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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 1:19am | IP Logged | 1
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QUOTE:
| But from what I have seen of the post JB stories, death was the takeaway, not consequences nor verisimilitude. |
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Yeah, this is a fair observation.
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Greg McPhee
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 1:26am | IP Logged | 2
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I think Mac's death was real and it was consequential. It felt truly tragic and marked a change in the team's leadership and dynamic, and the change evoked how the team could be fluid. Change with consequences was what made ALPHA FLIGHT great.
But from what I have seen of the post JB stories, death was the takeaway, not consequences nor verisimilitude.
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I got the impression Mantlo saw the death of Guardian followed by the death of Sasquatch's body as a "norm" in Alpha Flight. Hence his approach to killing off Snowbird and Box and the plan to have Northstar die as well.
No logical reasons for these deaths and / or the circumstances leading up to them.
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Tim O Neill
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10926
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 1:42am | IP Logged | 3
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I think you're totally right, Greg!
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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 8:32am | IP Logged | 4
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Due to a love of the original characters (and with a hope that quality of a sort might return) I stuck with AF vol 1 until the end. I did, however, voice my displeasure on the letters page, which Marvel, to their credit, printed.
For me, the classic team of those first 28 issues remains a sleeping giant - a big hit again if given the right direction.
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7482
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | 5
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I agree that "these guys die" became integral--FFS, they killed off the whole team at least once--and the POINT of those deaths was completely lost.
As I've said above, I liked what Mantlo did in other books. But this was a trainwreck from the start and toppled the first domino to ruining Alpha Flight going forward.
Also, much as I like Jim Lee's art (and I do), his redesign of Box really truly sucked. He lost the heavy industrial look in favor of a fucking GoBot with a shitty visor. I chalk it up to his being a newcomer and this was probably a design out of his sketchbook but editorial really fucked this up.
Edited by Andrew Bitner on 14 January 2023 at 3:58pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | 6
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Having pretty much ignored Alpha following Mantlo’s revisionist Puck origin, I was not aware of Lee’s redesign of Box until googling it just now. Yup, he missed the boat on that one!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 14 January 2023 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | 7
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By the way: Puck and Marina were added for purely economic reasons. When Alpha got their own book, Shooter told me I could claim the creator royalty (1%) which had not been offered when the group was originally created if I added some new characters. Fortunately, they both turned out to be fun to work with. (That was 1% of the cover price after the first 100,000 units sold. It was added to the 2% paid to the writer and 2% to the penciler. Sales were so low in those days, across the board, that lopping off the first 100,000 guaranteed Marvel didn’t have to pay much. The inker got 1%, btw.)
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Joe Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 August 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6602
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| Posted: 15 January 2023 at 2:22am | IP Logged | 8
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dude, I will give you 50 bucks right now just because I love it so much.
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 15 January 2023 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | 9
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I'm glad Puck and Marina "made the cut," so to speak. They're both really good characters. Hard to imagine what AF would be without Puck in particular.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 15 January 2023 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | 10
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Of the characters I’ve created, Puck—in his original form—is certainly a favorite.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 15 January 2023 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | 11
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Puck and Marina were interesting story characters, but design-wise in terms of costume I could never see them as more than supporting. Box and Diamond Lil too were interesting enough but overall the look was more background/support if that makes any sense. Whereas all the charter characters were so strong you could see any of them in a solo comic or at least a mini-series (ala Hawkeye).
That sort of ties in with the X-additions... like Cable, Psylocke, Forge... just not strongly identifiable or iconic visually, and comics are a visual medium. Like AF the All-New X-Men were all visually powerful including Thunderbird and of course Phoenix, and Moira MacTaggert held her own. Kitty as Shadowcat also became less visually interesting I felt than in the yellow and black. It might only be opinion but even Rogue and Gambit they tried to make visual on top of the accents seemed weaker, not solid central members they were obviously supposed to be. Young Phoenix II was only visually interesting in her flaming visual effect phase, Jubilee the same.
Well off topic I guess... but I'm resigned to being the odd woman out usually anyway. All but one of the original Alpha Flight characters are visual ten out of tens for me, with Shaman being cool like Doctor Strange but visually not quite in Strange's league. The later Spider-Woman (III I think) got to be another ten out of ten classic by the end (whereas Spider-Girl was stuck as Spider-Man skinnier with boobs)... too bad they threw some of these great design characters away while Cable, Gambit, X-Man/Nate Grey, Spider-Man II (or III?) Miles Morales would get big pushes and lots of pages devoted to them.
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Harry Dounis
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Joined: 06 October 2022
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| Posted: 15 January 2023 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | 12
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For me this team, "your team" had it all. I found their backstories very compelling and always felt that first issue would make a hell of a movie!
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