Tom Brevoort-Alpha Flight news (or lack there of)

[bigbloo]

I wonder if Byrne Era AF would interest new readers these days. I'm just not really sure what the comic buying population is looking for. I personally am interested in characters dealing with their powers and their personal relationships. Not so much into the whole government/politics thing.

[Phil]

And therein lies the problem; if the one thing that made it unique and attractive in the first place is no longer interesting, what is the selling point?

/me corporation devils advocate

[varo]

heres what kills me about the marvel ptb. they are always looking for a "hook' something that sets a book apart from the rest, which i totally understand, because you need something to take a book past the hardcore fans (like us) to mainstream casual fans. but i think they try to hard to make every book a 50k plus seller, i understand every publisher has a cutoff number between profitability and loss and i respect that, but not every book is going to be on the cover of usa today. some books just find their niche and are solid for years (thunderbolts, x-factor).

with that said why is it so hard for marvel to realize that the best "hook" any book can have is a strong creative team that loves and understands the character. where was captain america before brubaker? where was hercules before van lente? iron man before fraction? avengers before bendis? they where all marvel icons with average sales. heck look at what geoff johns has done for green lantern and the flash, and lets not forget animal man was unknown before grant morrison got around to him.

my point is this. give me fred van lente and clayton henry on a alpha book and lets see where it goes.

[Phil]

With Disney's support behind Marvel it's possible that in the near future we'll get lower selling books surviving, but, to use an example you used above, Hercules has still gone the way of the dodo due to sales and had to be revamped as Prince of Power to continue the saga of Cho.

[DelBubs]

I gotta agree with Phil. Apart from what FabNic and Furman did with Alpha towards the end of vol 1, no one's come close to what made Alpha viable. Maybe inadvertently, Byrne not only created Alpha, but precipitated their demise by the very fact that no one could match what he did with them. It's been proved that Alpha can't hack it as a X-Book, (then again, how many do?), apart from the core books, X-Books come and go. As for being part of the Avengers family in any way, I somehow doubt that another Avengers book in any form is going to fly off the shelves.

Alpha needs to be unique and stand alone. The only thing that would suggest Alpha is diffferent from other groups is geographical location, but is even that enough to make Alpha anything more than a periodic limited series team?

[varo]

i've always loved a "international" type team. captain Britain, guardian, winter guard. they could be a part of the avengers international team. it would be a great opportunity to see some lesser used heroes, as well as having a main book to see guardian and walter, pete wisdom, capt. britain, meeghan, etc......

[Garry/Al-Fan]

Eventually, The Avengers will so oversaturate the market that it won't be able to sustain 7, 8, and 9 different titles. I doubt anyone will know exactly when that time will be. If Alpha Flight fans can hold out until that time comes, a resurgent Alpha Flight may be a result.

[Flightpath07]

So does it have to fit into one of the big groupings to survive in today's Marvel? Should it be Alpha Flight with a subtitle "Avengers North"? What will this do to old-school fans? Future Fans? Has this book suffered from lack of direct integration with the rest of the Marvel Universe? Or is that what has set it apart, giving it past success, and such a loyal fan-base?

Truthfully Ben, I think Alpha Flight needs to exist in its own universe, where they are the top dogs of the superhero world. Reason being, they need to stay unique and true to Canada and its values to be Alpha Flight, yet they cannot do that in the current Marvel universe because it limits their exposure to the big name heroes and baddies.

To give some props to Marvel (and I HATE to do that...), they realize this. Problem is, rather than giving us an Ultimate (or other universe) AF that we can love and be proud of, they are doing nothing, nothing other than killing off all of its characters so that it can never be brought back. They see it as an abyssmal failure that will never work. And, in the normal Marvel U, they are closer to right than we like to admit...

[mreeez]

I think AF can be a viable book as long as it's not just that they are a team from Canada, there has to be something else to the book and I think they had it with Omega Flight. They mixed it up a bit by integrating some non-Canadian heroes and could have gone a number a ways coming on the heels of Civil War. Now the writers of the book could have brought in any number of different threats for OF to deal with in villains leaving the states.

Now, there are a still a number of ways AF can be re-worked. They can be an international team like Varo said but it seems from what Tom B. has said, that an international team already exists and thats the Avengers. They can be a 'mystical' team, which would be interesting considering all the characters they have had with mystical backgrounds. They can be pretty much anything, just using some of the classic AF characters and being based out of Canada. They key is having interesting characters to bring people to the table again. They had that with OF bringing in the likes of Beta Ray Bill and such. It would have been interesting to see how OF would have gone before it had to be turned into a mini.

[Dfense75]

I agree mreeez. Till this day I would love to sit down with Mike Avon Oeming and talk about what his plans might have been for Omega the ongoing. Before the news of the downgrade I honestly thought the book had a shot. Maybe I am old fashioned in a world of marketing focus groups determining what is put out now a days. But if you give your fans good art, writing, and compelling characters than the rest should take care of itself. If only we could find out which writer/artists in Marvel want to pitch a Flight idea, get a hold of he/her before hand, and start another flight for the fight backed by a creator with a good pitch. I know if I went to my boss with an idea and I had a list of customers that wanted a part of that idea in my hand. I am more than likely to be heard.

[jay042]

I agree mreeez. Till this day I would love to sit down with Mike Avon Oeming and talk about what his plans might have been for Omega the ongoing. Before the news of the downgrade I honestly thought the book had a shot. Maybe I am old fashioned in a world of marketing focus groups determining what is put out now a days. But if you give your fans good art, writing, and compelling characters than the rest should take care of itself. If only we could find out which writer/artists in Marvel want to pitch a Flight idea, get a hold of he/her before hand, and start another flight for the fight backed by a creator with a good pitch. I know if I went to my boss with an idea and I had a list of customers that wanted a part of that idea in my hand. I am more than likely to be heard.

I'm not certain that could help. I got the impression most of those kinds of pitch meetings and the editorial process in creating new books is highly confidential inside the big two. A creator getting outside support before the deal is signed off on might not be taken to kindly to.

[Flightpath07]

If only we could find out which writer/artists in Marvel want to pitch a Flight idea, get a hold of he/her before hand, and start another flight for the fight backed by a creator with a good pitch. I know if I went to my boss with an idea and I had a list of customers that wanted a part of that idea in my hand. I am more than likely to be heard.

Again, you are forgetting how much work Marvel has put into killing off Alpha Flight characters. Even MINOR characters. Did anybody, outside of us here, really care that much about wrapping up the Marrina threads with her death at Namor's hands? Does anybody think Marvel was being hounded by people wanting to know what happened to her? NO! They killed her off, becuz the more Alpha characters they kill off, the less likely it is that an Alpha series will ever work. They do not want one to work! Face it, they do not care. Yes, many writers and artists would love a shot at an Alpha series; many have made pitches, some of them probably quite decent, and ALL have been turned down promptly. But, Marvel itself...they do not ever want to TOUCH an AF series, not ever again. What about Diamond Lil being killed off? Of all the useless mutants on that frickin' island, you think it was a fluke that Lil was the one offed? Hold on to your hats, cuz I do not think Marvel is done killing off Alpha characters yet! Within the next year, either Talisman or Snowbird will buy it, too. And Sasquatch may very well follow...

At this point, no writer, not even John Byrne hisself, has any chance of convincing Marvel to do anything to do with AF.

[Flightpath07]

I'm not certain that could help. I got the impression most of those kinds of pitch meetings and the editorial process in creating new books is highly confidential inside the big two. A creator getting outside support before the deal is signed off on might not be taken to kindly to.

Especially if the support comes from one of US. They have laughed at us, pissed us off, lied to us, mocked us and made fun of us. Anybody who thinks they are suddenly going to turn araound and respect us and listen to us, raise your hand now (I know that mine are firmly in my pockets, so Marvel can't get at any more of my hard-earned cash).

I love the Flight, I truly do. But I am SO done with Marvel.

[MistressMerr]

Especially if the support comes from one of US. They have laughed at us, pissed us off, lied to us, mocked us and made fun of us. Anybody who thinks they are suddenly going to turn araound and respect us and listen to us, raise your hand now (I know that mine are firmly in my pockets, so Marvel can't get at any more of my hard-earned cash).

I love the Flight, I truly do. But I am SO done with Marvel.

Okay, as frustrating as their treatment over the past few years has been, this "MARVEL HATES ALPHA FLIGHT AND IS OUT TO DESTROY THEM" vendetta theory is utterly ridiculous. Guess what? If Marvel doesn't want an Alpha series to ever happen? They just won't make one! They aren't going to go out of their way to specifically kill off a bunch of random C- and D-listers, that's just dumb. Marrina was killed off because someone wanted to tell a Namor story to tie him in further with the X-Men, and his Alphan ex-wife who's been a dangling plotline and as good as dead for years was a prime target. Lil was killed off because they needed a random mutant, you don't see fans of the younger generation of mutants up in arms with conspiracy theories because Onyxx died too, do you? And if possible, those kids have been treated even WORSE than Alpha Flight has, there just happens to be more of them! Madison's increased relevance made her an even better choice (and you conveniently ignore that, of course, because Marvel actually using an Alpha Flight character, one who's been relegated to limbo for YEARS, in a prominent role doesn't jive with this anti-Canada supervillain you've decided they are).

There will always be characters that aren't in the A-list, and those are the ones who get crap piled on them when writers need sacrificial lambs for their stories. Alpha Flight is firmly in that category. It sucks, but it's the way it is. Marvel has given Alpha Flight chances, rebooting the title THREE TIMES since its cancellation, but none of them took. Creatively, they screwed the pooch on a couple of them, but those were mistakes, not part of some grand scheme to pound them into irrelevance. Chill oooout.

Maybe Alpha will get their day in the sun once again. Maybe they won't. The nature of the business means it will always be unpredictable. Until then, enjoy all the great stuff we've already gotten over the years and take what you can get, going forward. I know opinions were mixed, but, bittersweet as it was, that Lil/Mads Nation X 8-pager was one of my favourite stories to come out of the X-Men in a long while. And it never would have existed if this supposed Alpha Flight jihad had any real bearing.

[Legerd]

Especially if the support comes from one of US. They have laughed at us, pissed us off, lied to us, mocked us and made fun of us. Anybody who thinks they are suddenly going to turn araound and respect us and listen to us, raise your hand now (I know that mine are firmly in my pockets, so Marvel can't get at any more of my hard-earned cash).

I love the Flight, I truly do. But I am SO done with Marvel.

Quite agree. I was tired of being pissed on by Marvel and walked away a few years ago. I make sure to let them know however at every opportunity, and plan to let DC know that when they start adding Canadian content to their books I'll pick them up. Right now I'm waiting for the new Canadian character in Outsiders to show up as my jumping on point.