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Thread: Brevoort (briefly) on AF

  1. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by -K-M- View Post
    Yeah it's Wave 2 of Marvel Now. Invaders and She Hulk have been announced as coming back.
    Neither one inspires me to buy them. Wonder what else there might be.
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  2. #32
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    Well, they have a new title called "Inspiration for FP to Buy Us", but I don't see it being any different.

  3. #33

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    I'd pass on that one too. Too gimmicky. Besides, are there enough FPs in the world to ensure it would make it as an ongoing title?

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  4. #34

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    I will buy the first issue of this new She-Hulk series to see if it's any good. I read Jeff Parker's Red She-Hulk and dropped it after six issues. Just could not get interested in Betty Ross and was hoping Parker would write a solo Machine Man series instead.

  5. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil View Post
    Recent years and reboots, of which both series' have had 3.


    They have though, at least 3 times and each time sales get worse.
    Because with each poorly handled or in name only reboot, the team looses fans and becomes more of a joke in the minds of the rest of the market. I thought the last one had potential but I didn't understand some of their decisions. Making it this over the top fascist mind control machine thing because clearly fascism caused by greed and by fear it's self would have been too subtle, not letting the book have Madison even though he could have been used to great effect, and could have had some pretty interesting dynamics with the others after the **** he's done and things he's been through... The Heather Hudson problem being left hanging. And the world was saved by the dumb luck of Master creeping on Heather's kid at just the right moment in the last few pages instead of being saved by AF? What. The. ****. Kind of makes AF trying to fight the Master rather pointless. It was such a poorly plotted anti-climatic ending, unless you count nobody being able to save the capital from being largely destroyed as the climax... which doesn't make AF look very competent, does it?

    See, this is the issue; you're saying do something new and different (which each subsequent Vol of AF has been), yet other fans are saying go back to the old Byrne formula. How can Marvel win?
    I don't think I said 'do something new and different'. I said just let AF be AF. Lets have a character driven story. Lets have a couple interesting sub-plots intermingled with an over arching plot that keeps things from becoming aimless. I just want a good read with decent art. (art was good last go *thumbs up*) I really think they're over thinking this thing instead of just looking for a good story and letting the interest in the characters/team come from that.

    How so? Which character do you mean?
    Marina. God damn was she annoying and just out of no where. I'd rather her have not been in the book at all than just there because she was a member of an early line up. If the writer doesn't like Marina he just shouldn't bother with her instead of completely changing what she's all about. I never got a hold of all the issues (some of them. Haven't looked at them since I read them, tbh), can you tell me what she even contributed to the team aside from cheesy 'too edgy 4 u' snark?

    FVL has gone on record saying that he & Greg chose to make it a tie-in.
    ok, But in that case I don't see why resorting to the lame mind controlled minions schtick was necessary. Blech.

    Cancelled (or re-reduced) due to lack of sales due to fans lack of interest. And let's face it, the world hasn't really given a damn about Heather since.
    That doesn't really excuse how terrible the last issue was, or leaving that hanging. Because, you know, AF's collective continuity isn't confounding enough. If writers didn't want to touch the book before they sure as hell aren't going to want to deal with Heather being missing, a murderer, and still brainwashed years after that book ended. Or they'll just ignore it if they do, which will prompt us to take issue with the way the title is being handled, and in turn offer less support. A vicious cycle that could and should be avoided by editorial staff if you ask me.

    As there are most likely Excalibur fans who don't care about AF or Madison Jeffries or Wildchild...
    Well that comes off rather pissy. I wasn't saying that they SHOULDN'T relaunch Excalibur, nor did I say that I didn't care about any of the characters attached to it's history. I wasn't being dismissive, I was saying all the characters relevant to my interest are ether dead or otherwise occupied so I am indifferent towards what they do with the name Excalibur or the character Captain Britain. So... what was your point?

    You might want to avoid reading the latest X-Factor arc...
    Still haven't gotten back to reading after hitting a missing issue in the Marvel 'Unlimited' database. Unlimited, my ass. -_- $50 for a year, but so far I keep running into incomplete collections when I want to get caught up on anything. I have really bad luck with my choice in Marvel titles or something.

    Which goes against your 'letting them be their own thing' comment, surely?
    How? 'Them' meaning at least some of the characters who've been known as AF. 'Alpha Flight' is at the very least a very specific concept, which I liked. And there are characters who are still identified as AF in promos even without a title, if recent memory serves me? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but call any other flower a rose and I'll call you confused. By 'be their own thing' I mean let AF be AF. The Flight program and it's history is pretty neat, as are the characters old and new that are conveniently shuffled in and out through the tiered flights. Northstar too busy with X-Men stuff or the whole being married thing? Some lower tier character gets a promotion! This also creates a lot of interesting opportunity for work-place rivalry and politics that you wouldn't see in other team books. This was a JOB, a career, or even a desperate only option for some special cases. That is more real and relateable than all this 'we fight for (insert noble cause here)' bs that doesn't really put food on the table in the real world. The social dynamics are so different from other team books when you have heroes competing with each other for top tier, being bitter about being passed over or fearful of being 'let go', etc. That was what really made AF it's own thing, IMO. I always wish they went into that aspect more actually.
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  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by EccentricSage View Post
    Because with each poorly handled or in name only reboot, the team looses fans and becomes more of a joke in the minds of the rest of the market. I thought the last one had potential but I didn't understand some of their decisions. Making it this over the top fascist mind control machine thing because clearly fascism caused by greed and by fear it's self would have been too subtle, not letting the book have Madison even though he could have been used to great effect, and could have had some pretty interesting dynamics with the others after the **** he's done and things he's been through... The Heather Hudson problem being left hanging. And the world was saved by the dumb luck of Master creeping on Heather's kid at just the right moment in the last few pages instead of being saved by AF? What. The. ****. Kind of makes AF trying to fight the Master rather pointless. It was such a poorly plotted anti-climatic ending, unless you count nobody being able to save the capital from being largely destroyed as the climax... which doesn't make AF look very competent, does it?
    I really agree with all this, ES.

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  7. #37

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    I said just let AF be AF. Lets have a character driven story. Lets have a couple interesting sub-plots intermingled with an over arching plot that keeps things from becoming aimless. I just want a good read with decent art. (art was good last go *thumbs up*) I really think they're over thinking this thing instead of just looking for a good story and letting the interest in the characters/team come from that.
    First, howdy Electric Sage, long time no read!

    Second, ES, i agree with pretty much all of what you said.

    Third, in specific regards to the quote just above...since when does Marvel let ANY of their books be character driven? Seems to me, they are all about slam-bang action and rehashing the same ol' same ol' characters in multiple books, not to mention the "lets do an arc that runs through almost every series we have, and that SURELY changes the Marvel universe forever...and then we'll do it again next year, and the year after that, and then maybe twice the year after that..." - I don't think EITHER of the Big Two companies trust the writers they hire; everything is written and dictated by a few guys at the top, and screw you if you don't agree with them. Both Marvel and DC are dinosaurs, and they are just waiting for the next Image (of the nineties - remember them?) or whomever to come along and scoop up all the best writers and let them play in a sandbox that they make all of their own...and after all, isn't that what writers are anyways, free spirits who just want to express themselves? The Big Two have it wrong, and have had for too many years, and it will eventually bite them in their collected arse, and i won't be crying one bit when it does!
    Last edited by Flightpath07; 10-13-2013 at 04:53 AM.
    Support Artists, Not Companies! Creator-owned comics are where the real art is at!

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  8. #38

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    I understand quite a bit where Phil is coming from in his comments.

    A great example from Sage's post is how he loved the "job" aspect of AF. Them working for the government and all. To me, that is a tired concept. I much preferred the Byrne-era loose-affiliation team. You had a mix of those who believed in a cause/responsibility (Guardian, Shaman, Heather), those who mainly liked to adventure (Sasquatch, Puck), reluctant heroes/team players (Northstar, Snowbird), and Aurora, who can fit in the two latter categories. Theyy didn't have a HQ, they didn't have a "charter", they didn't have special privileges (other than what their reputation gave them). To me, that's where the greatest characterization was. Not when they were sitting around their Watchtower waiting for the call to action. When a problem came up, they were often scrambling to get together (if they even accomplished that).

    Now, Marvel has tried the government run team aspect (Vol. 2), the "completely different" teams (Vol. 3, Omega Flight), and the version I like best (vol. 4). None of them lasted. I'm not judging the qualities of any of them, merely that Marvel has tried several different ways to "please the fans", and they didn't work in the time Marvel allotted to the titles (though I'm sure we all feel personally some of those weren't given enough time to take root).

    So what is Marvel to do and who is Marvel supposed to please? Sage? Me? Bring in Grant Morrison (and all the Morrisonites he brings with him) and have a title that the only recognizable thing is the title "Alpha Flight" but sells really well?

    Again, don't get me wrong. I would love to see a new Alpha Flight title (mini or ongoing). Of course, I'd also like to see an Avengers book that actually makes me recognize them as "The Avengers", not "The Legion of Avenging-Heroes of the Galaxy"...

    ...Whoops...got a bit off-track there.

    As I was saying, I would love a new AF title as much as the next person, but I think the sales just aren't there right now. As I mentioned a few weeks past, I think AF needs some good PR around the Marvel Universe first. Some guest appearances where they contribute to a story beyond being punching bags, cannon fodder, or one-off characters.

    Sadly, this is an era where if Marvel really wanted to push AF into being popular, they would just put them in a lot of books and constantly tell us how great they are over and over and over and over and over and somehow, mysteriously, people everywhere would jump on the bandwagon and claim how great they are and then "BAM!", we'd have half a dozen Alpha Flight-themed books.

    ....

    Ummm.../endramblingpost

  9. #39

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    Marvel is releasing a New Warriors vol 5 in February. That should give us hope for an Alpha Flight vol 5 someday.

    http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=48482

  10. #40

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    Jason, but even so, what I liked about the Byrne era is that the main story line was about a bunch of people who got together because of the flight program, and the social dynamics it created. I'm not against having stuff where the team is independent of the government, rather, it's the fact that real world considerations are what brought these people together, and also what tore Gamma/Omega Flight apart, that made the final story so compelling. Alpha were all people who had a future even without the team. What was left of Gamma and Beta after the Alpha line up was established after dep.H cut funding were desperate and bitter people, some of who really needed help, some of which were just arrogant and angry, and some of whom didn't seem to have anywhere else to go. While Courtney used technology to enhance their emotional reactions to things in order to manipulate them into killing, these were their own feelings of rejection, hopelessness, and disenfranchisement that were exploited, and all done at the whim of a bitter ex-colleague who used to work with Mac and who feels Mac committed some intellectual theft. This was not just a munch of 'evil' villains picking a fight with a bunch of nice people who wanted to do good in the world. That was very real to me, very relevant to what goes on in the real world. That's the 'workplace dynamics' I'm talking about. Some of Byrne's stories would not have worked without that background as the foundation.

    Personally, I think there's nothing more tired in cape comics than the do-gooders banning together with no concern for themselves just to be heroes, and then the boring host of evildoers that are created to bounce off them. THAT is tired and over-done, IMO.
    It's the reason I never took interest in DC, for example, with their Batman and Superman types.

    Personally, what I want from AF is pretty loosely defined. My only issue is with bad writing, 'in name only', loose ends never getting tied up, and executive decisions that by the end of the story arch make no sense what so ever. AF has been plagued with this, and I still think it's the reason why they have so little recognition or respect in the larger Marvel readership, and so few writers who want to put a hand in that hornet's nest.

    I have an idea for more of an Omega Flight (some actual original members of Omega and Gamma involved as well as other AF villains) story that could spin off into a new AF title, myself, where the roots of these characters and AF would have an impact on how the characters develop, even though it would not be any sort of traditional team format starting out. It's something I'm playing with for my own enjoyment and practice as I don't think Marvel would buy it, nor do I think I'd be ready to do it while it's still in any way relevant to recent events in the 616 MU.
    "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, you must be Marvel."
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  11. #41

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    Bleh...I wrote another long rambling post in response to Sage's, but erased it when I realized I was basically saying,

    "I pretty much agree with you"

    to the whole thing.

  12. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Marvel is releasing a New Warriors vol 5 in February. That should give us hope for an Alpha Flight vol 5 someday.

    http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=48482
    Wow! Are there EVER way too many Spider-Man books! Sheesh!
    Support Artists, Not Companies! Creator-owned comics are where the real art is at!

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  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jason Eberly View Post
    but erased it when I realized I was basically saying,

    "I pretty much agree with you"
    ... but, can't we all just get along?

    Quote Originally Posted by Flightpath07 View Post
    Wow! Are there EVER way too many Spider-Man books! Sheesh!
    He has been a member of the New Warriors before.

    ES - though I agree with a lot of your points, I do see Phil's side when he says "you're saying do something new and different (which each subsequent Vol of AF has been), yet other fans are saying go back to the old Byrne formula." - though it wasn't you who wanted 'something new and different', the point is still that Marvel is getting mixed messages from us, the fans. Some of us want one thing, others want another, and we can't agree. Sadly.
    'cept you and Jason. And me, I agree with you two, too.

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  14. #44

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    Yeah, when I say "You're saying..." I don't necessarily mean one person specifically, just fandom generally.

  15. #45
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    Stupid general fandom. I may salute because you have to salute the General, but sometimes I wanna go behind his back...

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