SADNESS from a FAN of the REAL ALPHA FLIGHT

[SNOWCHILD]

Hi to everyone, hope to be welcomed.

Big fan of ALPHA FLIGHT (Vindicator, Shaman, SNOWBIRD, MARRINA, Sasquatch, Puck, Northstar and Aurora).

The greatest team of all the times... the greatest superheroes ever conceived. The greatest secret origins ever put on paper, especially SNOWBIRD and MARRINA's ones.

THE BIGGEST SCREW-UP IN THE STORY OF COMIC BOOKS, EVEN: Thanks John for having killed Guardian in #12. What a genius move. Alpha Flight had enough potential to put the X-Men in shame. It was downhill since then.

What's the deal about those TEMPORAL COPIES? What's their story? I've read the entry on ALPHANEX but I'm somehow puzzled.
Ehm... look like that was really a chance to ERASE all the bad happenings and have the REAL ALPHA FLIGHT back for good, the ALPHA FLIGHT that Byrne started to screw-up from #12.
Sort of reboot.


Sadness. Depression.

[Barnacle13]

Good to have another long term fan around. Welcome aboard! I agree with your sentiments about Alpha Flight the team. They've never been as good as they were in the first 28 issues. I'd have to argue with you on the worst story being issue #12. That was a stroke of genius! No one guessed Guardian would be the one to bite it when they saw that cover. And the stories following Mac's death were incredible. Very personal! Filled with pain and love and loss from all of the characters. After #28 that went out the window. The worst story in my opinion was when Mac returned. He should have remained dead. That return and every one after have only cheapened the great story in issue#12 and those that followed. Of course the Razer story line was pretty bad too!

[cmdrkoenig67]

I'm in agreement with Barnacle...Original Alpha Flight 1-28 (all great!)...Death of Guardian in#12 (genius!) and the magnificent issues that followed.

Welcome to the group, Snowchild.

Dana

[Ben]

Welcome SNOWCHILD,

Though I agree that the first 12 issues of AF were classic, and hard to beat, and a lot of rough stuff happened after that, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's all bad. There were lots of great stories and characters after that, and some characters were developed in a positive way, though during Mantlo's run, many of the classic AF characters were tarnished. But there was still much good and development after that point, and I don't like the idea of "forgetting" everything that happened after #12.

as for the temporal copies, I don't think that was a way to a fresh start, I think it just muddied the waters, and I think it was Lobdell's way of saying "You are all crying for classic Alpha Flight, well here, now you have what you want" followed my a lude gesture. Though I could be wrong.

Ben

[SNOWCHILD]

Many thanks for this great welcome. CANADA RULES !!!

Dana,

I loved ALPHA FLIGHT so much that... when Byrne killed Guardian, I cried! (I was just a kid). Why did he kill the most iconic character out of the team? I think that really hurted the sales of the series.

Anyway, I don't know that much about ALPHA FLIGHT #14-28... could you sum-up the "status" of Alpha Flight and its members by issue #28? Please, can you write a nice summary for every character and its final fate in #28? Thanks!

In my mind, BYRNE = CANON. Then, again, I liked MANTLO's tenure. It was enjoyable. I've read a lot of issues written by Bill.

I think MARRINA was so underused, even by Byrne. As Superheroine, she's so interesting and... BRILLIANT! I love her. The second best Superheroine ever lived.

The first one is SNOWBIRD!

[Barnacle13]

I agree with Ben, there were some very good things that followed the Byrne era. Decent character development, especially from a couple of reformed Omegans (Wild Child, Diamond Lil). I'd have never hung around for 160 or so issues if there weren't a lot of things right about the book and characters. Things just got a little too mucked up for the mainstream fans I think. Alpha Flight became hard to follow, what with all of the inconsistencies and changes in the characters. There were cool new characters, like Windshear and Feedback, that just never developed fully or didn't really connect with the fans. In the later days of volume 1 there seemed to be a struggle between telling Alpha Flight stories vs. Beta Flight stories. That I believe was creators trying to push they're creations, rather than continuing the story. It's a shame really, because Alpha Flight was once one of the best, top selling books in the industry. Marvel would do well to recapture some of that magic from the early days and put a more modern spin on it for new readers.

[SNOWCHILD]

MANIKIN was a great character, and I really loved the way JEFFRIES was treated by Bill Mantlo.

I found that story in which Scramble and Bochs became the monster known as 'OMEGA' very compelling. It was a great story.

I found the Wanda Langowsky gimmick just a pathetic excuse to revive Sasquatch... and how many inconsistencies! Too bad Byrne killed Sasquatch... that really muddled the waters!

[Phil]

as for the temporal copies, I don't think that was a way to a fresh start, I think it just muddied the waters, and I think it was Lobdell's way of saying "You are all crying for classic Alpha Flight, well here, now you have what you want" followed my a lude gesture. Though I could be wrong.

When he told me about the plan circa the release of issue 6 he genuinely thought we'd all enjoy it and that it was making AF more accessible... I tried talking him out of it, but well...

[SmurfInABlender]

I hate mantlo... nto the person.. the writer lol... I worst time ever readign those

As for stuff good that happened after byrne

Windshear was amazing.. its onyl to bad that the writer that came in right after he was innitiated freakign shelved him.. destroyed the potential of windshear

Wild child was good

Diamond lil fit in well with the team.. where as soem characters didn't seem to fit with the team she seemed liek she had been there sicne the begenning,.. i lvoed her character

alot of good stuff happened later.. so I'm not a hardcore byrne fan.. I jsut hate mantlo

[Powersurge]

Mac was one of my favourite characters, but I really liked the Omega arc that culminated with his death in issue #12.

I've also been enamoured with Alpha Flight ever since I first seen them in some Marvel promotion gathered with a buncha superheroes around some artists table. And of course their appearances in the UXM, which was courtesy of the Byrne/Claremont duo, are the true classics that skyrocketed the team to success.

Unfortunely, with the exception of the aforementioned OF arc, I wasn't impressed with Bynre's solo run. He did way better with Claremont as the writer. And honestly, vol.1 just seemed to have been a gradual downward spiral right from issue 1 (okay issue 2 actually), that only got more and more convoluted as it went on, and didn't seem to show any signs of pulling out with vol.2, muchless vol.3... though I do like some elements from vol.2 and thought that the clone idea for brining "Mac" back was at least reasonable (in comparison to others).

For all of that AF (minus Puck and Marrina) will always be probably my favourite superhero team. All they ever really needed was a good creative team, but they mostly always got landed with 2nd stringers, with alot of bad plotting and sub-plotting, and lame villains. So, it's not Alpha's fault. All they needed was a dupo that could live up to Byrne/Claremont.

I hear the duo working on OF are just such a pairing. And they look to be from what I've seen thus far in OF. Ye gods be praised!!

[SmurfInABlender]

I still think it woudl have been so much better if heather never doned the gaurdian suit but rather kept in the backgroudn like a professor X... lets do a What if? if we may

Sasquatch would become field leader with heather in the backgroudn handelign all the fancy equipment walter could buy

when sasquatch goes down Shaman takes over.. with box being the strength to replace sasquatch..

later on in the series.. pretending of course that thjsi new scenerio cuts out that wanda escapade.. Sasquatch handles Alpha with Shaman on Beta and Heather handelign everything from the background. not helpless none the less.. she goes through extensive training and can handle her own.. but still only does when needed... heck it coudl have been a cool twist to have her handle things within the Box Suit.. we know that it has held both wolverine and walter in there... if box coudl fight with heather inside handeling ops with everyone else as if it was her handeling bay withotu actually fighting

man... I think the team woudl have been tight that way

then again I would do anythign to erase what mantlo did

[Garry/Al-Fan]

Good to have another long term fan around. Welcome aboard! I agree with your sentiments about Alpha Flight the team. They've never been as good as they were in the first 28 issues. I'd have to argue with you on the worst story being issue #12. That was a stroke of genius! No one guessed Guardian would be the one to bite it when they saw that cover. And the stories following Mac's death were incredible. Very personal! Filled with pain and love and loss from all of the characters. After #28 that went out the window. The worst story in my opinion was when Mac returned. He should have remained dead. That return and every one after have only cheapened the great story in issue#12 and those that followed. Of course the Razer story line was pretty bad too!

I couldn't really appreciate 1 thru 28 until there was something to compare it to, which was the Mantlo era. To this day, I believe that discontinuing Alpha Flight at issue #28 would have been better than the three years worth of stories and continuity that came after. I tip my hat to James Hudnall who tried to straighten out the mess, but it was a big mess that will always be considered by some as part of AF canon no matter how ludicrious or disrespectful the stories were.

Bringing Mac back and making that trip to Jupiter's moon "real" was as big a mistake as anything done in the Mantlo era. And the "temporal copies"....I still don't know how the Plodex ship captured the entire team and why. I'm not truly curious about this though, because volume three falls into the imaginary story area in my little world.

Since MARVEL has said that Civil War is the pretense for breaking all the rules, if someone wanted to come back and start another/different time-line for the original Alpha Flight starting with #29A (double-sized, preferably), that would be a unique thing to do.

[SephirothsKiller]

I find this fawning over the original 28 issues a bit fogey-ish. I mean everyone is always going "They had a run of over 120 issues in their original volume!" but then in the next breath everyone bashes anything after issue 28! I like alot of stuff after issue 28. Just because the team changes and sometimes the writing is off doesn't mean that anything after 28 has to be seen as "less than."

[Manikin]

I find this fawning over the original 28 issues a bit fogey-ish. I mean everyone is always going "They had a run of over 120 issues in their original volume!" but then in the next breath everyone bashes anything after issue 28! I like alot of stuff after issue 28. Just because the team changes and sometimes the writing is off doesn't mean that anything after 28 has to be seen as "less than."

I agree with what SK says here. I enjoyed the entire run of AF and was only disappointed with AF v.3, though still found it enjoyable. As for the original death of Mac, I was shocked to see it happen but appreciated it for the fact that it allowed Heather to become the teams leader. At that time in Marvel history, there were very few super teams that were lead by strong female characters. Heather Hudson always stands out in my mind as a great leader when compared to Xavier, Cyclops, Captain America, Ironman, and the rest.

Welcome Snowchild

[birdygirl]

Welcome, Snowchild! Another Snowbird fan? I'm definitely glad to meet you!

I agree that the first 28 issues of Alpha Flight were the best. Mantlo's run was decent up to #44, when he killed off Snowbird, her husband, and child, (dumb decision, IMO). Mantlo did build on some good ideas that John Byrne started, (the team headquarters on Tamarind Island; Snowbird's pregnancy --which actually had the blessing of John Byrne himself). The trouble started when he started killing off established characters, (Snowbird, Roger Bochs), and having the other originals leave the team, (Shaman, Northstar, Aurora). Then, he had unknown new characters in to fill their places. I liked the Purple Girl/Persuasion, but the rest of it never worked for me.

And I like Marrina, also. She was a sweetheart, and one of the most underused characters in the series.

I hereby extend a warm welcome to another Marrina --and Snowbird! -- fan!