We're all Alpha Flight fans, right...?

[cmdrkoenig67]

Dana, I'm not saying Shaman is boring (I think he is a great creation). All I am saying is that he was given a chance to develop as a character whereas Guardian wasn't. The fact that we don't know why he didn't want to be the leader or why he was reluctant to wear the uniform in the first place leaves the door open for more character development. Reed Richards didn't go into space to become a superhero, Tony Stark wasn't a hero until circumstances practically forced him to be. The POTENTIAL IS THERE for Guardian to be so much more than what has been done to date. Perhaps a new Alpha series would help. FYI, the darkest day for me was when Mac showed up in the penultimate issue of vol.1 as the arch nemesis of perspiration, the.....ANTIGUARD. THAT WAS A TOTAL WTF...YGBKM MOMENT.

DIGGER
(sorry for the delay in responding. Damn job)

I totally agree with you about the Antiguard crap...It was lame...In fact, I feel nearly every resurrection of Mac has been horrible and lame...The most recent (in Chaos War) is the only one that feels right to me. Sorry about Shaman...I thought you were indicating he was a boring cliche`. I would love for Mac to be developed more and made into an interesting character...I just feel it's a bit beyond that now (then again, maybe it's never too late?). How many writers have brought Mac back from "death" only to not do anything meaningful with him (besides having him sacrifice himself again and again)? How many writers have explored his character and added to it?

Dana

[Tawmis]

Dana, I'm not saying Shaman is boring (I think he is a great creation). All I am saying is that he was given a chance to develop as a character whereas Guardian wasn't. The fact that we don't know why he didn't want to be the leader or why he was reluctant to wear the uniform in the first place leaves the door open for more character development.

Wait. If you mean why Guardian was reluctant, and why he didn't want to be a leader... this was explained somewhere between issue #1 and 4 of volume 1... The only reason I know this is because I am currently re-reading it (and am on issue #4 right now) - where Guardian says, something to the effect that he is reluctant to wear the armor, because when he went after Wolverine (UXM #109) he almost killed an innocent bystander... and because of that, and how he handled himself, it was something about that he couldn't hardly handle himself, let alone lead a team or something...

[Le Messor]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound accusative, it's just I was repeating myself over and over, and wanted to say "my argument ain't gonna change so we might as well let it go".

Well, thing is, the night before I posted, I was in exactly that sort of conversation, only from your side. I found it just as frustrating.
So I should've known better.

(I was telling the Master that I've found the way comics have been coloured for about the last ten years or so - like there's about half the amount of light there should be - puts me at an emotional distance, and is probably why I've been having a hard time finding anything to connect to. He told me, no, it's a legitimate artistic choice. I told him it's emotionally alienating. He told me 'no, see, this scene takes place at dawn, so everything should be all one colour'. I told him it's emotionally alienating. (And pointed out that the blue jeans he was wearing looked very different to the ones in the comic.) He told me it works for some comics. I told him it's emotionally alienating... ... ... Actually, he seemed to get it at one point, but then kept arguing.)

- Le Messor
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met."

[Tawmis]

I don't blame Sasquatch for entering a romantic relationship with Aurora, but for continuing it once her mental illness surfaced. When the Jeanne-Marie personality was dominant in AF #3, she absolutely wanted nothing to do with him, going so far as to strike him and flee when he told her the nature of their relationship. But he was fine with cohabitating with Aurora when she came to him in AF #10 despite that, and they were still together 10+ issues later. Jeanne-Marie Beaubier is the base personality, and just because she wasn't in control of her body or aware of what was being done to it doesn't make it all right -- it's at the heart of what makes the whole thing so skeevy. And even aside from the sexual aspect of the relationship, agreeing to experiment on your mentally unstable, emotionally distraught girlfriend when you don't know what the full effects will be is dodgy enough on an ethical level, but Walt went one step beyond and didn't fully disclose what he assumed those effects would be.
So yeah, no love for Walter from this fangirl.

Sorry to go back on this one - and dig it up - but just passed the issue where Walt does the experiment on Aurora.

First, you say that Jeanne-Marie Beaubier is the base personality. On what is this based? Because it seemed as if that personality developed because of the Hell that she endured at the hands of the Madame DuPont's School for Girls in LaVelle, Quebec (at the hands of the headmistress). And it seems by every means - that she wasn't just "disciplined" - but, as the comic says - severely so - possibly hinting to the point that she was severely ABUSED. It was that abuse that triggered the personality split. (And in order to usually suffer MPD, the person endures a tramatic event that they're mind can't comprehend, so it creates a persona that can handle it). MPD or these days called DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). This disorder is theoretically linked with the interaction of overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents, insufficient childhood nurturing, and an innate ability to dissociate memories or experiences from consciousness. A high percentage of patients report child abuse. People diagnosed with DID often report that they have experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during their childhood. (From various sources, including Wiki). So whatever she dealt with at the hands of the headmistress of that school had to be extremely severe, I'd imagine.

So then in the comics, with Aurora, we go five years later, Beaubier's application to become a teacher of history and geography at the school was accepted. By this time, Beaubier had adjusted to life at the school and her everyday personality was that of a prim, proper, repressed woman. Now - her being a prim, proper, repressed woman is no doubt actually because of the abuse she suffered at the hands of the headmistress. The fact that, when she tried to kill herself while in that school and flew, and believed it to be a divine miracle, shows to me a more free spirited side - one who was open to possibilities. But the person we see five years after that, is someone who is strict, prim, proper, and incapable of what I'd say was independent thought. She had become everything the headmistress had shaped her to become - certainly not the person, who I think, she should have become.

I think the Aurora persona is the person she should have grown up to be - had she not suffered extensive abuse. Abuse which shattered her.

I almost believe Walt, listening to Aurora, was doing her a favor. She had asked, because of her OWN fury at Northstar - nothing to do with Sasquatch, or their relationship - to have her powers changed. HE had not requested to do this to her. She had come to him asking him - because of her feud with Northstar - to be made different than her brother.

And Walt, to my knowledge, did not hold out on her. In the issue, where they meet the Gilded Lady - in the boat Aurora notes that she's cold - something she wasn't used to feeling (either that or heat, apparently). She asks if that's one of the other side effects - and he confesses that he doesn't know and that they will have to wait and see what other side effects emerge. So unless it's noted somewhere else, and I am not remembering, Walt didn't hold out - he honestly had no idea what the side effects would be.

He even thinks to himself about how he's concerned. Because of the experiment, how Aurora drastically also changes her costume, chops off her hair (which could almost make me cry - so glad she's drawn with her hair long again!) - that perhaps, this is all about Aurora making sure that the other persona doesn't emerge. And when he notices that her dialogue, while as Aurora, seems to be impersonating the other persona in dialogue (sounding more and more French) - he even thinks and wonders, if there's a merge happening - that the two personas might combine and make what would be a third persona.

So I don't see, after re-reading that issue, what Walt did as all that "skeevy."

[Le Messor]

I'd still say JM is the base personality. She's the one who was in command until the suicide attempt created the Aurora personality - which is why JM didn't remember it when she got back to the school.

- Le Messor
"I bet when the neanderthal kids would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, “Don’t forget the thick, heavy brows.” Then they would all get embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and they’d get mad and eat the snowman."
~ Jack Handey

[ClawMaraud]

If any of you men have ever had a relationship with a French Canadian woman you will know that their tempers DO run hot and they strike their men quite ferociously. I never laid a hand on my girlfriend Julie but one time she even grabbed me by the throat during a disagreement we had. I saw her have to consciously back off so she did not squeeze too hard to do any damage.

So, the portrayal of Aurora as a sometimes pissed off woman is quite accurate, as she is a French Canadian woman.

[Tawmis]

Actually, Suzene - if there's someone to dislike about the Aurora thing... I'd think it would be Mac. When Aurora's MPD first presents itself in front of Sasquatch, Walter asks what the heck is happening (Issue #3, I believe? Might have been issue #4?) - and Mac explains that there's no time to explain. And Walter actually seems concerned about why Mac would have Aurora on the team with what is clearly a severe issue. So Mac, seems far more guilty than Walter, for putting Aurora on the team - knowing her condition, and more so not informing his team mates of Aurora's condition (in case it ever popped up, as it did in that issue), which put them all in danger...