| The Alpha Flight Thread; Wolverine in Alpha Flight | |
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| Topic Started: May 16 2009, 03:46 PM (1,002 Views) | |
| Templedog | May 16 2009, 03:46 PM Post #1 |
X-Men Chronologist
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Am I the only member of the board who is a serious Alpha Flight Fan? I adore Alpha Flight in all it's incarnations, but I like John Byrne's Alpha Flight most of all. As a kid i was such an Alpha Flight fan I memorized the Greek alphabet and created subsequent "Flight teams" for each letter. Pretty lame huh??? |
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| Ace | May 16 2009, 03:48 PM Post #2 |
Samurai
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I can't say I've ever really been a fan. Being Canadian, I've always felt Canada deserved better superheroes than a bunch of stereotypes and a dwarf. Canada is almost never properly depicted in comic books, which is one of the reasons I like Wolverine so much. He's the only Canadian icon we can really be proud of from a comic standpoint. |
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| Gorvar | May 16 2009, 03:52 PM Post #3 |
Self claimed fanfic critic.
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I liked Northstar as a canadian super hero and off course our clawed mutant. Did anyone read the newest incarnation of Alpha flight? |
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| Templedog | May 16 2009, 03:56 PM Post #4 |
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X-Men Chronologist
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Puck is my favorite Alpha Flight member. I did not think that Alpha Flight was made up of stereo-types. Ok, Major Mapleleaf was pretty stereo-typical. |
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| Gorvar | May 16 2009, 03:58 PM Post #5 |
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Self claimed fanfic critic.
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Shame there aren't any Belgin super heores in Marvel..... I dont call Belgian Brain a super hero btw. It's just a big BRAIN in a jar! At elast you lot have super heores and a awesome medical service! |
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| Templedog | May 16 2009, 04:05 PM Post #6 |
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X-Men Chronologist
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or my more Ireland based heroes, I mean all we have is Shamrock. It could be worse all that Marvel gave China was a team named lamely enough China Force. I did like the idea of the members being named after the Chinese zodiac though. |
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| Ace | May 16 2009, 04:07 PM Post #7 |
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Samurai
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Oh yes, I forgot about Northstar. He's not half bad. Though he too has a bit of that stereotyping going on. We Canadians aren't really all about our heritage. Americans tend to be a highly patriotic bunch, something like Captain America as a superhero name makes sense there. But we would never name our superheroes "Northstar", "Major Mapleleaf", and the like. Don't get me wrong, Canada is a great place, and I love it, but when naming our superheroes we wouldn't embrace the Canadian element in their names and motifs. And as per your second statement, Omega Flight was a disgrace. It wasn't a terrible book, but the team was highly offensive. It was made up of three Americans (one named USAgent for goodness sake), an alien, and 2 Canadians. That's a really poor representation of our superhero offering.
Don't get me wrong, Puck was a fun character. I always enjoyed him paling around with Logan and whatnot. But the US gets Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Daredevil, etc etc... and we get a dwarf. As fun as his character may be, that's not a superhero team, that's a sideshow. Outside of Puck the team was generally just dripping with odd references to Canada. Such as Shaman and Snowbird. I've lived in Canada all my life, I have never met an Inuit person before. They make up a very small fraction of the modern Canadian lifestyle. There are Native-American (Canadian?) people around, but they're not shamans and they don't typically don't worship so-called pagan deities. And the way they depict the country is generally quite poor as well. 9 times out of 10 when they fight someone it's in an icy tundra somewhere. It's really not that snowy here. Our winters last just as long and are only as bad as somewhere like New York or Boston. Most of the time you're more likely to see large metropolises and pavement, rather than frozen wastes and Inuit huts. Canada is generally so poorly handled that when they mention a location that is not Alberta or Toronto I'm overjoyed, because it's just so rare. It's quite frustrating. |
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| Gorvar | May 16 2009, 04:08 PM Post #8 |
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Self claimed fanfic critic.
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Isnt Radioactive man chinese? And Banshee/Sireyn Irish? |
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| Templedog | May 16 2009, 04:38 PM Post #9 |
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X-Men Chronologist
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I never considered the names really. I just liked the back stories and personalities. I like Puck because his personalty and character were unique, and I never considered him a side-show. It did get a little lame when he pined over Heather Hudson for so long. I did not read Omega Fight yet but I thought it looked a little lame. Nice team roster, because I like Julia Carpenter, Beta-Ray Bill and U.S. Agent but definitely not flight team material. I do agree that one thing that bothered me while reading Alpha Flight is that they never got to fight any main-stream Marvel villians. I mean Canada is not completely removed from North America. I do not know, maybe it is in the Marvel Universe??? Speaking of which in regards to not being accurately depicted in Marvel comics all that Wisconsin has been given is the Great Lakes Avengers. Talk about lame. |
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| Ace | May 16 2009, 04:47 PM Post #10 |
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Samurai
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It's just always something that has bothered me. There are a lot of alright superhero teams through the Marvel world. Obviously the USA has the majority, given that it has a team for each state and additional teams such as the Fantastic Four and Avengers. That was a big plot point post-House of M, that the US had singlehandedly won the superhuman arms race due to most of the non-American superhumans being mutants. That said, there are a lot of very OK global teams out there. England has Excalibur (especially the new Excalibur portrayed in Captain Britain and MI13, that's a powerhouse of England's best and brightest). Japan has the Big Hero Six. Russia has the Winter Guard, one of the more formidable global teams. The Philippines have the Triumph Division. France has Les Héros de Paris, and on a broader scale all of Europe has the V-Battalion. The list goes on, there are actually quite a few. But I can imagine most non-Americans being upset with how their country and superteams are depicted. Mexico for example is usually shown as a desert with ruins and whatnot all over the place. That's hardly an accurate depiction. And to the best of my knowledge it doesn't even have a legitimate superteam. As for the 50 state initiative, I'd imagine they'd put the lesser teams in less high-profile states. Somewhere like California or New York is a massive target for superhumans, they tend to gravitate there like most people on the planet. Whereas a place such as Wisconsin likely wouldn't receive much superhuman crime. They probably put the heavy-hitters where they know they are needed. EDIT: I digress... I like Alpha Flight in concept, but the reality has always seemed underwhelming. Canada is a big place, that in most ways is nearly identical to the United States, and every bit as appealing. People flocked here in the thousands during the Bush administration. Yet the only options we've had are the lackluster classic Alpha Flight lineup, or the decidedly non-Canadian Omega Flight. I want an Alpha/Omega Flight that does this fine country justice. Edited by Ace, May 16 2009, 04:49 PM.
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