Alpha Flight Fans: Gather

[Nomads1]

I never quite understood who/what Manbot was supposed to be.

Geeze, could the art have been any more inconsistent on vol. 2???

Yes. IMHO, it was one of the things that prevented to book from catching on. The other were the lackluster new characters. The whole cloak and dagger intrigue was very intresting, though.

Peace

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Alpha Flight #12 Jul 1998
"H"
Alpha Flight arrives from the Microverse into a lab under attack by the Zodiac.
Mac leads the team rashly into battle, causing Murmur to get badly wounded;

They make a retreat in order to regroup and get separated;
The team learns that the Zodiac are after the Nth Projector from the lab last seen in Marvel Two-in-One #58;

The Zodiac escape but not after Sasquatch is killed and General Clarke dies trying to contain the building's nuclear reactor;
Heather's suit contains most of the heat from the reactor but, when a part fails, she must remove it before her suit fries with her in it.

Script by Steve Seagle, pencils by Duncan Rouleau, inks by Troy Hubbs, Rob Hunter, and Aaron Sowd

[Adam-X]

Old Man Logan #46 is going to have Alpha Flight pop up.

Did this come out (not collecting Old Man Logan), and if so - any hint as to who in AF is appearing?

Geeze, could the art have been any more inconsistent on vol. 2???

Not even if they tried...

[Hush]

Did this come out (not collecting Old Man Logan), and if so - any hint as to who in AF is appearing?

Yeah the issue was released last week and it featured the Alpha Flight team which is: Guardian, Puck, Snowbird and Shaman. I thought it was a nice issue especially if you like horror stories and the friendship between Logan and Alpha Flight.

There is also a nice and poignant dialogue between Puck and Logan that reminded me of this dialogue between Logan and Mac in Wolverine vol.2 #83:

Attachment 69703

It's a two part story so Guardian, Snowbird, Puck and Shaman will also be in Old Man Logan #47

[Shadowcat]

Plus size Marrina is just speaking to me.

[yogaflame]

Plus size Marrina is just speaking to me.

Weapon X is speaking to me. He says "Snikt"!

[SJNeal]

Weapon X is speaking to me. He says "Snikt"!

I really hope he put on some shoes after this photo was taken. Convention floors are absolutely filthy!

[Devaishwarya]

I would love a relaunched Alpha Flight book featuring the original members.

[Zero Hunter]

Alpha Flight needs a 8 or 12 issue Alpha Flight: Reborn mini series that sets up firmly who and what Alpha Flight is going forward. That has been the biggest problem AF has had since the first series ended is whenever they get used it is just random and usually ignores what has come before because a writer thinks they look cool. Characters come and go without a mention. I said way back somewhere in this thread Alpha Flight should be back in a big way after the events of the last few years as Canada's first line of defense. After things like the Civil Wars and HydraCap taking over America Canada should be very leary of their southern neighbors and want a full time superhuman team at the ready.

Get Dept H back up and running with James Hudson leading it and reporting directly to the Prime Minister. Pull former forgotten team members like Ghost Girl, Manbot, Manikin, and others to be support staff at Alpha One Base all working under Madison Jeffries. Really make Alpha Flight on par with the Avengers. Maybe have Heather retire from active duty after the events of the last mini series and have her instead be the head of the Beta Flight program training and working with the new recruits.

[SJNeal]

Marvel seems convinced that no one wants more AF, but that's only because they keep throwing everything at the wall *except* what people want - which is something along the lines of the original series. You know, the one that lasted 10 years and everyone loved?

They had a great thing going with Pak & Van Lente, and it looked like AF was back on track... but then they eff'd that up real good.

[Hush]

Oh man, i have such a long history with that team.

When i was a kid during the 80's there was that magazine in France called "Strange" in which you could find many different Marvel's stories of the time.

Iron Man, X-men, Spider-Man and, topic at hand, Alpha Flight stories.



Loved that stuff. That very old french magazine made me a fan of that team lol.

Wow I missed this post, I loved the Strange magazine when I was a kid, it was awesome and this picture brings back so many memories. Also it was funny how they translated many Superheroes name in french or sometimes renaming them completely like Fatalis and Serval for example.

Just imagine my suprise years later when I discovered how much it was heavily censored lol.

Well hopefully you join us in your thread and tells about your love of Talisman!

I have seen those around - I'd love to understand the cover of that one... it looks like Mac is abducting Snowbird...

This particular issue of Strange collected Alpha Flight #27, the issue where Delphine Courtney (disguised as Guardian) fought against Shaman and Snowbird, tried to steal Shaman's medicine bag and took Snowbird as hostage.

This cover is a reference to what happened in this issue and to the title of the issue itself "Betrayal" but at the same time it was also a reference to the original cover:




Regarding the text box it means literally: "Face to face Beyonder-Spider-Man!", that's because this issue of Strange also collected Amazing Spider-Man #274 which was a tie in to Secret Wars II where the Beyonder and Mephisto had a little contest. If I remember correctly the Beyonder used the demon Zarathos to torment Spider-Man with visions and with physical pain in order to test his morality.

In the end Spidey proved to be better and despite all the torment inflicted by the Beyonder and Zarathos he saved the Kingpin's life.

So it was basically a "fight" between the Beyonder and Spider-Man.

Hope that helps


By the way for the fans of Alpha Flight, the team will be in this week's issue of Old Man Logan. Here's a little preview: http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com...old-man-logan/

[Adam-X]

Marvel seems convinced that no one wants more AF, but that's only because they keep throwing everything at the wall *except* what people want - which is something along the lines of the original series. You know, the one that lasted 10 years and everyone loved?

Did everyone love it though? The entire thing? Because there's no doubt that Alpha Flight #1 through 27, were fantastic.

But as soon as Bill jumped on board, it wasn't a smooth transition. He was almost immediately getting rid of characters - and typically, permanently.

And I hate to speak ill of Bill's writing in Alpha Flight, knowing what he's going through with his health issues.

But I came to realize something. His Micronauts run was really, really good (well, right up to the end, when it got weird). His ROM run was really, really, good (well, right up to the end where it got weird). His Team America was a fun read.

And it donned on me - Bill is really good at writing characters from the ground up. But if there's any history or background - he shuffles them out.

I believe this is why he got rid of Sasquatch, Snowbird, and others - to bring in Laura Dean, Goblyn, um - the guy whose name I can't remember but had the past, present, future versions (not Flashback) but the kid in love with Purple Girl and the like...

I feel like he wanted to clear out most of Alpha Flight and develop a whole new team with no continuity to worry about and work his way up.

It became a bit of a mess after his departure, and other writes came onboard, trying to fix things - it always felt like it never had the same steam (to me) that Byrne had with the book, and it always felt like it was a gaping wound that people were putting bandaids on.

They had a great thing going with Pak & Van Lente, and it looked like AF was back on track... but then they eff'd that up real good.

I remember it being good - you're talking after the whole Dead Gods or whatever that horrible event was called?

[SJNeal]

Did everyone love it though? The entire thing? Because there's no doubt that Alpha Flight #1 through 27, were fantastic.

But as soon as Bill jumped on board, it wasn't a smooth transition. He was almost immediately getting rid of characters - and typically, permanently.

And I hate to speak ill of Bill's writing in Alpha Flight, knowing what he's going through with his health issues.

But I came to realize something. His Micronauts run was really, really good (well, right up to the end, when it got weird). His ROM run was really, really, good (well, right up to the end where it got weird). His Team America was a fun read.

And it donned on me - Bill is really good at writing characters from the ground up. But if there's any history or background - he shuffles them out.

I believe this is why he got rid of Sasquatch, Snowbird, and others - to bring in Laura Dean, Goblyn, um - the guy whose name I can't remember but had the past, present, future versions (not Flashback) but the kid in love with Purple Girl and the like...

I feel like he wanted to clear out most of Alpha Flight and develop a whole new team with no continuity to worry about and work his way up.

It became a bit of a mess after his departure, and other writes came onboard, trying to fix things - it always felt like it never had the same steam (to me) that Byrne had with the book, and it always felt like it was a gaping wound that people were putting bandaids on.

Yeah, most of Mantlo's run was pretty rough. But I actually liked Lobdell and later Furman.

I remember it being good - you're talking after the whole Dead Gods or whatever that horrible event was called?

I'm talking about the 8 issue limited series that was upgraded to an ongoing, then downgraded back to a mini; it spun out of the otherwise unremarkable "Fear Itself" event.

The dead gods event you mentioned was "Chaos War". AF only got a one-shot tie in to that story, and yes, it was pretty horrible.

[Zero Hunter]

Mantlo was never a great fit for Alpha Flight. It always felt he was more into telling horror stories than he was into a superhero team. Then they followed him up with James Hudnall who also was not a great fit for the book either. That was almost 60 issues. Mantlo should have left after issue 50.

I thought the book started turning around with Fabian Nicieza and then Scott Lobdell, but they were both trying to repair all the weird changes done to the team by Mantlo and Hudnall. I think they did a good job in the 20 issues they did, and set things up really well for Simon Furman who finished out the series

And honestly besides Jim Lee's short run Alpha Flight always seemed to have a problem getting good artists after Byrne left. I think out of the whole series the only ones I really enjoyed on art were Byrne, Lee, and finally Pat Broderick who had a great run towards the end of the series.

[Devaishwarya]

While I can see why he wasn't considered to be a good fit, I actually enjoyed Mantlo's run because it was so different from the other books I was reading at the time. I don't recall reading any AF post Mantlo as by the time he was wrapping up his run the team had gone under many drastic changes and it just wasn't the AF characters I fell in love with at the start so I quit the book.