I'd hope not, myself.Originally Posted by Sypes
Comics often do that kind of thing already, and (I'm afraid) usually pretty badly - they just preach the same lessons over and over, taking very predictable stances on all of those issues and are unsubtle in doing it. Unless they find something new to add, it's getting pretty dull.
That's been my finding, anyway.
~ Le Messor
Last edited by Le Messor; 06-03-2015 at 07:00 AM.
I agree with Le Messor on this. Comics should be entertaining, and there are business-minded folks who would want Alpha Flight to sell well. I don't think taking on these issues will be either entertaining or profitable. I sure hope no one decides to use Alpha Flight as an experiment to find out; AF has a hard enough time getting a conventional mini/maxi-series.
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 agree with both sides here; religion is such a hard thing to cover in comics & I don't think it should be tackled as there's a genuine difference between religion, organised religion, faith & personal faith and there's nothing universal about it, which to me is the point, especially with my beliefs.
[As an aside, PLEASE let's not have this thread focus on religion as we've lost enough people because of that recently.]
However, I do agree there has to be something more substantial than Hero vs Villain slugfest repeat ad infinitum (and equally, if not more so, hero vs hero)
Agreed. Trying to be as general as possible.
Also true. (And if I never see another hero vs hero 'event', it'll be too soon.)
That said, my attitude has long been 'come for the slugfest - stay for the characters'. It isn't the fights which make me care about them (though, if they're helping people / saving the world, it helps); it's getting to know and care about the people who have the monthly adventures.
~ Le Messor
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
~ Mark Twain
Me, I prefer far and away good guy vs. bad guy stories, intelligent ones too. Trying to be politically correct or sounding off on one ideology or another simply drives fans away in droves. Sometimes those social issue things are done well, but usually not. I think of some comics my Grandma had in her house a long time ago; none were popular or lasted long but she had them because they had little violence, or none. She had one issue of Green Arrow and it was more a story about heroes and villains, and it was so worn out by all us grandkids reading it and it alone. The other hero books she had that were focused on social issues more than a story involving heroes got dusty but unread. My experience. My boys far and away like hero vs villain stories and rarely read new comics because they lack that so much, they get frustrated by the poor storytelling and meandering point.
Keep your stick on the ice.
Live it.
Oh political correctness and ideology have no place in comics, I agree.
But if you look at Byrne's run how much of it was just good guy vs bad guy?
For me the things that make it so unique was the fact that he deconstructed the team and the notions, and the stories were far more intelligent and touching on social issues than simple spandex slugfests.
Yes - Byrne's run was very character-driven, with not so much evil, world-conquering types as people who had a strong tie to each character's origin / past. (Even the evil, world-conquering types.)
He worked it in smoothly, so it never felt ham-fisted. It felt like it was planned.
That was Alpha Flight's blessing, that was its curse.
I call it a blurse.
In some ways, it cut them off from certain kinds of stories - common kinds of stories in superhero comics. I felt it strongest during Acts Of Vengeance - if all Alpha's villains were tied intimately to Alpha characters, who could go to the US to represent?
~ LM
"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
~ William Faulkner
Last edited by Le Messor; 06-04-2015 at 07:41 AM.
I think therein lies the problem of AF's mass unappeal, and ties it back into KM's initial point of the thread; whereas Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men etc. have specific villains that have ties to their members they do quite often crossover and fight other heroes, Kingpin going from a Spider-Man villain to a Daredevil villain being the most prominent example off the top of my head.
Alpha's villains have never really been used by anyone else, and no major MU villains have been used well in the pages of AF.
Exactly only a few AF villians appeared else where. The biggest would be the Master of the world which was shown a lot of respect in heroes for hire and the avengers. Then the great beasts (their appearance in X-Man was bad though) and I suppose Pink Pearl (which I find very surprising)
dreamqueen could make the easiest transition to another book I feel that hasn't already been utilized
Yeah, I was surprised by Pink Pearl, too.
The big waste is Gilded Lily - I love her as a character, but she's had no more than two appearances.
~ LM
Pink Pearl's essentially been used as a background supporting thug though.
It'd be different if she were a major threat.
I'm still surprised she's used even for that to be honest. She lasted far longer then I thought she would ever
Me, too, K-M-.
I do like the fact that she's been in more issues of both Captain America and Secret Avengers than she actually was in Alpha Flight.
There've been a couple of things like that. Guardian had a superpower he never used in volume 1 (except in flashback to the X-Men). - his 'staying still in relation to the earth' thing.
Also, they never faced one of their biggest foes in their own comic, at least during volume 1: Wendigo.
~ Le Messor
"Adversity does not make us frail; it only shows us how frail we are."
~ Abraham Lincoln
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