Robert J. Sawyer, for one example. You may have heard of him lately. Some of his stuff’s been getting adapted to radio and TV drama in the last couple of years and it’s going over well. It might be time for him to try his hand at writing comics.

Stuart and Kathryn Immonen? That could work, if they’re interested in the idea. I’d certainly shell out for their work.

Would Paul Gross be interested in trying his hand at writing for comics? He’s scripted everything else from stage plays to TV to motion pictures, his current gig on Eastwick notwithstanding. And like Sawyer, he’s got “brand recognition” in a big way.

Ty Templeton?

Darwyn Cooke?

Let’s see some other candidates for debate.

One more thing: I don’t think we need American-style “fear your government” plotlines here either. We don’t fear the institution of government in and of itself, but rather what individual politicians and bureaucrats can and will do to screw up the work of government. Guys like General Jeremy Clarke should be aberrations, not the rule, within our system(and the current real-world Prime MInister is another example of such aberrancy to these eyes of mine).

Maybe, the location is just part of what made Alpha Flight unique. Maybe the characters were another part of what made Alpha Flight unique. Maybe writing/drawing a story that showcases Alpha Flight’s uniqueness as heroes (in this day and age) will be the “formula” to popularity.

Trying to find an “angle” or a “hook” (humor and super-conspiracies) is not a long-term solution to re-envisioning Alpha Flight. Only when the team and the comic are treated as equally viable as The Avengers and X-Men will Alpha Flight enjoy the success it deserves.

In the 1960′s, Canada had to deal with Vietnam War draft evaders from the U.S.– given this history, wouldn’t they be dealing with metahuman refugees from the Registration Act? Who would police all these registration evaders from the U.S.? Alpha Flight!

Hmm, that is a really good point. GET ON IT, BREVOORT!

Clearly, something went horribly wrong with the book in the middle of the series, which was right around when Marvel shifted the book from an ongoing to a 5-issue limited. You can see it in issue 3, in which the story reeeeeallly stretched for absolutely no reason, and suddenly the story had to wrap up in a hurry with some plotlines left unresolved (like Shaman’s ghost).

I don’t know if OF would have been any good had it continued. I didn’t exactly care for the lineup (3 Americans, one of whom killed the original team?), although Beta Ray Bill could have been promising since he’s an alien and not bound to any nationality. However, the book *could have* been pushed as a take on the classic, big-threat, cosmic-dealing Avengers at a time when the “real” Avengers were reduced to a street-level team. Mighty Avengers is now filling that void, I guess, but Omega Flight appeared ready to do that 2 years ago.

heck you can put some alpha flight, maybe throw in captain Britain, maybe some soviet and china force members, have their meeting place somewhere like the justice league, where it is a force not sanctioned by a individual country but a world peace keeping force, that would treat hammer as if it was a terrorist organization.

i like it.

Joe, I get the sense you may be the one who is over-simplifying, if not outright warping, what I was saying. How in the heck did a simple honest question directed (at least rhetorically) at something Tom Brevoort said involve either “hate” or “Bendis?”

Let’s keep calm, here.

But to the greater issue i’ve always liked the idea of a canadian team and the unique circumstances the can deal with… it’s why the initiative should have worked at least on a small scale, if they were actually used in geographically and politically unique situations.

There is no UN sanctioned, international superhuman peacekeeping force in the Marvel universe any longer. At one point, it was the Avengers, but that was in the Busiek days.

For reasons never quite explained, Canada (in the MU) has always been on the cutting edge of superhuman biotechnology.

So, with crazy ass Norman Osborn in charge of the American superhumans, the UN decides to go to Canada and commission a superhuman team from the Canadian government.

The series is a mixture of international operations balanced with an exploration as to why outwardly peaceful Canada has a long history of developing superhuman weapons.

From what little I’ve seen of FVL on AF, he does a pretty good job writing them. Plus he’s ALWAYS talking about how passionate he is about the team, come on Marvel, don’t be such scrooges!

Whaaaa? Really? Wow, almost makes me care enough to buy that title….

Seriously, I’m annoyed that little bits of Alpha Flight classic keep getting thrown around the Marvel U. I was thrilled when Snowbird showed up in Incredible Hercules, but I was already buying that book anyway. I keep meaning to buy the “Weapon Omega” TPB if I can find it in a store. I would have bought “Dark X-Men,” but the fact that Weapon Omega is no longer Guardian, but now “some guy in a Guardian-esque costume with a horeshoe on his chest” makes him uninteresting.

Please. Bring back the originals. I’d buy that. I bought that Wolverine: First Class issue just for that.

This mystery is dealt with in Dark Reign The List X-Men

Northstar? Not gay, but an actual fairy (seriously, he did that!).

Puck? Not a dwarf, but a 7-foot tall guy possessed by a demon (what?).

Snowbird? Killed by her newborn demonic son.

Sasquatch? Had been killed during the Byrne run and returned on Snowbird’s body, thus turning into a transexual Sasquatch.

The Guardian? Dead at the time, Mantlo retconned him into a manipulative bastard. Not even the dead could escape Mantlo’s clutches!

I could go on, but it’s WAY too painful. I loved the original team when I was a kid and the Mantlo Massacre was what made me have my very first big deception with comics (sadly not the last).

Pretty much the remainder of the original series run consisted on people trying to fix the damage Mantlo had done. It was done eventually, but then Marvel went on to make EVERY SINGLE Alpha Flight revival consisting on a bunch of new characters with a couple or so token original members. What the heck?

Getting back to John Byrne, he actually had an interesting formula for the series: Most issues dealt with the characters separately with the team only actually appearing together every six issues or so. It was (and is) different from other super-hero teams, which usually follow the standard approach of keeping the characters together all the time (seemingly with no life outside their heroic personas).

I don’t know if it would work with the current “instant gratification” mentality, but it’s better than getting another bunch of new characters and dropping in Sasquatch or Puck just to be able to call the team “Alpha Flight”.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

As someone that’s only been reading for 5 years I know nothing about Alpha Flight except that they’re Canadian. The X-File-esque team of superheroes mentioned sounds good to me whether they’re Alpha Flight or not so I’d have read that had I been reading comics at the time. Tell me that that’s what the team’s concept is and I’d buy a book about it. But that’s the first I’ve heard about what a particular run is about and before then I just knew Alpha Flight as “Canadian.” You’ll have to do better than that to sell that team to me.

Thing is, I’m having trouble working out how that logic squares with Marvel publishing something like 14 different books that ARE the Avengers, but in… the U.S…. like the original Avengers.

I mean, “Dark Avengers: They’re like the Avengers, but they’re dark,” no? Tom? Tom…?

I think it’s more difficult than that. As much as I liked John Byrne’s tenure on the book when I was a kid, not even he was quite sure what to do with Alpha Flight.

The Avengers are Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The Fantastic Four is a family. The X-Men are the outcasts who protect a world that hates them. And so on. What’s Alpha Flight? “Canadian.” The reason I liked the first 13 or 14 issues of the 1997 relaunch is that the paranoia/conspiracy theme relied on more than nationality to make the book distinctive (although, obviously, that didn’t save it from cancellation).