You Gotta Be Kidding Me : Or Are We Kidding Ourselves ?

[PWalk]

I think what maybe driving people away from this title thus far is the lack of any real combat yet. Maybe I'm in the minority here but I don't need an all out war every issue. Sometimes I think we've all been brainwashed over the years to think a comic book needs to have some galactic proportion confrontation in every issue. I like what the creative team has established here. It's different, witty, certainly has an edge, and is progressing at real nice rate now that I look back on it.

I'm as much a fan of the originals as anyone else. Thats what drove us to this title. The simple fact that they're not featured in this volume shouldn't turn you off to it. Instead I've come to treasure these new characters much more than I did the ones featured in vol.2. Flex, Murmur & Co. all came off to me as copies of other established heroes. These new members are refreshing. I mean think about it. We have a 90+ year old black man teaming up with a disgruntled, backwater prince, a grown up yet still naive boyscout, a hot to trot, sexy bartender, a gamma irradiated scientist/ fuzzball, and the living embodiment of retribution in a skin tight suit. What's not to like???

I agree in having a book that has lighter moments...I just don't like it being taken to this degree.

While it's true this title can be a little goofy at times I truly think it works here. Why can't we have a book that steps outside the bounds of the generic comic book formula? Enjoy it for what it is and not for what it isn't.

I can't wait for the Centennial mini-series!

[HappyCanuck]

<snippage>...And that's why I'm sticking with the All-New, All-Different Alpha Flight.

=D> =D> =D> Amen, MMJ!! You said exactly what I;ve been feeling since the dawn of the new series and have not been eloquent enough to say!! I applaud you!! =D> =D> =D>

[cmdrkoenig67]

I like to try out new characters. It's fun. I was fond of Radius, Flex, Murmur, Ghost Girl, AND Manbot from the second series, and I was fond of Earthmover (and I can't see why people seem to hate him so much... what's he ever done to anyone?). And I love these new characters. They're unique and they have a very playful, funny dynamic that keeps me grinning while fully expecting them to kick total ass.

Someone pointed out before that the original Alpha Flight was derivative,

You forgot "boring" and "crappy" to go along derivative. I have no idea where anybody would get the idea that the original AF is derivative....or boring. I thought they were interesting and pretty cool....they certainly caught my attention(and obviously plenty of you too), when they first appeared....I wanted to know more about them. If you find them derivative....I'd like to hear your reasons why you feel this way.....maybe that should be a thread of it's own?

My view of which Alpha characters are derivative? Ghost Girl and Murmur are two of the biggest rip-offs, I have EVER seen. They may not be truly AF characters(although they are based in Canada and guest appeared in the Northstar series), but Weapon P.R.I.M.E. certainly fit that description too. This series fortunately, has some very fresh characters(I just don't like all of them). I'm liking Centennial and the Major, so far(AS I've already stated)....but that's not enough to get me to buy every issue.

I will also reiterate and say that "I like new characters"(I never said I didn't)....my examples were/are Puck, Marrina, Talisman, Madison Jeffries, Persuasion(originally Purple Girl), Nemesis, I also sort of liked Flex and Radius(those were ALL new at one time, now weren't they?). I have nothing against new characters. I just prefer to have the original cast around in some manner....not ignored and thrown into limbo(It's in a way, one of the reasons why I despise Marvel's Ultimate line).

It's not THAT hard to understand where I'm coming from, is it? I think the way I feel is pretty clear. Call me "old school", if you must....there's nothing wrong with that. After all....if it weren't for John Byrne, Chris Claremont and the original("derivative, crappy and boring"???)Alpha Flight....this book would not exist....period.

Dana

[Northcott]

As an aside, I'd like to tackle the argument made that supposes that "new" is better because "old" got cancelled. It was insinuated that pining for the original Alpha is something of a lost cause, because they were cancelled and so not viable as a team book. It may not have been the intention, but that was the implication.

If we look objectively at the history of Alpha, sales were strongest with the original team. It was in the subsequent years, where writer after writer tore the team apart to rebuild them with a new vision, that the book began to flag. In looking at the history of the industry, we see that iconic characters with a long-term, stable presence are most likely to draw and maintain a steady readership.

The original Alpha series was cancelled for the exact same reason that any other comic is subject to: poor sales. Poor sales are not dependant upon books with unstable/ever-shifting casts, but such books are almost invariably the victim of poor sales. It's been said (and accurately) that the key to any good retail business is "location, location, location". Something similar might be said of unending serial stories featuring fictional characters: "recognition, recognition, recognition".

New characters are cool. However, how they're introduced, and in what number, can be a very contentious issue.

[kozzi24]

Sometimes it's not just (or even) low sales, but also publisher's mandates of clearing weaker titles for new publishing initiatives. It was a long time ago, and it is late for me here now so memory may be faulty, but didn't volume 1 get the axe for the Heroes Reborn initiative where they axed a bunch of titles so they could turn the publication costs to pay for the overrated creators of Reborn?
There have been other such purges before, including for New Universe and the cut backs of the 70's when they were doing Giant Sizes and had a real glut of titles inclusing Nova, Villain Team-up, Champions, etc. That bust will come again, where a publisher or CEO will lower the boom to "we publish THIS many titles per month and not one more. If you want to add a new one, somthing goes." I think that's why they were so clear with the end of Volume 1 especially that long time fans should have spoken up sooner and the title may have been saved. Furman was doing some good stuff there, and Broderick has a clean style.

[Northcott]

Sometimes it's not just (or even) low sales, but also publisher's mandates of clearing weaker titles for new publishing initiatives. It was a long time ago, and it is late for me here now so memory may be faulty, but didn't volume 1 get the axe for the Heroes Reborn initiative where they axed a bunch of titles so they could turn the publication costs to pay for the overrated creators of Reborn?

I hadn't heard anything of the sort, but considering some of the business gaffes of old-school Marvel in the late 80's and early 90's, I wouldn't be shocked should that turn out to be the case.

[kozzi24]

Best example I can remember with specific details was the New Universe initiative. Mainstream Marvel did add one title: X-Factor within a month or two of the 8 NU. For everything, we lost Defenders (for X-Factor), Power Man & Iron Fist, Micronauts, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and The Thing. There may have been others. At the time, Power Man & Fist sales had been steadily rising; Chris Priest's site has other tidbits of the political situation as he saw it at the time. The Thing can be said to have been a long-term book as it was a direct replacement for 2-in-1, which gives the run a combined 136 issues. PM&IF was at 125, Defenders 152 or so, Micros combined run nearing 80, Star Wars at 107 and could definitely be said to have a loyal following that Marvel execs were aware of.
Volume 1's cancellation in 1994 was not during an initiative, but was in a period of a lot of "let's try this." from 1993 tp 1996 or so. Alpha was gone, we got the Northstar limited immediately. In 1994 alone: West Coast Avengers was cancelled, we got Force Works in about 6 months and related minis at the same time such as Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch (the latter two starting the same publication months that AWC got canned). Cable was a new title at the time, Secret Defenders and Hellstorm entered their 2nd year. Limited also included Black Cat got a limited (that one actually completed by its creators) Cyclops & POheonix, Fury, Starblast, The Vision. Marvel's oversaturation of Ghost Rider titles was ending. Start ups included Nova, the Sabretooth reprint series. X-Men early years and War Machine and Generation X.
By the end of 1996 titles such as Marvel Comics Presents, Dr Strange & New Warriors were gone and Heroes Reborn was starting. Silver Sable was gone, and if Surfer wasn't gone by then he didn't have much time left. Marvel had bought another company (Malibu?). X-Men early years had been changed for Professor Xavier & X-Men (retellings rather than reprints.)
A lot of the time period saw cancellations not because of low sales, but because titles were selling SLOW, enough to be a candidate of "replace with to see what happens.: That was all part of the 1990s glut on the market. You can also sometimes see something of a pattern that books edited by some editors were cancelled, and the editor was then no longer with Marvel. Office politics.
Books are axed for low sales, but that's not always the only reason. If sales was the only consideration for Alpha 's demise at #130, we most definitely would not have seen a limited for an Alpha character within 3 months.
Marvel does the same thing today. Look at all the new # 1's, most X-related. The bad news is that the "critical" low sales point is much lower today than it was back then.

[HappyCanuck]

Volume 1's cancellation in 1994 was not during an initiative, but was in a period of a lot of "let's try this." from 1993 to 1996 or so.

Although you are right in many aspects, Kozzi, you are also forgetting a few things of the time: Alpha Flight and many of the series cancelled between late '92 and '95 were being supplimented by Marvel's now-defunct '2099' line. After the initial four series were released (Spider-Man, Ravage, X-Men and Doom 2099), that's when the axe was pretty much dropped on many non-mainstream sellers, such as Silver Sable, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, and the likes. At that time, unless it was one of the Big 3 titles that are still around (Namely, Fantastic Four, Avengers and anything with an X in the title), or one of their solo books with major hitting characters of the time (ie: Wolverine, Ghost Rider and Captain America), they were getting dropped to make room for the 2099's. When, in 1993 and '94, they brought in the 2099 equivelences of another high-sellers, the Punisher, Fantastic Four and, in '95, Ghost Rider (who was still big at the time, though no one knows why), they dropped more titles, this time heading into the higher tier titles, such as Dr. Strange, Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch (which, IIRC, concluded a few months after Alpha Flight, when the rush of the Infinity Debacle was sated), and, sadly, Alpha Flight, which was still pretty high in customer ratings (even though some say the sales of the title was waning). We also saw the death-songs of many popular-at-one-point spin-offs, such as Force Works and Fantastic Force (while X-Force survived, go fig).

In late 1995, early '96, the new craze in the X-Books pulled new members there in time for the 'Age of Apocalypse' four-month limiteds that replaced many of the X-Books, following suit with the Onslaught crossovers later in early to mid-'97, and the melee of troubles for our merry band of mutants. And that's just the X-books. During that time, Spider-Man had the Clone Saga and many other hyper-tensed storylines, while the Avengers and Fantastic Four were busy dealing with Heroes Reborn and Return for over a year. Marvel's massive plugs on their heavy-hitter series' caused the plummet of sales in several other titles, effectively killing them off. About this time (late '97 to mid '98 ), we saw another resurgance in the quantity of several books (in contrast to the quality of the core three and their spin-offs), with such books as Thunderbolts (as a Core MU temporary replacement to the Avengers), and many short-lived rebuffs, such as Heroes for Hire, New Warriors vol. 2, and Ka-Zar. Toss in there a few 12-issue maxi-series for good measure (Quicksilver).

However,in 1999 and 2000, many of the now 'Classic' books were being revamped, reinvented - such as Gambit, Bishop the Last X-Man and Mutant X's initial runs [both which were originally meant to only last 12 issues, but quickly became fan-favorites, lasting 25 to 32 issues long, respectively], replacing such books as X-Factor and Excalibur - or the short-lived Spider-Man spin-off, Slingers, so as to quell the influx of new readers to the newly re-re-relaunched Avengers and Fantastic Four in the 'Heroes Reborn/Return' sagas (thus making the X-Offices petty - stealing away many readers from the other core books in the mid-'90's with AOA, Onslaught and O:ZT, then trying to hold onto them when the other big-league titles came back a'blazing). I think Spider-Man was still aroung at the time, but I can't remember for the life of me what he was doing at that time (Sorry, Swifty).

[/babble]

[beetleblack]

Okay, well I've kind of been quiet of late on the whole Alpha Flight front as some of you may have noticed and that's mainly because I have no idea what I think of the new title! I put off reading the last few issues because the story seemed to be going no where (although that might have been the fact that it was stretched out to 6 issues - I figure that's Marvel and not Lobdell's doing?).

When I did finally read the whole of the first arc it was less the case of "You Gotta be Kiddin' Me" and more the case of "Whatever!". I'm not a fan of comedic comic-books anyway, but if they have an interesting storyline along with jokes then I'm willing to give them a go - I'm not sure if this series has either. The storyline was weak and didn't go anywhere except to introduce the new team and despatch the old one - did they really need 6 issues to do this - especially when the storyline was kind of nothing??? The humour was all very knowing and although some of it made me smile I wasn't that sure if it was really funny or not. I like some of the characters but would have prefered a mix of old and new (although yes, as it's already been pointed out, this is the ALL new, ALL different AF!).

At the end of the day I don't want to cancel the title as I feel loyal to AF, but I'm just not sure there is enough to keep me going back for more at this stage.

[Ottawa Renegade]

It's not THAT hard to understand where I'm coming from, is it? I think the way I feel is pretty clear. Call me "old school", if you must....there's nothing wrong with that. After all....if it weren't for John Byrne, Chris Claremont and the original("derivative, crappy and boring"???)Alpha Flight....this book would not exist....period.

Dana

Not to turn this into people taking sides, but I totally get your drift.

It's like if they started using replacement players during the NHL strike. just slapping a shirt on a bunch of guys doesn't make them the (enter team name here) that you grew to love. Same with this book.

Having said that, I'm still curious as to where it's going. The next story has a stronger connection to the team's past, so that'll be nice. If Lobdell can continue walking that line, I'll be happy enough. These characters do not do enough for me still that I'd continue to buy a book just to find out what they're up to. Something has to tie them into Alpha Flight besides just the logo on the cover. It's all fine and good to call them all-new and all-different. If they're supposed to be that, then don't call them Alpha Flight.

[kozzi24]

If they're supposed to be that, then don't call them Alpha Flight.

Bravo there!

Kozzi, you are also forgetting a few things of the time:

You're absolutely right. O knew where the Ghost Rider glut was by Strange's numbering and Marvel Comics Presents, but forgot all about the 2099 line I personally had been surprised to see SHIELD last as long as it did. It was a title launch off the Fury Vs. SHIELD Bookshelf, which was great, but the ongoing title just didn't seem to have it, IMO.

[PWalk]

I still don't understand whats wrong with trying to take this title in a diiferent direction. I applaud the creative team for trying to come up with something different here. I have a funny feeling that if it was the original Alphans still the book would have done alot worse sales wise, only being picked up by us yahoo's here.

Let's face it the original team never really made it into the mainstream Marvel consciousness. If they ever were to be featured in anything the exposure was limited. The fact that they lasted as long as they did on the first run always surprised me, and I'm a huge fan!

Give it sometime here with this book. I really believe it's going to turn into something we're going to enjoy reading.

[Northcott]

Let's face it the original team never really made it into the mainstream Marvel consciousness.

I think there's room for debate on that one. Their overall penetration in the market, in the form of appearances in other books, was more limited than (for example) Spider-Man or the X-Men... but those are Marvel's two heavy-hitters. In their prime Alpha were getting a number of guest appearances in other books.

In fact, it was Alpha's unprecedented level of popularity that lead to their own book -- and that only happened after (literally) years of Marvel being innundated by fan requests for the Alphans to have their own title.

I bored the hell out of the people on the Alpha list with my long-winded theory about iconic characters, the elements of them, and how they fit into the genre as cornerstones that support the overall structure. It's the root of longevity with every long-lasting superhero character around: they follow certain thematic and visual design principles. The original Alphans have these elements.

Nobody's saying that doing something new and different automatically equates to something bad. But many fans of Alpha Flight wanted to see more Alpha Flight in the book, and less "all new". Not a removal of the new, but a balance between what is comfortable and familiar, and what allows a writer to indulge his personal tastes. Some say the book seems to be headed that way after six issues. My impression is that many of the people here would have liked to see that balance from issue one or two.

Disclaimer: the above is not my personal judgement on the book. I haven't seen enough of it to form a solid opinion. I'm just stating the impression of others' opinions that I'm getting from reading this forum.

[varo]

i like this series and this incarnation of alpha flight, but thats not the problem.

if the sales continue the way they are it won't matter who prefers what version of alpha flight because this will be the third series cancelled and a new one will be a looooooong ways off for another writer to try to appeal to the non-hradcore alpha fans so sales will be at a decent non-cancel level.

i just want this series to succeed.

[Ottawa Renegade]

I still don't understand whats wrong with trying to take this title in a diiferent direction. I applaud the creative team for trying to come up with something different here.

I don't think there's anything wrong with trying it, I just find it doesn't work for me.

If it was just a matter of being pissed about new characters, I wouldn't have picked up #1. I knew going in there were many new characters. I just don't find these ones particularly appealing. If I found out tomorrow that only Sasquatch would remain and any other connections to the originals was done away with I'd drop the title in a heartbeat because I could care less what happens to Yukon Jack and I'm in no hurry to see Centennial's hundreth birthday party.

Give it sometime here with this book. I really believe it's going to turn into something we're going to enjoy reading.

I've given it eight months, I'm giving it at least four more. Probably more.