at least in #3, I haven't read #4 yet) in making them into villains.
At first I thought it was light-hearted and fun. And I haven't read any of Claremont's X-Men other than the ANAD stuff, but Nightcrawler seems...meatless right now.
I think I know the feeling. Not about this particular comic - besides Claremont, Nauck's art is just cartoonish enough to bring back the good feelings he gave me with Young Justice, but not so cartoony it detracts from this one.
BUT, I've read things that hit every beat of what I keep saying I want to read... and still just don't have 'it'.
~ Le Messor
"He has a certain, as the French say, I don't know what."
~ Dr Evil