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Topic: Q for JB on Alpha Flight Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Harry Bauer
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Posted: 25 May 2023 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

As I've been sitting with them a lot lately, doing my thing... apologies if these Qs have already been asked...

If you would have continued on the book, would you have kept Heather out of the suit?
Did you have other concepts for new heroes to possibly add to the team?
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 25 May 2023 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

No way I wanted Heather in the suit.

It was kind of bizarre watching Bill with those characters. He told me he’d made comprehensive notes on everything I’d done, but after a while it started to seem as if he was figuring out everything I wouldn’t have done!

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Harry Bauer
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Posted: 25 May 2023 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Ha! The Anti-JB.
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Harry Bauer
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Posted: 25 May 2023 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

With all these reboots, I really wish someone who understood your sensibilities and intentions and knew how to echo them would create a series that starts with an "issue 29" of sorts and ignores all the mess that was made after you left. 
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 25 May 2023 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

#29 seems a popular choice where fan fictions start.

I figured out I went to #25 and then lost the title (I had missed finding the next issue completely), so that's as far as I read originally. Talisman and Box were later additions I liked that seemed to hold promise for future appearances/stories... I should at least get #26 and 27 (Beyonder allergy might keep me from the final Byrne issue).

I did like Mantlo on other comics quite a bit back then and it sounds like he just really didn't have much feel for Alpha Flight. I think maybe it needed a more Canada experienced/interested writer? I don't know, I'll probably never read those Mantlo issues but someone who would utilize the location(s) and background culture(s) would seem to be in order for the book.
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Harry Dounis
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 1:58am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

For me, Alpha (the originals w/Puck & Marrina) & the X-Men of that era always felt like the perfect teams. After #29 AF was an exercise in how to destroy a team and a title...
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 4:09am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Alpha Flight and Elsewhen are the two “fastest” series I’ve
encountered. Where other long runs seemed to proceed at a pace,
these two started and finished in what felt to me like the blink of an eye.

I think they’re both incredible.
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

JB: It was kind of bizarre watching Bill with those characters. He told me he’d made comprehensive notes on everything I’d done, but after a while it started to seem as if he was figuring out everything I wouldn’t have done!

***

That's how it felt reading it. Definitely a hard turn into "let's make this a generic Marvel book as fast as we can."
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Vinny Valenti
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Not sure I'd say that - I think that he took some of the unique elements of what JB touched on, but focused on the wrong things and amped them up to 11 - characters dying, mental illness, trying to give Marvel's then-only Gay character AIDS, etc.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

In other words, things I would not have done.

It’s been kinda crazy, in the years since I left—abandoned—AF. It seemed as if some people were going out of their ways to bug me. Which would be a waste of time. When I let go, I knew I had no further claim on the characters. They belonged to Marvel. They could do whatever they wished.

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Peter Martin
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

JB, what did you think of the black and white re-design of Shaman's costume?


*Edited to change the wording which originally suggested it was Mike Mignola who resdesigned it... I don't actually know who did the re-design.


Edited by Peter Martin on 26 May 2023 at 5:20pm
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 26 May 2023 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I wasn't a fan of Mantlo's run. It's a shame--he's not a bad writer by any means--but it was so far away from what came before, it was as if he hadn't read the book once.
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