Ben's Bit - Alpha Flight #12 Review

[kozzi24]

Ben wrote:
acrually, Heather is amongh them. She isn't shown as a member of the team inthe final splash page, but she is on the coins, and is one of the people dumped out of the pouch.

Ben, I relooked to see why I missed that, and ASSUME it is because I gave a quick look and count of the coins and didn't look at them closely. Now that I have, my head's really spinning about the time paradox. Sasquatch who went back in time to New York was returned through time, supposedly. But the Sasquatch of #12 was not returned among the coins.
Did Sasquatch return from New York alone and never look for his comrades?
Are there two Sasquatch's running around, both Walter Langkowski, but one who never had his heart ripped out by Snowbird?
If the Alpha except for Sas went from the end of V1#12 to the end of V3#12, who was the director in Weapon X involved with?
Who was that who worked with the Avengers and the Russian heroes circa Avengers #321-324?
Man, I thought the ending created problems BEFORE I thought too much about it!!!!

[Ben]

heh, easiest way to look at it Jeff, is that after however long they stay in this time, they are eventually returned to the moment they left, in the time-line unaltered by ANADAF having no memory of their time spent in the future.

The funny thing, is that if they had succeeded in stopping Mac from getting "killed", then there would have been no champion for the Qurrln race agains Galactus, they they'd be digested by now. Worth the death of a race to save Flasback? It would have been much easier if they, rather than stopping mac from going to NY, they should have gone to edmonton, and told Jeffries to be careful about Courtney tossing Flashback in the way of his car-bot.

Ben

[Ahab]

Talk about being torn on whether I liked this series or not... On one hand, I liked some of the things that Lobdell did, such as creating a daughter for Puck, acknowledging the whereabouts of one of Marrina's offspring (which the last scene of Mar seemed to confirm), confirming that Flashback was still alive, showing Sasquatch as a leader and building on Nemesis' history. I even liked all of the new characters. But then, he really seemed to drop the ball. Continuity was a mess, for someone who claimed to be an Alpha Flight fan. And I still haven't figured out why even if Lobdell made writing mistakes, the editor, also a proclaimed Alpha fan, didn't catch them. The stories were ripe with opportunities, but Scott didn't take advantage of them - in fact, everything seemed rushed and not well thought-out. In the end, we now have a convoluted continuity mess that doesn't make much sense. If all of the original Alphans disappeared in New York, why weren't there 2 Sasquatchs at the end? Why wouldn't the original Alphans being brought into the future have yet another impact on the current timeline? It is a mess. I was disappointed. And then I see that my letter, surprisingly, has been printed in the letter's page. It's too bad that they had nothing more to say than hopefully some day we will get an Alpha Flight that we want. With what Marvel is letting happen to the Alphans in other titles, as well as the end of this one, it's somewhat ironic. I'm convinced we are never going to see the Alpha that we want. It's enough to convince me to stop reading comics. What a shame.

*EDIT* I took so long to post this after writing most of it that I see some of you have made the same comments about continuity - glad that it bugged others on this forum too. As for considering that Alpha eventually went back to their original timeline, the problem is, Lobdell wrote their eventual futures, which creates even more of a continuity problem. I guess as a fan of Alpha, I am tired of trying to come up with rationalizations for poor story-telling and continuity errors. I'm 99.9% ready to stop reading anything about Alpha because it's only getting worse and worse.

[jay042]

The biggest problem is that Scott just dropped the ball on this story. Time travel is very hard to write, and he failed to get all his ducks in a row when he organized this story. It reads like some badly written stream of conciousness comic from Vertigo.

[Northcott]

I've come to believe that, as a rule of thumb, clones and time travel should be avoided as plot devices. If you have a plot idea that centres around either concept, drink yourself into a stupor and then think about the plot once again whilst violently hung-over. If the plot doesn't require much effort to comprehend, has a tangible, concrete ending, and doesn't make you vomit, then it might be okay.

Otherwise flush and start again.

[cmdrkoenig67]

LOL! I'm getting a few laughs tonight from the board....Yay!

Dana

[Northcott]

It's only funny 'cause I'm mostly serious.

[kozzi24]

heh, It would have been much easier if they, rather than stopping mac from going to NY, they should have gone to edmonton, and told Jeffries to be careful about Courtney tossing Flashback in the way of his car-bot.

That's what I envisioned him doing when the story arc was first advertised, Alpha interceding on the fight in Edmonton to make sure Flashback didn't die.

Easiest fix on the continuity glitch is an alternate world was created with each member of ANADAF travelled back, with a nexus point around the ANADAFHQ.

You could say there was a bounceback effect, that the originals were returned in some way of nature correcting itself. Or more likely, that Yime Variance Corp that was seen (I think) in FF during Simonson's run just came in and nullified the entire time travel story.

I would almost offer a seamless explanation that the time-thrust originals were put back where they belonged when Shaman transported them from their meeting site and brawl in V1#12, but this wouldn't work as a fix for Mac and Heather.

If the originals were never returned, what about all the stories that happened since V1#12...who have we been reading about and how did they get there?

[Scarlettspiderg]

Heres how I see it:

ANAD Alpha Flight (in the 616) decide to help Flashback by timetravelling.

As soon as one of them travels back they hit a different timeline (617, 618 etc) and the differences they create alter that time line. ANAD AF then moves into that timelines future (maybe Nemesis is an time anchor?).

Each time Nemesis sent someone back they went to an alternative past and created that pasts future.

When Sasquatch pulled the original AF from the past to the present, he pulled an alternative past AF to the 616 present OR pulled the altenative AF and the ANAD AF to an alternative present.

Wait that sounds confusing. Lets all just agree that time travel is hard.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I'm guessing that when the outer space-travelling Alpha returns....the past Alpha will vanish back to their original places in time(with no memory of any future event), Mac will "die" again, as will Sasquatch, Snowbird...Puck will be freed of that stupid demon, etc, etc....see...easy fix...LOL.

Dana

[Northcott]

If the originals were never returned, what about all the stories that happened since V1#12...who have we been reading about and how did they get there?

My personal preference: The same people. At the moment of crisis, Shaman does what Marvel Universe magi do best -- ignore all rational principles. Neither set are doppelgangers, but rather each set are the genuine article.

Much like a powerful memory can form a turning point in our lives, it could be that the past versions have reappeared to rejuvenate their counterparts.

Or on the flipside, what if the current AF are the "memories" (or perhaps dreams)? Shaman transported the real deal to this strange future via coins (often symbols of luck and shifting fortune), leaving "memories" to slog through the future. It would go a long way toward explaining the various continuity glitches and bizarre plot lines we've seen over time: Puck's shifting origins, Mac's Jack-in-the-Box routine with mortality, Heather willing to kill a teammate, bizarre changes in powers, etc.

Just as our memories express who we really are, formin the core of us, so neither version of Alpha is fake. Both are genuine. Just as we cannot exist apart from our memories, the two teams do not remain seperate. The exception is, of course, poor JP. But then on the other hand, he may be better off returning to his "default" state and not ever remembering that he was an elf.

On the flipside, it opens the Tanaraq storyline back up.

[Mokole]

I figure this: The coin AF go back to the time they were brought forward, with no memories. AF in space takes 5-10 years to come back so now that ANADAF has broken up it's left to the husband/wife team of Zuzha and Lou to take over and defend Canada, which they do with aplomb somehow.

Or it will all be ignored (except maybe who the characters are) in v4; after all if people use the AF from the bag then Northstar was never killed by Wolverine, Snowbird (and son?) never died, Mac Hudson only died once or so, and Heather is dead. Plus Aurora has only 2 personalities....

Continuity can't be fixed anyway. Best just to go with v4 having AF back in current context and never any mention of ANADAF, the Plodex, Plodex tech, since none of it ever appeared in any other comic book, including ADS!

Thus, unless you want to use the characters (like Lou or Zuzha) or some of the underpinnings (Scell, Amelia Weatherwhatever, I don't have #12 yet), ANADAF will be totally extinct. Far and away the most likely outcome, we'll never see these characters again.

[HappyCanuck]

Okay, everyone repeat after me: I HATE TIME TRAVEL!!

[kozzi24]

Time travels stories can be wonderful...if they're done right. This one wasn't.

look at time travel this way, probably definitely open for expansion:
If someone goes back in time, they cannot change the event that sent them back, because if they did that, then they would have left no motivation to travel back to begin with. They can travel back, they can influence events and change details, but they can't have eliminated their own motive for the travel.

If someone travels back in time from May, 2005 to May, 1984, then today--Februaty, 2005--that person has ALREADY BENN in 1984...everything they did on their backwards travel already happened in 1984, even if they have not departed yet. 1984 came and went and the time traveler was there. There's no changing what we know, because 1984 had passed with all the time travelers who entered it there, even if they have not left yet.

Byrne did a good time travel take in FF circa 290, with the FF and Fury...actually implied that Hitler's belief in poltergeists and other unexplained phenomena was a side effect of so many people trying to go back in time to kill him.

I don't have a problem with Lobdel doing a time travel story, but I don't think he workled it out or executed it well, and his intentional wrench in Alpha's already convoluted history is unforgivable.

[Somebody]

It's a duplicate AF from an alternate timeline. Don't worry about the history - all that's changed is the end of ANADAF #8 and a little bit of Flashback's memory. Yes, Snowbird still ripped Tanaraq's heart out, etc, etc