"Ultimate" AF, better than no AF?
IMO....no. I want to read about Mac, Heather, Eugene, Narya, Michael, Elizabeth, Kara, Walter, Jean paul and Jeanne marie, etc....NOT their alternate reality versions. I want the real deal,....certainly not "Ultimate" grittier, darker, morally-bereft versions. What's wrong with wanting to read real (and hopefully well-produced) AF, Avengers, Spidey, etc...?
What do you guys think?
Dana
Re: "Ultimate" AF, better than no AF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmdrkoenig67
IMO....no. I want to read about Mac, Heather, Eugene, Narya, Michael, Elizabeth, Kara, Walter, Jean paul and Jeanne marie, etc....NOT their alternate reality versions. I want the real deal,....certainly not "Ultimate" grittier, darker, morally-bereft versions. What's wrong with wanting to read real (and hopefully well-produced) AF, Avengers, Spidey, etc...?
What do you guys think?
Dana
I think that the problem with that is that there are no real Avengers, FF, Spidey, etc. They're all make-believe to begin with, and so deriding one make-believe world over another, without consideration for individual quality of story, makes about as much sense to me as claiming that Malory's Arthurian tales are somehow more "real" than those of T.H. White. Both are fabrications; it's just a matter of taste.
As for whether or not I'd be interested in an Ultimate AF -- depends entirely on who's doing it. :) Damn, yes, I'd love to be the one, but that's not going to happen. Short of that, I'd like to see somebody on it who can actually write the characters without the need to tarnish everything for the sake of seeming "grittier". Someone who knows the nation, the culture, and the characters -- along with how those characters fit into our culture. Hudson, MacDonald, Smallwood... the names were drawn from our history.
Toronto, roughly the size of Chicago, had 60 murders last year. Chicago had, iirc, around 600. We own more guns per capita, but have less gun violence. CSIS has it's scandals, to be sure, but they're nowhere near the scandal levels that have been drudged up by the CIA. This isn't a knock on the USA, I'm simply highlighting a difference. World-dominating conspiracies aren't a part of our national identity. Our government is lucky to go a day without mockery, nevermind masterminding a conspiracy. We value public health care, cooperation, looking out for our neighbour, etc.
I rather fancied the idea of an Ultimate AF being more heroic, more stable, than their standard MU counterparts ended up being. Back in the 80's, when comic-book superheroes were still very run-of-the-mill, AF were bringing dysfunction to super-teams. It would be amusing to see that trend reversed: Ultimate X-Men are a mess, the Ultimates are a group of morally ambiguous characters with a military backing -- how refreshing would it be to see Alpha as straight-up super-heroes, and succeeding as such, in this setting?
We've already seen Mac as an amoral mad scientist. That's the regular MU. We've seen Aurora played up as a wretched, amoral specimen of humanity -- that, too, is the AU (Weapon X). Shaman perpetually failing. These are the characters in the MU.
Conversely, as other heroes have been relative successes in the MU, but gone dysfunctional in the UMU, it seems to me that Alpha stands the best chance in the Ultimate line. A re-launch in a new continuity to make them the team they've always deserved to be.
On the note of native alcoholism: the reserve I lived on had an alcohol abuse rate of (iirc) around 80% in the population. FAS was rampant among the children. It's not that different in many other reserves across the nation. It's not a stereotype, it's a serious social problem... along with many, many other issues.
All that said: I've drawn and inked several pages, and found a colourer who does amazing things. :) He's just finished the second page. This guy's stuff blows me away. So although the fan-fic comic may be delayed by two years, the bloody thing will at least get a start in the near future... though we're chugging at a pace of about two pages a month when squeezed in outside of paying projects. Plus I've got a couple possible contracts floating around (keeping my fingers crossed) that might nix the project overall. Can't spend hours drawing a fan-fic comic if I'm tackling the real thing (though a different title). :)
Edit: Additon; yes, I would be very leary of Millar tackling an Ultimate AF. Let's face it; the above predictions probably aren't too far off the truth.
Re: "Ultimate" AF, better than no AF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Northcott
I think that the problem with that is that there are no real Avengers, FF, Spidey, etc. They're all make-believe to begin with,
Omigosh, Ed....I'm glad you told me that...I didn't know they weren't real.
Dana