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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132297
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 7:20am | IP Logged | 1
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I cringed the first time I heard the name "Captain Britain". Exactly the sort of name an American writer would create.
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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1251
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 8:32am | IP Logged | 2
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Moore's run also included a few alternate universe versions like Captain UK, Captain England and Captain Albion...!
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17671
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 9:36am | IP Logged | 3
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QUOTE:
| While we're at it, Davis' 'Clandestine' series was in a similar vein (and woefully underrated). |
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QUOTE:
| Clandestine really is a criminally underrated series. Davis poured a lot in to that one. Just gorgeous to look at. |
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Absolutely! I really wish he owned the characters so that he could do something with them at IDW.
A lot of people were first drawn to Davis as an artist because of his work on Batman, but for me it was probably his EXCALIBUR stuff that really did it. The issues he drew and wrote were the most enjoyable for me.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132297
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 11:07am | IP Logged | 4
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I vote we start an Alan Davis appreciation thread!
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Ben Herman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2020
Location: United States
Posts: 113
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 5
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In regards to Alpha Flight after John Byrne, there were several issues of Bill Mantlo's run that I liked, but a huge part of that is because the artwork. I'm specifically thinking of the annual set in the Savage Land drawn by June Brigman & Bob McLeod, and a few of the issues with early Jim Lee pencils.
I also enjoyed James Hudnall's run. He was probably the only writer besides John Byrne himself who was consistently good on the series.
Looking back, it's amazing that Alpha Flight managed to last for 130 issues, since there were several mediocre periods in the post-Byrne years. It really shows how different the comic book industry was in the late 1980s and early 90s, that the series sustained decent sales to run for a full decade.
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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1251
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | 6
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I think Bill Mantlo was given the keys to a world of possibilities and yet somehow managed to make one wrong turn after another.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17671
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 7
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JB, how much thought (if any) did you give to the requirements for a Beta to move up to the first team?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132297
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 8
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Not a lot, to be honest. After Puck and Marina in the first issue, I had no plans for further advancements.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4530
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | 9
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I guess the only Captain Britain I have read would be the two Marvel Team-Ups from the late '70s and Excalibur #125 wedding special finale. The Black Knight counts as an English character to me. There have been many stories that go into his background.
In the '40s there had been Captain Marvel (Shazam) stories where he would visit a different city for one story, I had one where he goes to St. Louis. I wonder why more comics didn't do something like that? Donald Duck had something like that with his global travels but often involving the past as well, 'In Old California' being a favorite, and so does Alpha Flight seem inherently to lead to various parts of our vast nation... I wonder if as Pierre Trudeau appeared if other real Canadians might've been utilized (aside from JB's father whom I remember as mentioned somehow in Alpha Flight #3 I think it was)... maybe Ashley MacIssac or the bands April Wine, Rush and/or The Tragically Hip? A story involving an NHL hockey team? Scientist David Suzuki or Dr. Paul Spong who studied orcas? All that kind of stuff might help boost sales on a specific issue too. I remember one Archie comic where they visit Vancouver's Expo '86 getting a lot of attention out here at the time. Also a couple of Avengers under Jim Shooter set in Pittsburg with sa mention or two of local fans there. There was certain mentality for quite awhile to just throw Wolverine on covers to spur interest, maybe because those newer writers and artists didn't really know as much as some earlier creators, unless the San Diego Con was involved. We have some cities with a lot of interesting visuals and history like Quebec City, but then how often does New Orleans for example show up in a U.S. based superhero comic? There's always the trap that if you do get something wrong about a real place people will make noise about it.
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7482
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | 10
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Beta Flight didn't have a big membership. Box joined for a short while--mostly while Walter was occupying the armor--until Roger Bochs was killed off, and Flashback freaked out after one of his temporal copies was killed by Jeffries' auto-robot.
As for Gamma Flight, Smart Alec lost his mind, Wild Child and Diamond Lil *did* join much later (but not for long), and Jeffries became a member for a while using a transmuted version of Box as armor... which was just so unimaginative.
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Thomas Fellrath
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 August 2019
Location: United States
Posts: 10
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | 11
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So many of the above appreciations, I'll echo. And I'm so glad that I have my JB run and Omnibus. The original run was perhaps my first "I got in from the start" series of my youth, and the Omnibus was the first "I've been away from comics for 30+ years and finally can flex my adult spending power muscles on the stuff that I love!"
But I do have to ask, Mr. Byrne, why disembowel poor Puck so early in the series? I mean, I get the story twist of Marrina inexplicably going after her friend, but doing so all but sidelined a really interesting character for a healthy segment of your time on the book.
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Matthew Wilkie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 March 2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1139
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| Posted: 14 April 2020 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | 12
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It's been said before but there is something great about the eight members that started the series never actually appearing in a story together, save for Puck's delayed arrival at the end of issue 1. It set the tone for the whole of JB's run.
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