AF #12 solicit + Cancellation notice

[Scarlettspiderg]

Taking the "fight for the flight" direct (via email) to Mr. Quesada (Marvels EiC) I got this response:

Gary:

Thanks for dropping me a line. I understand your concern and we try to keep
our books around as long as possible.

JQ


It seems Marvel are reading the emails, so if we keep sending them and buying AF there may be hope!

[DelBubs]

It would have read better if he had wrote :
Hi Gary, thanks for your mail, unfortunately we couldn't give a flying **** for Alpha Flight, but it was the only way to keep you sodding Flight freaks quiet for a while. We're kinda sorry that the series never took off. However you would think that after all the years we've been in business, we could at least have come up with a concept which would last longer than a year. Then again what the eh, we made a few bob out of it and as I said, you Alpha freaks have had your appetite sated for a while. Sorry, gotta dash, I've come over all cyclical. Take care love Joey Da Q.

I know it's a bit longer than his original, but at least mine actually says somthing

[Scarlettspiderg]

But he is reading and responding to emails, so remember to email Joe (and Marvel) and say that you want AF to stay

[Le Messor]

Dear (Whoever),

This is not a form letter. Why would you think it was?

Joe Q

[kozzi24]

I'm with borh Scarlet and the reaper on this one.
Yes, it was probably a form letter. That said, someone took the time to do the cut and paste to acknowledge his e-mail. That doesn't happen all that often, now does it? Has anyone gotten an acknowledgement of their e-mails when sending about this series before?

[Ahab]

The fact that they never even promoted the series in the beginning was a disturbing indication of how much Marvel wanted this series to be successful, IMO. One has to wonder in that case, why bother?

[cmdrkoenig67]

I know why the series failed and so do plenty of other folks here. The book needs to have the actual Alpha Flight in it. I stated my case once and I'll continue to do it, here and elsewhere.

Why did both the second and third series fail like they did?.....the current series did not fail because of the lack of promotion...my evidence? 42,000 plus first issues sold....that is a huge number for a book with barely any peep of promotion! The majority of those sales HAD to be from established AF fans. To say otherwise is just being blind and ignorant.

I believe the current series failed to hold onto many of the older fans of AF(hence the halving of sales by issue . The sagging sales of volume two began to rise when the original members started showing up, near it's end. Both series alienated established fans, by excluding characters from the original 130 issue run of the series and trying to force-feed us a slew of new characters.

Do you need more evidence?....just look at your avatars, folks. An overwhelming number of our picture avatars have original Alpha characters in them(including you Phil :P ), almost all the avatars are from volume one.

Dana

[Scarlettspiderg]

I dont think the missing of the original AF is the reason for V3 (or for that matter V2's) downfall, please note that what follows is imo.

Alpha Flight (And I now count myself as a big fan and love all incarnations) is'nt that well known, ask any non-Marvel fan to name some teams and you will proberly end up with alot of X-'s, Avengers and Fantastic Four.

Its the same with alot of Marvels 2nd stringers - they are not too well known, its up to the Publisher (in this case Marvel) to push a character (or team) into 1st string catergory. Marvel should have had AF appear in a few other titles (tie-in to Avengers Dissassembed, or stick the AD logo on the title for one issue?), there should have also been a build up of AF appearances and mentions of AF in other titles, instead (due to the current state of the MU) no other book mentioned Alpha Flight reforming.

Lots of titles (Giant Size X-Men, New X-Force/X-Statix -which I didnt like) have done well with the minimal amount of the original team in place, where as some titles (X-Factor v1, X-Force -current) did/are doing medicore with regular characters in place.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Lots of titles (Giant Size X-Men, New X-Force/X-Statix -which I didnt like) have done well with the minimal amount of the original team in place, where as some titles (X-Factor v1, X-Force -current) did/are doing medicore with regular characters in place.

Ah, true Scarlettspiderg, but none of those books is Alpha Flight and Alpha Flight is not any of those books.

Dana

[maniac mike]

The bad thing about canceling v.3 is that I started to actually like the characters better than in v.2, oh well.

Maybe we can at least get a limited series out of AF (the originals) like they did for the Thunderbolts.

MM

[Mokole]

Well, v2 had buld up in Marvel magazines and X-Man where Dept. H and Aurora appeared.

THis time we got nada, and so it goes. Quesada knows AF can sell well but I have no idea why he never allowed it to be marketed.

[kozzi24]

This volume had Weapon X as a build up...until AF v3 #1 appeared and none of that ongoing stuff was mentioned and most of the characters were ill-defined unknowns. Aurora had been kidnapped in Wolverine. She's been appearing frequently in Weapon X, under dire straights for the character. Has Sasquatch even thought about, never mind mentioned Aurora's absence? They were lovers who still had some feelings for each other.

Some of the (even) older guys may have to answer this, but did Marvel really promote Uncanny X-Men following GS #1? I remember only seeing as for the new team were the ads with one of the X-Men (Wolvie?) leaning on an RIP Thunderbird tombstone, and if memory serves, that was after Byrne had left the book.

Word of mouth made the X-Men was it is today because those were great comics. I really tried the pass along an extra issue thing with AFv3, and none of the recipients liked the freebee enough to by a consecutive issue.

Marvel did try promoting recent books such as Captain Marvel and Priest's Black Panther. The former was give-and-take sometimes, but BP was great stuff, although I will admit the length and inconguity of the Casper Cole stuff was losing me. Neither book is still among us, although both characters are making combacks of sorts.

My other example is my long standing general boredom with the Inhumans, from the first I saw of them as new charaters (probably in early X-Factor or late 80's FF.) I found the characters boring. Some neat concepts, but my mind was full of "how does Medusa know exactly what hBolt's think if she's not telepathic" type questions and I generally found the characters boring. Then BANG! I got the first issue of Jenkin's MK run and bought every issue with eager interest. I told people how great it was. Some bought it regularly because they also liked it. Then BANG! The next 4-ish limited series followed, back to boring Inhumans. I gave the latest volume a try. EVEN MORE BORING and this wasn't even the same characters.

I don't blame Scott Lobdell entirely because I know of the editorial mandate that suggested he try mixing his AF pitch with another pitch. I have really enjoyed some of Lobdell's stuff, but this run's biggest detriment was the writing and character choice, and at least half of that combination is entirely Scott.

And asking non-Marvel fans to name Marvel teams will get very different responses if you as a 20 year old, or 30 or 40.

At least part of how much time it will be before we see a V4 is how well the trades do.

All IMHO

[cmdrkoenig67]

Hey....I just had a thought. Does anybody know how AF's appearances in the recent X-Men series, X-Men Unlmtd and Wolverine sold....or if we can find out? I mean those issues' sales as opposed to a few issues on each side of the appearances.

I was just curious.

Dana

[kozzi24]

Some of the guys here either seem to know how to find the back records or saved them independently.
I'm not one of them, but a very good question.

[Ahab]

I know why the series failed and so do plenty of other folks here. The book needs to have the actual Alpha Flight in it. I stated my case once and I'll continue to do it, here and elsewhere.

Why did both the second and third series fail like they did?.....the current series did not fail because of the lack of promotion...my evidence? 42,000 plus first issues sold....that is a huge number for a book with barely any peep of promotion! The majority of those sales HAD to be from established AF fans. To say otherwise is just being blind and ignorant.
Dana

I would be surprised if the 42,000 copies was because of the rabidness of Alpha Flight fans. I think it was more likely a combo of Alpha fans, Lobdell fans and a large number of people trying out a new book. Then again, that's just my opinion. I certainly don't think, however, that it makes me blind or ignorant for thinking that way.