Do you really think the current series is good enough that-

[cmdrkoenig67]

I don't see how can you dislike the Hudsons and the twins, so much with only 7 issues? Which issues of Vol. one do you have?

Dana

[DelBubs]

I don't see how can you dislike the Hudsons and the twins, so much with only 7 issues? Which issues of Vol. one do you have?

Dana

Maybe I missed the boat, but where was it said that the writer didn't like the twins or the Hudsons?

[kozzi24]

I don't think Mokole's said that in this thread, Del, but he's made it very clear in most others, expecially with the Hudsons.

[DelBubs]

I don't think Mokole's said that in this thread, Del, but he's made it very clear in most others, expecially with the Hudsons.

Fair dinkum, just wondered where the concept came from, good of you to elaborate.

[Le Messor]

It hit me at work last night:
The main reason, for me, in the first place, that Alpha Flight is my book is that I'm a damn far'ner (technically). I wanted a series that wasn't set in the USA, and that wasn't, like, say, Cap America, all about 'This is the Greatest Nation on Earth!' all the time. (I've lived there, and I like -this- one better. US is the most powerful. I'll give it that.)
I think one of the failings of post v1 AF is that it din't respect that. - v2 just projected US paranoia onto a foreign country, and v3 turned it into a joke. Part of why I don't think either series should've lasted.

Vote for new writer? Peter David, easily. His teaming with Gary Frank and Cam Smith would, imho, work.
Failing him; the original Excalibur team - Claremont, Davis, Neary.

Oh, and speaking of rank, what's that smell?... I mean, how long am I gonna be stuck in Beta? grumble, grumble...

- Le Messor
"COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance."

[Mokole]

I don't see how can you dislike the Hudsons and the twins, so much with only 7 issues? Which issues of Vol. one do you have?

Dana

I don't dislike the twins but I do think their continuity makes it hard to write them in AF without making them, well, poor team members. Retconn them back to the early days and they'd fit in better but would that be fair?

As to the Hudons no, I never liked them, as you point out I've said before I found them weak characters and worse, knockoffs of Iron Man and the Guardsman. I found it hard to believe Puck or Shaman would want Heather to go from the wife of an engineer (who himself had no training in combat or leadership) to 'boss' in a matter of days. I think suspension of belief/disbelief makes comics and sci-fi work and I couldn't suspend my disbelief when she took over. Mac's returns from death made me groan out loud.

I have issues 128-130, 120, 98, 112, 118, and I think lower down is 32 and 12. I have read all of 1-130, though, I just didn't like many of them enough to buy the issues from the person who was trying to unload them, I only bought the 8 above. Same with v3, I scanned them all and read internet reviews but I only bought 1, 11, 12, and 16.

Fair dinkum, as Delbubs says.

[Legerd]

It hit me at work last night:
The main reason, for me, in the first place, that Alpha Flight is my book is that I'm a damn far'ner (technically). I wanted a series that wasn't set in the USA, and that wasn't, like, say, Cap America, all about 'This is the Greatest Nation on Earth!' all the time. (I've lived there, and I like -this- one better. US is the most powerful. I'll give it that.)
I think one of the failings of post v1 AF is that it din't respect that. - v2 just projected US paranoia onto a foreign country, and v3 turned it into a joke. Part of why I don't think either series should've lasted.

Now if you would tell Joe Q. that maybe he would listen and get the point about why AF deserves another book, and respect.

Oh, and speaking of rank, what's that smell?... I mean, how long am I gonna be stuck in Beta? grumble, grumble...

Tell me about it!

[Northcott]

I must admit that Gary Frank would be so good, but I think Peter David and Ed as the penciller would make a good team and Peter could get the canadian aspect that way (and maybe get Ed snowbird) and of course that team would need me for the quebecer aspect . I don't trust Ed on that part

Awww... c'mon! All Quebecois are TEH EVAL SEPERATISTS!!!!11!!1! We all know that. Everybody in Alberta lives on a ranch and hates Canada. Everybody in Ontario is a snob. Only drunken fishermen live in Newfoundland, and BC is populated entirely by hippies.

I've got my finger on the pulse of the nation, baby!

As to the Hudons no, I never liked them, as you point out I've said before I found them weak characters and worse, knockoffs of Iron Man and the Guardsman.

Say WHAT?!? Where in the jib-jabbin', tap-dancin, flamin' blue hell did you get that theory? Other than donning a suit that grants them powers, Mac has nothing in common with those characters. Origins, motivations, personalities, appearance (in and out of costume)... all are radically different.

Please, other than the superficial suit angle, how do you classify Guardian as a knock-off of Iron Man?

I found it hard to believe Puck or Shaman would want Heather to go from the wife of an engineer (who himself had no training in combat or leadership) to 'boss' in a matter of days.

Let's go through the characters in the MU who have training in combat and leadership:

Captain America -- nope. He was a skinny kid from New York who was given steroids, spandex, and a rank because of his patriotism.

Thor -- kind of. He smashes stuff with a cinderblock on a stick, and has done so for a couple thousand years. Technically it's not "training" per se, but it's a lot of experience. We'll count that one.

Cyclops -- yes in one, no in the other.

Hawkeye -- no in both, though he's a good shot with a bow. Or was.

Storm -- no to both when she became a superhero. By the time she lead the X-Men she had combat experience, but no leadership training.

Captain Britain -- no to both.

Reed Richards -- no to both.

Seeing where I'm going with this? Superheroes aren't about military personel getting beefed up with powers -- not unless you're Mark Millar. It's about the everyday Joe with a good heart who discovers not only fantastic ability, but the old addage: with great power comes great responsibility. To that extent, characters who represent "the common man" will always remain in the forefront of the super-hero genre as leaders, while the more obsessive, driven, skilled characters tend to follow their lead. The over-arching theme is about moral compass, not practicality.

Mac's returns from death made me groan out loud.

Even the most diehard of Guardian fans join you in that -- especially after the third or fourth time.

[jay042]

As for who I'd like to see writing Alpha Flight, I'd love to see Judd Wynick on the book. He did a great run on Exiles, including that alternate Alpha storyline. Either one of the artists he had on that book would be okay.

[cmdrkoenig67]

[quote="Northcott"]Seeing where I'm going with this? Superheroes aren't about military personel getting beefed up with powers -- not unless you're Mark Millar. It's about the everyday Joe with a good heart who discovers not only fantastic ability, but the old addage: with great power comes great responsibility. To that extent, characters who represent "the common man" will always remain in the forefront of the super-hero genre as leaders, while the more obsessive, driven, skilled characters tend to follow their lead. The over-arching theme is about moral compass, not practicality.

Exactly....superheroes CAN be engineers and secretaries. I think Heather excelled at being a super hero and leader....sure she had trouble at first, who doesn't? Such roles take time to grow into. She was also a perfect example of a superhero who isn't perfect...she made mistakes.

Mac's returns from death made me groan out loud.

Even the most diehard of Guardian fans join you in that -- especially after the third or fourth time.

I'm in that crowd too. Guardian's death was such a blow to the team and an amazing story(not to mention really ironic that he never really wanted to put the suit on and it was suit that ended up killing him...well...sort of). I for one, wish it had been left alone. The Delphine Courtney fake resurrection story was brilliant, though.

Dana

[kozzi24]

Heather's leadership cam frrom life experience.
She was the oldest of something like seven siblings, and as a child often supervised and led younger kids..including Elizabeth Twoyoungman.
He administrative assistant job would also have cultivated leadership and organizational tools, and the big joke from the old WKRP in Cincinatti show of Loni Anderson truly running the compasny and making the dicisions for the CEO is more common in the corporate world than many people realize.
Leadership often comes about because one person rises to fill a vacuum and takes the reigns when no one else does so in time...and that's just what Heather did following Mac's death in V1#12. Some of her mistakes were glaring...but her excellent leadership skills were far more subtle:
Leading by example, with her willingness to be on the front lines despite a lack of power (Plodex arc, AF #14-16, meeting Omega at the mall AF #25-2
Her regard for team vs team sessions in danger room scenarios as unhealthy
Her caution against such experiments such as the one that brought the Hulk from Crossroads (#28 -29)
Her recalling of the team's absent members circa AF#17-18 began with the most distant member, Northstar, not the easy ones first
Her organization in keeping detailed records in audio journal form, shown in various Byrne issues including #24 and #28
Her assumption of the Guardian battlesuit was that of a wise leader implementing all tools available to her. Without the suit, she could not contribute as much to the battles, and more importantly, she posed more of a liability because most of the others were distracted by concerns that their powerless leader would be hurt.

Heather exemplifies the "common man" as hero more than Mac did. Mac was a genious with no family. Heather was a secretary of average intelligence but a great deal of common sense with an estranged family. And she did assume leadership of the flight while it was very broken and disjointed and she was, essentially a homeless widow living off friends.

If you don't have those issues available to read consecutively to see the development that Byrne put into Heather as the "common man" going to heroic leadership, you really should be laying off her and eeping your comments more resticted to the characters you have more familiarity with

[HappyCanuck]

Well, it's very rare that I do this (mostly because I tend to disagree with him on more points than not - just a character trait, not a stab at Kozzi), but Kozzi hit Heather's number on the head. She isn't the natural leader, but she grew into the role partially because she felt she had to, and because she needed to. As much as many of us might gripe about Mantlo putting her in the suit (myself included), Kozzi has just demonstrated how it was actually natural progression for her to don it. Yes she was a good leader outside the suit, but tactically, she was pretty useless - and with ppl like Puck and Shaman more concerned with her safety than with the battle-at-hand - it made for more mistakes. Having Heather in the suit, able to defend herself AND add to the battle beyond the planning stage is just good ol' practicallity.

[Northcott]

Heather exemplifies the "common man" as hero more than Mac did. Mac was a genious with no family. Heather was a secretary of average intelligence but a great deal of common sense with an estranged family. And she did assume leadership of the flight while it was very broken and disjointed and she was, essentially a homeless widow living off friends.

That's always what I thought Heather's failing as a character was -- the suit. The common man theme of super-heroes is always accompanied by a gift: in most it's their powers, but in some (like Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Mac) it's their mind. There's a throwaway line from the "Marvels" mini-series written by Busiek: a few reporters are talking about Iron Man, and how he seems to mostly avoid the alternating waves of adulation and contempt that the public has for super-heroes.

In response, one of the other reporters quips: "Yeah, but that's because he's just a paid athlete in a fancy suit of armour. Now if he had built that suit himself, he'd be one of the marvels."

The hero invariably needs their own schtick, even those described as being without powers have them to an extent (if you think of it in thematic terms, not literal): Hawkeye's astounding aim and trick arrows, Cap's perfect physicality mixed with that unbreakable shield, and the astounding intellects of the characters mentioned above.

That said, Heather seems to be the exception: she functioned as a character and even gained her own following while stepping outside the boundaries of what normally constitutes a hero. But it remains that her dependance upon a technological device which she lacked the knowledge to modify or repair was a glaring weakness.

[kozzi24]

That's always what I thought Heather's failing as a character was -- the suit. The common man theme of super-heroes is always accompanied by a gift: in most it's their powers, but in some (like Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Mac) it's their mind.

That said, Heather seems to be the exception: she functioned as a character and even gained her own following while stepping outside the boundaries of what normally constitutes a hero. But it remains that her dependance upon a technological device which she lacked the knowledge to modify or repair was a glaring weakness.

I think the fact that Heather was not the creator of the suit or an engineer made her more of the "common man" in this day and age, and even in the 1980s. How many of us can program our own computers or fix our own TVs. There's still a lot of people out there who can't change the headlights on their own cars. You are right in a sense that Heather as a solo hero would not work for that weakness, but within context, that weakness really emphasizes that she is part of a team, and even as team leader, relies on the abilities of her teammates to compensate for her weaknesses.

[Mokole]

But that, in itself, is a problem. Who fixed the suit? Who redesigned it for her? When it broke down who fixed it then? How did she learn so fast how to operate it? how did she learn to fix it with no prior knowledge or experience?

It's like me getting a helicopter and flying it expertly, with no training, by Monday, and also being able to fix it to suit me AND fix it when it breaks down (ie. knowing where the problem is).

Just can't suspend my disbelief.