Will Marvel teams include us?

[Ben]

Not all that impressed myself. (sorry Eric) The whole bio was one page. It barely dicussed any AF history, only enough to use to explain vol.3. They took the storybook ending of vol.3 as being set in stone, and to me this came across as mothing more than a vague possible future. Anyway, I understand thet they had limitations, but Excalibur got 2 pages, as did Brotherhood of Mutants, Masters of Evil, New Warriors, Power Pack, Thunderbolts, Winter Guard, X-Force, X-Men and Avengers. I think these last two do indeed need more space than AF does, but common, yer gonna do a whole exera page for freekin' Winter Guard!?

The listed Classic as being the current roster, with Lou and Zuzha as Reserve.

I DO like that they didn't mention the existance of the "Past Alpha" coming into the present.

Ben

[HappyCanuck]

Winter Guard and Power Pack got two pages, whereas Alpha only got one??

Don't get me wrong, I like Power Pack, and Winter Guard was always interesting to me (even if they NEVER had their own series or all that exposure other than to tell us 'yep, we still exist'), but they have more coverage than ALPHA?! God that's depressing.

BUT at least they state the classic team is the current team, and having Lou and Zu as 'reserve' members, that I can live with (the only two new characters out of v.3 I actually gave a damn about).

[-K-M-]

Horrible I was pissed since they did not cover the rich history of the old Alpha Flight. Hell, they have connections to many of the teams in the databook and they are constantly making cameos in comics today...yet they get nothing. Hell their bio wasn't even a full page it was just one column and the rest was who was on the team and who left.

[maniac mike]

About 3 weeks ago, I posted who I wanted to get the OHOTMU treatment over at Comixfan Forums (which of course was Alpha Flight) and LOKI, one of the writers for the OHOTMU responded with this quote...

"Well, I suppose you could make leather out of their skins and use the blood for ink, but it's a pretty gross and cruel thing to do to the members of Alpha Flight, and its not even like you'd be able to make more than a couple thousand copies, even if you rendered down members of Beta and Gamma Flight too."

"Maybe we should stick to paper and ink and just write about the team instead?"

This is the link if you want to respond to LOKI's quote...

http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/...t=33026&page=1

MM

[Loki]

About 3 weeks ago, I posted who I wanted to get the OHOTMU treatment over at Comixfan Forums (which of course was Alpha Flight) and LOKI, one of the writers for the OHOTMU responded with this quote...

"Well, I suppose you could make leather out of their skins and use the blood for ink, but it's a pretty gross and cruel thing to do to the members of Alpha Flight, and its not even like you'd be able to make more than a couple thousand copies, even if you rendered down members of Beta and Gamma Flight too."

"Maybe we should stick to paper and ink and just write about the team instead?"

This is the link if you want to respond to LOKI's quote...

http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/...t=33026&page=1

MM

Hey, if you're going to quote me, then it wouldn't hurt to quote the actual question I was replying to, so you can see my reply in context. What you said exactly was

I would like to see ALPHA FLIGHT be made into a handbook!

Plus you missed out the emoticon in my reply. It was a joke. I was being facetious. It maybe wasn't a particularly funny joke, but I'd had a long day with very little sleep by that point, so at the time I thought it was hilarious; sleep deprivation will do that for you.

Edit: And joking aside, I would like to see a Handbook covering Alpha Flight, its members and its enemies. However, I just don't see it happening, based purely on how sales would be likely to go. If an Alpha Flight comic can't sell enough to sustain itself, Marvel aren't likely to believe an Alpha Flight Handbook would sell any better.

[Loki]

Although, with a lot of these "New and Improved" Handbooks, only characters that appear in comics Marvel still publishes get in, just a thought.

That'd be why the Champions of L.A. got an entry in this book then? :P Not to mention the Champions of Xandar and Mys-Tech.

[Loki]

Not all that impressed myself. (sorry Eric) The whole bio was one page. It barely dicussed any AF history, only enough to use to explain vol.3.

That's largely because AF had an entry in the Wolverine Handbook which covered the earlier history. The remit given to the writer of this entry (rightly or wrongly) was given was to concentrate on the new incarnation of the team, who hadn't had Handbook coverage up to that point. Given he only had a single page to do so, that gave him a very low word count to squeeze in mention of the old team.

They took the storybook ending of vol.3 as being set in stone, and to me this came across as mothing more than a vague possible future.

Actually we took the ending of vol.3 as confusing and unclear, so we went back to Marvel and asked editorial for clarification (and they, I presume, asked Scott Lobdell as part of that). What made it into the final profile was the official outcome of that query.

Anyway, I understand thet they had limitations, but Excalibur got 2 pages, as did Brotherhood of Mutants, Masters of Evil, New Warriors, Power Pack, Thunderbolts, Winter Guard, X-Force, X-Men and Avengers. I think these last two do indeed need more space than AF does, but common, yer gonna do a whole exera page for freekin' Winter Guard!?

Excalibur, New Warriors, Power Pack and Thunderbolts are all teams with long histories, their own fanbases (who love them as much as AF fans love the Flight) and no prior coverage in any of the current Handbooks.

The Brotherhood and Masters of Evil are major villain teams, and compared to the heroes, villains haven't had as much coverage yet in the current series, so again, they needed two pages to do them justice.
X-Men and Avengers frankly needed more than two pages, given their lengthy and convoluted histories, but there was no way they were getting more than that in this book at the expense of another team.

As for Winter Guard, no, taken just as Winter Guard, they didn't need two pages. However, expanding that remit to include their earlier incarnations (Soviet Super-Soldiers, Supreme Soviets, etc) and to include the overall history of the Russian / Soviet superhero program, then a second page was needed.

The listed Classic as being the current roster, with Lou and Zuzha as Reserve.

That's what we were told was the current team when we asked for clarifications.

I DO like that they didn't mention the existance of the "Past Alpha" coming into the present.

Like I said, the overall status of that final story is confusing and uncertain, so until another story follows on and clarifies things, the feeling was that it should be left out of the Handbook.

I'd agree that in an ideal situation, AF deserves to get a multi-page Handbook entry which covers all their incarnations. However, we currently have themed books; some characters and groups only fit a narrow number of themes, while others fit many. We don't pick the themes, so we never know when a given character or team might get another chance of a Handbook entry. We do however have a good idea as to which themes are more likely to crop up, based on common sense - there's bound to be more X-Men Handbooks, for example. With each book, we get a list of "must includes", and then some flexibility to suggest others who should be included. One factor that influences us when putting forward our suggestions is who has been covered before and who might not get another chance; I love AF, but they'd been covered before.

[Ben]

Hi Loki, welcome aboard, and thanks for the clarifications.

I thought that the coverage in the Wolvie handbook might have had something to do with the limited entry, but I don't agree that it should have. Alpha Flight has a rich history, and for those unfamiliar with it, reading that entry wouldn't be getting an accurate description of the team. In buying a book like OHMU : TEAMS, I would expect to get a full history on the teams, not just a quick run down of the most recent incarnation. Why wasn't the Avengers entry just about the current "New Avengers" with Wolvie and Spidey? Sure, there was lots more info in the Wolvie handbook, but how are people who didn't buy it supposed to know that?

As for the info Marvel had given you about the "wrap up" of the series, as time goes on, thought I quite enjoyed the series, I am wanting the whole thing to be a dream. The ending made it all very difficult to explain.

Like I said, I understand how much work goes into this kind of thing, and have the utmost respect for those who do it, however as an Alpha Flight fan, I feel they deserved more in this book.

Ben

[Loki]

Hi Loki, welcome aboard, and thanks for the clarifications.

I thought that the coverage in the Wolvie handbook might have had something to do with the limited entry, but I don't agree that it should have. Alpha Flight has a rich history, and for those unfamiliar with it, reading that entry wouldn't be getting an accurate description of the team.

I wouldn't disagree with you on the rich history front, or that the entry didn't really cover all of it; however, with only a single page assigned to them for this book, the options were to either do an overview of their entire history (and try doing that justice in one page), or in concentrating on one section, the newest, which had not yet had any coverage, so that at least that bit could get reasonable coverage.

In buying a book like OHMU : TEAMS, I would expect to get a full history on the teams, not just a quick run down of the most recent incarnation.

Giving the new team some publicity was seen as a priority because, when the choices were made as to which groups should be included, none of us knew the title was going to be cancelled - we only learned that just before the entries were sent in.

Why wasn't the Avengers entry just about the current "New Avengers" with Wolvie and Spidey?

Because the Avengers haven't had an entry of any sort in this current series covering their history prior to this Handbook.

Sure, there was lots more info in the Wolvie handbook, but how are people who didn't buy it supposed to know that?

Inside front cover - "For more teams see...Wolverine Handbook '04 - Alpha Flight"

As for the info Marvel had given you about the "wrap up" of the series, as time goes on, thought I quite enjoyed the series, I am wanting the whole thing to be a dream. The ending made it all very difficult to explain.

For us too.

Like I said, I understand how much work goes into this kind of thing, and have the utmost respect for those who do it, however as an Alpha Flight fan, I feel they deserved more in this book.

Ben

The trouble is, and will remain, that if a reader perceives the Handbooks as stand-alone items, then they will be disappointed with some of them because a character / team they feel should be included under a given theme has either been missed out or given fewer pages than they feel they deserve. Having the books themed unfortunately encourages this viewpoint. We realised early on that there was no way to do a decent Handbook if we treated each as stand-alone: you can't give large groups like the X-Men decent coverage if you try and cover all their members in a single book - you'd end up with a lot of quarter page profiles; Women of Marvel would have been a list of names, with no additional details; Wolverine and Spider-Man would get entries in about half the books (which might please the sales guys at Marvel, but no one else). Strictly speaking, Alpha Flight probably shouldn't have gotten an entry in this book at all, since they'd had one not that long ago, and we could have found another team to take that page, but most of us like the group too much to exclude them from the book, and we wanted (pointlessly, as it turned out) to raise the profile of the latest version of the comic.

[Ben]

Again, you make very good points Loki, I'm just speaking as a biased Alpha Flight fan :P It's funny that you guys had concerns about promotion for the recent book, but Marvel sure as heck didn't!

Thanks for the inside POV.

Ben

[Loki]

Again, you make very good points Loki, I'm just speaking as a biased Alpha Flight fan :P

Oh, we're mostly biased Alpha Flight fans too - but we're also biased X-Men fans, biased Avengers fans, etc.

It's funny that you guys had concerns about promotion for the recent book, but Marvel sure as heck didn't!

It wasn't just the writers who wanted Alpha in this to boost their profile; you've got to remember, "Marvel" is not a single mind. There are (and were) a number of people there who actively wanted to promote the book, some who were happy to but had other things taking higher priority, and some of who just didn't care one way or another because they had their own titles to worry about; I doubt there was anyone who actively wanted to see the book fail.

[-K-M-]

Thanks Loki for the clarification, and I bought the Wolverine and Team handbook so all is well I suppose in the Alpha Flight bio standpoint.

My main problem is the over saturation with the constant “x” teams. However, it was great to see some teams in the databook that I thought were so great back in the day; but I had forgotten about them since they were not as mainstream as others or they ran their due course. So reading their history all over again was quite enjoyable.

[skullogeist]

Again, you make very good points Loki, I'm just speaking as a biased Alpha Flight fan :P

Oh, we're mostly biased Alpha Flight fans too - but we're also biased X-Men fans, biased Avengers fans, etc.

Hey, don't forget biased Big Hero 6 fans!!

[Le Messor]

"Well, I suppose you could make leather out of their skins and use the blood for ink, but it's a pretty gross and cruel thing to do"

Hey, if you're going to quote me, then it wouldn't hurt to quote the actual question I was replying to, so you can see my reply in context. What you said exactly was

I would like to see ALPHA FLIGHT be made into a handbook!

Plus you missed out the emoticon in my reply. It was a joke.

Don't worry, I took it as a joke. What else can you expect from the Trickster?
I'm sure -most- of us got that you were joking. I've just decided I can speak for most of us.
(But seeing the actual question helps.)

Oh, and the promotion thing? A lot of people on this list have been lamenting the lack of publicity for the last series of AF. Some say it's the lack of promotion that killed the latest Alpha Flight series. (Me, I'm in the 'it was the lack of -Alpha Flight- that killed the last two Alpha Flight series' camp.)
Long time readers should recognise that immediately, but I imagine you're a little... lost about it. As long as you're not lost on an island with a giant monster trying to eat you...



- Le Messor
"Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management."

[Phil]

Heh, I loved the Big Hero 6 bio, I reckon 99% of Marvel fans have never even heard of 'em