Quote Originally Posted by beetleblack
Quote Originally Posted by Ahab
Murmur was an unnecessary alternate version of Persuasion.
Which is exactly what I thought - what was the point of inventing a new character when there was already a suitable character in the AF universe.
Okay, please don't slap me here, but here's a thought... if Persuasion was all that suitable, why didn't they use her? Simple. The second Alpha Flight series was drastically different than the first, for one. It was all about the manipulation of the team by Department H, playing the conspiracy angle up to the fullest, and it was a lot easier for Dept. H to manipulate a few veteran members (which they could have on the team to show the Canadian public that the new Alpha Flight had the membership and support of people like Heather and Puck, whom they knew of and trusted) than to manipulate a team made up ENTIRELY of veteran members. See, Murmur and the other Hull House recruits were people that Dept. H could control more readily (this was hinted at by referring to them as "Legacy" cases) because they had groomed them for this duty. I'd be willing to bet that Dept. H had a hand in the upbringing of Radius, Flex, Murmur, and Ghost Girl practically from birth... training them (probably not even to their knowledge) to be the perfect government [sleeper] agents. Dept. H probably felt that these children were more trustworthy and thus more suitable, because they could control them easier.

And second, when Marvel decided to relaunch Alpha Flight in the wake of Onslaught, creating new characters for a series can help new readers get into the book more. They don't have to know EVERYONE'S history, because they've got fresh faces that they can start following, and start to root for, because they know what these characters are about. They don't have to run out and buy a bunch of back issues to find out who the characters are. They're learning as they go. That's one of the reasons that I'm enjoying Lobdell's Alpha Flight: because the majority of these characters are brand-new, and it's easy for me to get on board and follow what's going on without having to ask a bunch of questions, like "So how did so-and-so come to this decision since the last series?"

Does this make any sense?