Joe Friday 21/04/06

[Canucklehead]

sometimes the way he words things make me scratch my head.

I think he was saying Oeming, or anyone, doesn't have to be Canadian to write a Canadian book... I think.

[Mokole]

He likes to be evasive. Odd that he thought they were asking if Oeming was doing AF, since we pretty much know an AF something is coming out from Civil War. ONe other odd thing, over at comixfan a couple of AF questions have gone missing from Mark Morales and David Finch's sites. I wonder if that means anything?

[JohnnyCanuck]

sometimes the way he words things make me scratch my head.

I think he was saying Oeming, or anyone, doesn't have to be Canadian to write a Canadian book... I think.

But it helps.....!

JC

[Snowsquatch]

It's funny. I always thought that the core hook to Alpha Flight was that it wasn't really a team book at all. In many ways, the members didn't get along and after Department H initially collapsed, they had no government ties.

I like tension within AF, but I what I mostly found in the pages of AF isn't tension, but pointless bickering. (That's one of the reasons I've never liked Northstar.) I would prefer a new AF focus on fighting bad guys and not each other.

I say this after reading AF vol 3 #1-6 recently. They spend those entire 6 issues bickering with each other, without a worthwhile battle to be found. So tedious. No wonder that title was killed.

I could be remembering this wrong, but the initially team formed for issues 1-4 (I'm not accounting appearances pre-Alpha V1 #1), then Byrne told individual stories 'til issue 12. Then the team didn't get together again until, what, issue 23?

I also liked Byrne's stories, but sometimes they were too individual. I mean, the story of Puck tracking down the drug dealer was too individual (and too mundane). I think the stories worked best when they had 2 or 3 Alphans, rather than the whole team. Putting a current story and a back story (with different heroes) in one issue was great too.

[Le Messor]

I've also remembered another part of the original hook;

It's in the mystical storylines and psychological base:

The character-driven stories. The villains weren't just random characters showing up to say 'I want to rule the world' (I mean, come on, everybody wants to rule the world). But, they all were tied in with the past of the characters; and not in an add-on, let's just say this sudden new villain was our hero's best friend once way. We establish Jaxon as Mac's boss, then he's a villain; The Great Beasts, Jaxon, The Master, Richard Eastman are all tied to a character's origin.

Of course, this means they didn't lend themselves to much in the way of being other people's villains, and they usually died.

Character-driven stories: That's Alpha's blessing. That's its curse.
I call it a blurse!

- Le Messor
"Any clue on what college you might be attending so we can start calculating minimum safe distance?"
- Xander
"None of your business. Certainly nowhere near you losers."
- Cordelia

[Legerd]

Of course, this means they didn't lend themselves to much in the way of being other people's villains, and they usually died.

Yeah, that was one of the things that drove me nuts with AF Vol. 1, all the villains (good or bad) kept getting killed off! Granted, when it came to the lame ones that was a good thing, but it really didn't leave the team with any sort of rogues gallery.

[DelBubs]

More of nothing in particular

”Scratchy” - Anything new you can say about non-Alpha Flight Alpha Flight?
JQ: Yes, Scratchy I can, I can tell you that there will be no new Alpha Flight book and Alpha Flight fans are going to dig it.

THIS IS GETTING BORING!!

[Mokole]

Oh, well, I guess wait and see means wait and wait and wait. May, no news, so they way things are the earliest becomes June? Nope, to me the earliest 'release date' for info is August.

[varo]

anyone hear when alpha is supposed to pop up in civil war?

[Powersurge]

More of nothing in particular

”Scratchy” - Anything new you can say about non-Alpha Flight Alpha Flight?
JQ: Yes, Scratchy I can, I can tell you that there will be no new Alpha Flight book and Alpha Flight fans are going to dig it.

THIS IS GETTING BORING!!

Hmmm. I found that statement to be rather intriguing. Afterall, if there will be no NEW AF book, but us AF fans are going to love what is coming, would that imply that there will be something, errr, OLD maybe?

Ah well, I'm not much for speculation.

[maniac mike]

anyone hear when alpha is supposed to pop up in civil war?

It might be in this issue of Civil War...

CIVIL WAR #4 (OF 7)
Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
Variant cover by MIKE TURNER
A death! A funeral! A betrayal! And a team reborn as the war takes a deadly turn!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$2.99

MM

[Shaman Of The Whills]

As much as I respect and love Alpha Flight... it doesn't seem like reasonably that would be something Marvel would do... in the midpoint of their gigantic event use it to rebirth Alpha Flight? Especially with as little warning on Alpha's future as has been offered. Are they really going to make their giganimous event, that for once hasn't been labeled the doom of all comicdom, into the stage for the unveiling of Alpha Flight? I mean, Joe's been trying to push smaller titles out the wazoo and even those haven't yet appeared in Civil War, and the Young Avengers got a singular line in the first issue really. If they were to appear, I'd find it much more likely that they'd do so in the Frontline series, or guest starring in another book.

[Legerd]

As much as I respect and love Alpha Flight... it doesn't seem like reasonably that would be something Marvel would do... in the midpoint of their gigantic event use it to rebirth Alpha Flight? Especially with as little warning on Alpha's future as has been offered. Are they really going to make their giganimous event, that for once hasn't been labeled the doom of all comicdom, into the stage for the unveiling of Alpha Flight? I mean, Joe's been trying to push smaller titles out the wazoo and even those haven't yet appeared in Civil War, and the Young Avengers got a singular line in the first issue really. If they were to appear, I'd find it much more likely that they'd do so in the Frontline series, or guest starring in another book.

That's why I suspect they came up with the new series after everyone started yelling about how crappy they were for killing off AF in that manner in NA 16. Everything about it seemed rushed and... hold on a sec, "giganimous"??? What the...?! Like I was saying, the announcement seemed really rushed, no one was confirming what anyone else was saying or even contradicting what was said and, like you posted, it's uncharacteristic of Marvel to use such a huge event to relaunch AF since they never have before.

[varo]

well, this week was the last installment of joe fridays. that being said i have no idea where to turn now to hear my "no new alpha flight series" rumors.

[Shaman Of The Whills]

I think it was a good final installment. Overall the Joe Fridays have pretty much become a copout to me, and actually not much of a sacrifice on Joe's part at all continuing most of the installments lasted less than three minutes. But this last one was pretty decent and fun, in part due to slightly funny chemistry between the speakers. Still no actual information of any kind revealed within it, but I kinda liked the discussion behind the Marvel evolution philosophy and such. Too bad that it is over now though, despite my weekly annoyance at the vagueness, it was an occasional good place to review recent news and get some scraps of potential spoilers. Maybe they'll come up with a new Marvel insider with a little more willingness to give us actual meaty information.