rplass:
Thanks for the website, I'll definately check it out. It's a shame Alpha characters are getting the short end of the stick lately!!
Take care Alpha-Fans!
rplass:
Thanks for the website, I'll definately check it out. It's a shame Alpha characters are getting the short end of the stick lately!!
Take care Alpha-Fans!
Oh, Aurora got killed too in the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse #2 issue, after getting her hand chopped off.
Also, in the Sabretooth Limited Series, Sasquatch gets mortally wounded, left in a bloody puddle in the snow. It isn't clear if he's dead, probably not because he's on the cover of G.L.A. #2, but he sure got ripped up bad.
Let's see, what else, oh, in the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse "one shot" issue, Wild Child gets brutally attacked for 3 straight days and nights locked in a prison cell with Sabretooth.
It's been a rough year for Alpha Flight! I never really noticed how rough it has been until you pointed it out to me. I've just been happy to see ANY Alpha Flight character appear in ANY comic book at all after the news of cancellation.
Love,
rplass
Is it me or is Marvel cementing the concept that Wild Child is nothing more than "Sabretooth-Lite"!?? (Three days AND nights, POOR KYLE!!)
But I know what you mean 'R'....At least SOME Alphans are getting appearances in other Marvel titles. Although recently, they're usually DYING!!!
Alpha was a great book with great characters and a loyal, passionate fan-base! It's sad to see them be treated this way!
Losing a long-time Alpha Flight fan
It's sad what I've been reading about Alpha Flight.Originally Posted by rplass
Since I don't buy many comics anymore, my suspicions are confirmed by those who do. I've suspected that MARVEL wanted to kill off the original members of Alpha Flight, and (prompted by Mac's death) started with Marrina. Now they've done in the twins and (some version of) Sasquatch, of all characters. [Full disclosure: I glanced at the Sabertooth/Sasquatch issue but found no reason to buy it. I haven't seen Aurora's dismemberment/death, although I picked up Weapon X# 22 where her face is messed up after an earlier beating by Director X (another issue I don't have)]. I don't even want to know who's going to be next. This kind of stuff is pushing me back out of the MARVEL buying-appreciation camp.
Back in the day, making the comic book sell well on the newstand was not achieved (by changing the creative staff).
Changing the membership didn't help the direct-sales-only series.
Continuing to publish the series monthly when the book was directionless
didn't satisfy the readers who had experienced a solidly-executed book in the past.
Creating new characters didn't create a larger readership.
I don't understand what MARVEL expected/expects to gain from acquiring/exploiting characters that it does not respect, but it looks like killing them off is what is in store for the original members of Alpha Flight.
Garry R. Jones
Once upon a time, they exploded from the pages of The X-Men. For a moment, they were "Canada's answer to The Avengers."
They were ALPHA FLIGHT....
...once upon a time.
Re: Losing a long-time Alpha Flight fan
Aurora isn't dead in the regular Marvel continuity (yet), her death came in the Age of Apocolypse mini along with Northstar's. In regular con NS was kllled by Wolverine and ressurected by the Hand/Hydra, so technically I guess he's alive. And, like Wolverine, there's a chance that he can be deprogrammed.
Hopefully TPTB at Marvel will pull their collective heads out of their cabooses and start pumping out quality work, instead of the flashy rehash garbage they are now.Maybe they will figure out one day soon they don't need new characters, rather they need to use the current characters in new ways. I might be wrong but that's my two cents.
Trying to stick with Alpha Flight
I'm trying to hang in there with Alpha Flight, but what's happening is making it difficult for me. I remember Aurora saving a little boy during the Ranark story, competently despite having her personality disorder. I remember Northstar sticking his neck out time and time again, even if was just to protect his sister, from UXM# 121 well into AF's own series. I remember Sasquatch facing some of the roughest, toughest, battle-tested folks ever (The HULK and The THING)...and didn't do a shabby job of it. But now, they are being killed off? Even if it's in some alternate time/universe/whatever?
I don't know if what MARVEL is publishing is the real ALPHA FLIGHT---or even real heroes, anymore.
I guess I'll have to be content to re-read the stories I like. Oh well...
Once upon a time, they exploded from the pages of The X-Men. For a moment, they were "Canada's answer to The Avengers."
They were ALPHA FLIGHT....
...once upon a time.
Re: Trying to stick with Alpha Flight
Well, to be fair, in X-Men Then End, Northstar died as a hero. He took the brunt of an explosion, saving Cyclops. Also, that story, more than just NS has died, X-Men have been dropping like flies, after all, the premiss of the story IS the end of the X-Men.
In AOA, NS and Aurora were killed by Wolverine and his "Daughter". The X-Men in this time line are basically hunting down and eliminating agents of Apocalypse, which NS and Aurora both were. Also, some other very large name (non AF) characters have been getting knocked off there.
Sasquatch's injuries in Sabertooth were severe, but as Sabs put it himself, he would be fine if the boat arrived in time, and they showed the boat arriving at the end of the book. In that book, he was treated really well. He was tough, strong, and really was more of a character in the book than Sabertooth was, this was very good treatment. He got injured by Windigo, and heck, the X-Men and AF together had a tough time with him!
Northstar's "Death" in Wolverine was no death at all, he was an un-used character that Millar though had some potential, and would drive sales up by using him the way he did...and it worked. Lots of attention was gotten, and lots of people got the book to see what all the talk was about NS dying. Sure, he was back the next issue, but people took notice.
I don't think that in general AF has been treated all that badly in recent years. They are treated with more respect now than Bill Mantlo showed the classic characters when he was writing them. Frank Terri has done some cool things with Characterization in Weapon X.
Comic books have changed. The heroes are no longer untouchable. They are mortal, and can die. It's the way the medium has evolved. The fan-base is older, and in such, they aren't going to be satisfied by the heroes that win every time, never get hurt, and always triumph over any odds. AF characters have evolved with this trend.
Ben
Re: Trying to stick with Alpha Flight
Hell, I'd hazard to say they pretty much STARTED this trend...
Allan 'HappyCanuck' Crocker
"Hey... Philosophers love wisdom, not mankind."
- Stephen Pastis, Pearls Before Swine
This thread was supposed to be about Northstar, too. Sorry.
I can accept that comics have changed. I can accept that comic characters can die (I could accept James Hudson's death even though I didn't like how rushed he got done in---that's a different, not terribly important subject because from a plot-continuity standpoint it worked to bring in the "Dark Guardian" storyline). I accept, believe, and am glad that NORTHSTAR's death was heroic (even though I, myself haven't read it) in X-MEN: THE END.
What I have a hard time with is if MARVEL did NORTHSTAR's death decently and right, why kill off the character two more times? That just seems counter-productive to me, especially to the story where it was done well.
Me talking about the Sasquatch-Sabretooth story is ridiculous. What I consider to be "Sasquatch" may not even be remotely resembling what version of the character appeared in the Sabretooth mini-series. I'll take Ben's word on the treatment, but I have to stand by my assessment: faced with a choice of paying bills and splurging on a comic I might not enjoy, not enough there for me to buy it.
MARVEL seems to have gotten what it wanted from "Northstar's 'Death' in Wolverine." 'Nuff said.
Most of my favorite stories have heroes/superheroes facing menaces that most regular folks couldn't deal with. Sometimes they won, sometimes they just thwarted the threat (and that was a major achievement), and sometimes they lost. They didn't always win despite the odds. The example that comes most often to mind is HULK Annual # 8: Walter found out the hard way that "Sasquatch" (with finite power) isn't as strong as The HULK (with potentially infinite power); Walt made one (major) miscalculation, but because of the superior way the story was told, Walt's credentials as a bonafide Canadian hero were never in doubt.
This is the type of storytelling that I miss, but if TPTB are still doing it like that, let me know.
I'm not totally done, but if MARVEL starts bumping off Shaman and Judd and Talisman and Snowbird (again), I will be.
Once upon a time, they exploded from the pages of The X-Men. For a moment, they were "Canada's answer to The Avengers."
They were ALPHA FLIGHT....
...once upon a time.
Remember the good old days where comics weren't so expensive. And character actually didn't cheat with g/f and b/f as bad and the characters were likeable.
This Hand-ressurection thing may be a good long-term thing for Northstar. His fighting ability will be increased with martial arts. In the future, instead of hitting hundreds of times per second, he should have more knowledge of pressure points and leverage. He only has to strike once, and should still be able to do it with superspeed.
www.kozzi.us
recent publications in M-Brane Science Fiction and the anthology Things We Are Not.
Forthcoming stories in Breath and Shadow, Star Dreck anthology and The Aether Age: Helios.
~I woke up one morning finally seeing the world through a rose colored lense. It turned out to be a blood hemorrhage in my good eye.
Cheap/Fan
Please help me out. I don't know what "g/f" or "b/f" mean.
I wish comics were less expensive, .75 cents for an annual and maybe .50 cents for a regular 22-pager. I know, I know, those days are long gone. The up-side, though, is the coloring and lettering are a lot better now than it was in the mid-80s (when the crappy-looking books, unbelievable/bad stories, and rising prices made me give up on comics). Sometimes I feel like I'm getting a bargain (Clayton Henry's Alpha Flight), sometimes I feel like I should get a little money back (Weapon X# 22). I like both, just to different degrees.
Bottom line, though, I still think $2.99 for a 22-page comic book is a bit much.
And let's not get started about the characters being "good" or "bad" or "heroes" or "anti-heroes" or "super-heroes" or whatever. I'm liable to start ranting and raving, again...and I'm tired of doing that.
g/f and b/f are girlfriend and boyfriend.
By the way, $1.00 nominal in 1983 is equal to $1.93 in 2005 dollars. So comics have basically doubled in real price since those days. In other words, a $0.75 cover price comic in 1983 cost you $1.45 in 2005 dollars. Double that you get $2.90, around the price of a 22pg comic these days.
Love,
rplass
Sasquatch bested by Sabretooth? Oohkay
Let me see if I've got this right: Sabretooth beats the living crap out of Aurora in Weapon X# 2 (still don't have it, yet); neither Northstar (her brother) nor Walt/Sasquatch (her former teammate/lover) were looking for her at the time; Sabretooth manages somehow to get Sasquatch impaled on a whole lot of spikey things...but he's not reallllly supposed to die.
It's a good thing I'll never get to write an Alpha Flight story, 'cause Walt/
Sasquatch/Tanaraq would've/should've/could've beat the living s*it out of Sabretooth once he found out who beat up Aurora.
Once upon a time, they exploded from the pages of The X-Men. For a moment, they were "Canada's answer to The Avengers."
They were ALPHA FLIGHT....
...once upon a time.
Yeah, but at the time of the beating, some people actually knew where she was. I don't really know if anyone would be looking for her, in other words. Since she flew away in Weapon X vol. 2 #22, no one has seen her. So even if JP hadn't knocked Sabes unconscious, no useful information could have been offered. All he could have said would be referring to events long past, since Weapon X vol. 2 #2 publishing date is Dec 2002, and X-Men vol. 2 #163 publishing date is Dec 2004.
So who would win in a fight between Sasquatch and Sabretooth? You're saying Sasquatch if you were the writer, yeah, that's awesome. Well, I think they only went head-to-head once, and that was in the LS, and Sabretooth won. Based on Walt's performance against The Thing, The Hulk and Juggernaut, I'd say Walt should win such a fight, especially when in revenge mode against Jean-Marie's attacker.
Love,
rplass
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
