You know, perhaps the v2 Alpha Flight wasn't the Alpha Flight that everyone knew... but how many rosters stay the same throughout the years? Look at the X-Men. You don't get the original five plus Xavier in one title. There are loads of characters that weren't there before, but characters that people have grown to love. Bishop. Psylocke. Emma Frost. And the list can go on and on.
My point is, the X-Men have changed over the years, and the message of change/evolution is the crux of most Marvel comics. It always has been. And I just don't think people gave the new Alpha Flight enough of a chance. So Murmur was an Aurora/Persuasion knock-off... so what? So Radius was a Northstar knock-off... so what?
In both cases, I don't see either of them as direct knock-offs, anyway. Murmur and Kara had completely different ways of using their powers, and completely different personalities. So Aurora and Murmur were both French-Canadian and the "vixens" of their teams. Aurora was never a sexpot to be malicious, or mysterious... but Murmur was. And in the Radius/Northstar case, they were both moody and argumentative... but Northstar was that way (arguably) because of his past as both a mutant and a terrorist AND a homosexual, a past that led him to feel quite alone. Radius was LITERALLY cut off from the world, and Radius was a lot meaner than Northstar. Northstar was just a *****. Radius was mean. Big difference.
I loved v2. I always will. And I loved all the characters... all of them, even Manbot. And do you know why? Because Alpha Flight was back. It wasn't the same Alpha Flight... and thank God. If I wanted the same Alpha Flight, exactly the way it used to be, why go through the expense of collecting a new series when I can just read back issues? If the characters and plots in the back issues are what I want out of Alpha Flight, then why would I want a new series when I can read one done correctly? Because life is change. And during the whole Heroes Reborn thing, Alpha Flight had to stand out from all the other titles doing the superhero thing, otherwise it was bound to get lost in the shuffle. It's harder to snag new readers on the superhero-formula when you've got heavy hitters like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and the X-Men doing the same thing... names people recognize a LOT more readily than Alpha Flight. So they went the government conspiracy route. Why? Because it's already been touched on in the past in regards to Alpha Flight, and because OBVIOUSLY there was a market for it, because people read the book, and people watched X-Files.
And on another note, I also think that AFv2 and X-Files can only be loosely compared. Alpha Flight wasn't investigating paranormal activities blindly. Alpha Flight was being actively and harmfully manipulated for no other reason than government power plays... because Department H COULD do it. It was cool to see all the mysteries that Seagle set up, and I think it's a shame that dismal sales forced Seagle to try to bail out the book by throwing in the veterans. It was shameless and tacky, because the book didn't need the old timers. It was doing quite well, from a character standpoint, on its own.
I guarantee that if v2 had been allowed to run longer, and we had gotten more character development than was possible with ten primary characters and loads of recurring/background characters in the span of twenty issues, people might not yap their traps so much about how Radius and Murmur suck, because we would've gotten some character development out of them.
You don't like v2? Fine. You don't like continuity errors? Also fine. But if you're going to be unfair and negative, perhaps the Alpha Flight message boards isn't the place to be that way. We're all fans here (I think), and while criticism is healthy and allows for discussion, it's quite another to put down someone else's work... especially when you don't know enough about what was going on in the writer's head to be able to pass a fair judgment. If you come into a series with preconceived notions (and let's face it, anyone who read the title "All-New, All-Different Alpha Flight" and still thought that the book was going to focus on the original members is a bit silly) about how things should be, then perhaps you should submit a proposal to Marvel and write the damn thing yourself.
This rant is over.
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Originally Posted by Major Mapleleaf Jr
