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Post by sabongero on Sept 17, 2019 12:11:15 GMT -5
I'm going to have to dig up some of my old Alpha Flight comic books. I always liked Puck and Sasquatch and the flying lady in that team. Which flying lady? Snowbird. I liked the way John Byrne designed her costume and look. It stood out.
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Post by sabongero on Sept 17, 2019 12:12:23 GMT -5
About Alpha Flight, are the stories in the beginning soap opera-ish like it is under the Uncanny X-Men at the time when Chris Claremont was writing UXM, or did John Byrne had a different approach to writing Alpha Flight?
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Post by badwolf on Sept 17, 2019 12:47:32 GMT -5
Snowbird. I liked the way John Byrne designed her costume and look. It stood out. Same here. She was my favorite.
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Post by badwolf on Sept 17, 2019 12:49:01 GMT -5
About Alpha Flight, are the stories in the beginning soap opera-ish like it is under the Uncanny X-Men at the time when Chris Claremont was writing UXM, or did John Byrne had a different approach to writing Alpha Flight? There's solid characterization but I would say that it was very different from Claremont's approach. I don't think I would call any of it soap opera (well, maybe the Walter + Jeanne-Marie thing).
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Post by badwolf on Dec 17, 2019 15:37:48 GMT -5
"A Stranger in My Mirror" (originally presented in Alpha Flight #9)
Thirteen year-old Jeanne Marie has had enough of Madame DuPont's School for Girls and decides to end it all. She steps off the edge of the roof and... flies! Her misery turns to joy. But it does not last long. She makes the mistake of telling the Sister of her experience, calling it divine intervention, the only way she knows how to describe it. Sister Anne calls it blasphemy and Jeanne-Marie is punished. One night she awakens and asks out loud what she's done to deserve being put in a place like this. From the bathroom mirror a face both like and unlike her own responds, promising freedom.
After a three-day absence she returns to the school in a confused state. Sister Anne decides it's time to beat the devil out of Jeanne-Marie once and for all. And so it seems she does...for a time. Years later, a prim and proper Jeanne-Marie is accepted into a teaching position at the school, but her inner conflict soon returns. The stranger in the mirror continues to taunt her.
Before long she is out clubbing and learning the ways of modern society, but a harsher lesson is waiting around the corner. A pair of thugs in the shadows are planning to have some "fun" with her. They make their move, and she makes hers, though it's too fast to be perceptible. One down, but the other is not cowed. Before he can do anything, a nearby observer interferes. Threatened by a claw extended from the newcomer's hand, he agrees to leave well enough alone. The man introduces himself to Jeanne-Marie as Wolverine. Later, they talk and Wolverine offers to introduce her to his friend Jimmy Hudson...if she's up for it.
"Family Ties" (originally presented in Alpha Flight #10)
Hudson shows Jeanne-Marie a picture of ski champion Jean-Paul Martin and informs her that he is her twin brother, separated from her when her mother's cousins couldn't manage adopting both of them after their parents' deaths. When the Martins themselves were killed, Jean-Paul went to a foster home and connections were lost. Jeanne-Marie wants to meet him, and Hudson tells her that he's already on his way.
Department H liaison Gary Cody meets Jean-Paul on arrival and finds he's not the friendliest person in the world. Jean-Paul is surprised to find that Hudson knows a great deal about his history, how he rose to be a ski champion around puberty, when mutant powers typically begin to manifest, and how he's been using his powers of super-speed and flight to "cheat a little." Hudson offers Jean-Paul a place on a team he's forming, but he is not interested in Hudson's "silly little club." That's when Jeanne-Marie makes her appearance. Jean-Paul is fascinated by how alike they look but accuses them of trickery--how could he not know he had a sister?--but Hudson promises it's real. Jeanne-Marie reaches for her brother's hand and he reciprocates...
Notes:
When Jean-Paul is arriving at Parliament in his car, he muses that not long ago he wouldn't have come there without a bomb under his arm, a hint to his past history as a domestic terrorist, which will come up later in the series.
Hudson notes that Jean-Paul's pro-skier fame brought him money and women, but that the women don't seem to have interested him much. Hudson seems to write it off as a typical athlete attitude of only being concerned with the sport and winning. He is either not making the proper logical leap, or he's being discreet. Either way, Byrne is giving us another hint about Jean-Paul's personality.
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Post by badwolf on Dec 17, 2019 16:12:12 GMT -5
"Unleash the Beast!" (originally presented in Alpha Flight #11)
At a secret research facility in the Arctic, Walter Langkowski prepares to run his latest experiment with gamma radiation. He recounts his academic past, including the time he spent with one Bruce Banner. Langkowski has studied the data on the Hulk and others who have been changed by gamma rays and believes he can take it further. The project has cost him eight million dollars of his own money.
Langkowski activates his machinery and undergoes what looks like a painful transformation into a hulking orange beast, which proceeds to tear through the lab.
Some time later, Snowbird is investigating the site, as Langkowski has failed to make his daily check-in with James Hudson. She finds the facility in ruins, and speculates that a mystic barrier may have been sundered, releasing one or more of the Great Beasts that she is sworn to destroy. She follows tracks to a ruined oil rig site and finds Langkowski lying naked in the snow. Wrapping her cloak around him (see, they are practical), she flies him to the hospital.
A little later still, Langkowski is recovering, speaking with James Hudson and Michael Twoyoungmen about the incident. He is confused about the reports of an orange creature, when if anything it should have been green, but speculates that the presence of cosmic radiation from the heavy aurora borealis activity may have affected the results.
Snowbird arrives and informs him that her own nature as a metamorph qualifies her to help train Langkowski to remain in mental control of his other side. He accepts her offer. Hudson mentions Weapon Alpha's botched attempt to bring back Wolverine and says he may need an entire team for a second try. He asks Langkowski what he's going to call himself and there's only one logical choice: Sasquatch!
Notes:
The title of this story has a double meaning.
Similarly, Snowbird unknowingly comes close to the truth in her internal monologue, as she investigates the wrecked lab. In retrospect, Byrne was all but putting the answer right in front of us from the (near) start!
Langkowski mentions that the Hulk's identity as Bruce Banner was made public "three years ago". This was 1983. Allowing for compression... When was the Hulks identity revealed to the world in his own comic, does anyone know?
Hudson's talk at the end references the events of X-Men #109 and #120-121, discussed up-thread.
Does anyone know if Sasquatch's design was inspired by Gossamer, from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons?
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Post by badwolf on Apr 26, 2020 20:19:47 GMT -5
Alpha Flight #2
"Shadows of the Past"
And now back to our regularly scheduled programme...
The team are engaging in a training session that threatens to go awry but for the quick action of Shaman. Marrina decides to take Sasquatch down a peg or two, much to the amusement of Puck. A fracas ensues off-screen as Vindicator and Shaman have a private conversation. Mac still has doubts about being a super-hero, and he still feels guilt about injuring a civilian (Moira MacTaggart, X-Men #109). Shaman reassures him of his role as Canada's guardian, prompting a suggestion of a code-name change.
Marrina is looking out of sorts, so Puck goes to check up on her. When he presses her, she lashes out, nearly disemboweling him. She runs to the water and is gone before the rest of the team can even react. Puck is rushed to hospital. Shaman worries that he may not have the strength to pull through. The rest of the team goes in search of Marrina.
Snowbird, in her day-job guise of Anne McKenzie, RCMP, hears the call and leaves to join the rest of the team. Her boss is becoming suspicious of her frequent absences and wants her brought up on charges.
While the team is tracking Marrina in their Quinjet, I mean Omni-Jet, Mac recounts Marrina's history for the rest of them. Two fishermen were caught in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, and Captain Tom Smallwood falls overboard. As he sinks to the bottom he sees what looks like a glowing egg, and he grasps for it. Miraculously, it floats and pulls him back to the surface. He brings the egg home and it soon hatches a small, yellowish humanoid. The Smallwoods raised her as their own child and, despite her strange appearance, she was accepted by the locals. When she was 16, she began to exhibit even more amazing abilities, and that's how she came to the attention of Department H. Mac reassures them that she was given a full psychological exam, and never showed any evidence of instability.
Marrina finds herself drawn to an icy cavern laced with futuristic technology, where she finds a man who introduces himself as the Master, and who promises to reveal to her her true nature and purpose.
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 26, 2020 23:00:54 GMT -5
Langkowski mentions that the Hulk's identity as Bruce Banner was made public "three years ago". This was 1983. Allowing for compression... When was the Hulks identity revealed to the world in his own comic, does anyone know? Hulk's true identity became public knowledge in Tales to Astonish #87 (January 1967), considerably longer than three years by any standard other than the ludicrous "sliding timeline" Marvel began insisting on in the '80s.
Cei-U! I summon the time warp!
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Post by berkley on Apr 26, 2020 23:35:35 GMT -5
I'll probably try Alpha Flight some day but one thing among several others that's held me off all these years is my complete lack of faith in Byrne's ability as a writer. The few samples I've seen online - e.g. the infamous Barda/Superman comic - are extremely discouraging and I'm afraid the bad impression they've left me with is probably going to colour anything written by Byrne from now on for me.
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Post by rberman on Apr 27, 2020 0:21:47 GMT -5
I'll probably try Alpha Flight some day but one thing among several others that's held me off all these years is my complete lack of faith in Byrne's ability as a writer. The few samples I've seen online - e.g. the infamous Barda/Superman comic - are extremely discouraging and I'm afraid the bad impression they've left me with is probably going to colour anything written by Byrne from now on for me. That was more skeevy than anything he ever did in Fantastic Four or Alpha Flight. or the X-Men Elsewhen he's currently doing, available free starting here, if you don't mind that it's uncolored, uninked pencils: m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55094&TPN=1
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Post by berkley on Apr 27, 2020 1:49:01 GMT -5
I love looking at uninked, uncoloured pencils - even if I dont like the artist, I find them interesting. I wish more of them were preserved, so they could be made available in "artist's editions" or whatever.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 27, 2020 10:48:18 GMT -5
Langkowski mentions that the Hulk's identity as Bruce Banner was made public "three years ago". This was 1983. Allowing for compression... When was the Hulks identity revealed to the world in his own comic, does anyone know? Hulk's true identity became public knowledge in Tales to Astonish #87 (January 1967), considerably longer than three years by any standard other than the ludicrous "sliding timeline" Marvel began insisting on in the '80s.
Cei-U! I summon the time warp!
I had no idea it was revealed that early!
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Post by badwolf on May 14, 2020 20:21:53 GMT -5
Excerpt: Fantastic Four #260 Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is investigating an area of the ocean from which the undersea barbarian hordes have fled, claiming it is uninhabitable. At first he finds nothing amiss, but then his metal wristbands inexplicably dissolve! Quickly thereafter he himself weakens, and sinks... Susan Richards is looking for her husband, whom she doesn't yet know has been abducted by the Shi'ar to stand trial for his role in the revival of Galactus and the consequent destruction of the Skrull throneworld. She hears her name and turns to find Namor, looking very near death. He says he needs her... "Yesterday Man" Snowbird has heard Shaman's call and found the Alpha ship, destroyed and abandoned. She uses her post-cognitive powers (in a neat reverse sequence panel) to see that some kind of self-defence system fired a laser into the ship's wing. Playing events forward again, she sees that Guardian, Sasquatch, Northstar and Aurora got out safely. Taking a bear's form, she follows the tracks to the buried facility. Guardian and Sasquatch have been separated from the twins and the walls themselves seem to keep growing to keep them apart. The twins find themselves in darkness but are able to use their combined power to show them where they are: a vast chamber that they speed to explore. Something from the wall knocks Northstar out and Aurora finds herself beset by countless metal bars, closing her in. Sasquatch comes crashing through but Aurora has already slipped into her Jeanne-Marie persona. Sasquatch knows nothing of this aspect of Aurora and tries to question Guardian, but is brushed off. Northstar has recovered. He hears screams, not his sister's so it must be Marrina. He speeds off to find her. Marrina is being probed and tortured by the Master. He explains that the vessel they occupy is what brought her here, not he himself. He tells her his story. Forty thousand years ago, a strong but troublesome man was exiled from his tribe. Wandering alone, he one day heard the call, and eventually found a crashed spacecraft. Of course, he had no idea what he was looking at, but it pulled him inside and went to work, probing him, dissecting him, learning from him. Only his brain was kept intact, and he surely went mad, but over thirty thousand years he recovered enough of his sanity and will to overcome the machines around him. Now he is ready to assume his rightful role as Master of the World. But not so fast! The Sub-Mariner and the Invisible Girl have arrived! *** The Master can be seen as an analogue to DC's Vandal Savage, another would-be world-beater who began life in prehistoric times and was gifted immortality by something that fell from the sky. The Master's face--what we can see of it--bears some resemblance to that of the original Master, the Doctor's arch-foe on Doctor Who, played by Roger Delgado. In one of the letter pages after this story arc appeared, someone asked if Byrne was a fan of Doctor Who, as he'd also done a story in Fantastic Four involving the "Masque of Mantracora" (likely referencing the 1970s DW story "The Masque of Mandragora"). This was back when Doctor Who was still very much a cult thing, and to find other people who watched it or even knew of it was kind of special. I don't remember what the editorial response was, but if I can find it I'll mention it in an upcoming post. But I think the answer is probably yes.
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Post by electricmastro on May 14, 2020 20:32:27 GMT -5
Excerpt: Fantastic Four #260 Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is investigating an area of the ocean from which the undersea barbarian hordes have fled, claiming it is uninhabitable. At first he finds nothing amiss, but then his metal wristbands inexplicably dissolve! Quickly thereafter he himself weakens, and sinks... Susan Richards is looking for her husband, whom she doesn't yet know has been abducted by the Shi'ar to stand trial for his role in the revival of Galactus and the consequent destruction of the Skrull throneworld. She hears her name and turns to find Namor, looking very near death. He says he needs her... "Yesterday Man" Snowbird has heard Shaman's call and found the Alpha ship, destroyed and abandoned. She uses her post-cognitive powers (in a neat reverse sequence panel) to see that some kind of self-defence system fired a laser into the ship's wing. Playing events forward again, she sees that Guardian, Sasquatch, Northstar and Aurora got out safely. Taking a bear's form, she follows the tracks to the buried facility. Guardian and Sasquatch have been separated from the twins and the walls themselves seem to keep growing to keep them apart. The twins find themselves in darkness but are able to use their combined power to show them where they are: a vast chamber that they speed to explore. Something from the wall knocks Northstar out and Aurora finds herself beset by countless metal bars, closing her in. Sasquatch comes crashing through but Aurora has already slipped into her Jeanne-Marie persona. Sasquatch knows nothing of this aspect of Aurora and tries to question Guardian, but is brushed off. Northstar has recovered. He hears screams, not his sister's so it must be Marrina. He speeds off to find her. Marrina is being probed and tortured by the Master. He explains that the vessel they occupy is what brought her here, not he himself. He tells her his story. Forty thousand years ago, a strong but troublesome man was exiled from his tribe. Wandering alone, he one day heard the call, and eventually found a crashed spacecraft. Of course, he had no idea what he was looking at, but it pulled him inside and went to work, probing him, dissecting him, learning from him. Only his brain was kept intact, and he surely went mad, but over thirty thousand years he recovered enough of his sanity and will to overcome the machines around him. Now he is ready to assume his rightful role as Master of the World. But not so fast! The Sub-Mariner and the Invisible Girl have arrived! *** The Master can be seen as an analogue to DC's Vandal Savage, another would-be world-beater who began life in prehistoric times and was gifted immortality by something that fell from the sky. The Master's face--what we can see of it--bears some resemblance to that of the original Master, the Doctor's arch-foe on Doctor Who, played by Roger Delgado. In one of the letter pages after this story arc appeared, someone asked if Byrne was a fan of Doctor Who, as he'd also done a story in Fantastic Four involving the "Masque of Mantracora" (likely referencing the 1970s DW story "The Masque of Mandragora"). This was back when Doctor Who was still very much a cult thing, and to find other people who watched it or even knew of it was kind of special. I don't remember what the editorial response was, but if I can find it I'll mention it in an upcoming post. But I think the answer is probably yes. Interesting seeing the awareness of Doctor Who being referred to as a “cult thing.” I mean, the fan base was relatively small when it first started out, like any show would I suppose, thought to say it was cult by the 1980s, having gone more than 15 seasons and airing in multiple countries, still makes it weird to see it described as “cult.” Haha.
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Post by badwolf on May 14, 2020 20:49:00 GMT -5
Interesting seeing the awareness of Doctor Who being referred to as a “cult thing.” I mean, the fan base was relatively small when it first started out, like any show would I suppose, thought to say it was cult by the 1980s, having gone more than 15 seasons and airing in multiple countries, still makes it weird to see it described as “cult.” Haha. Perhaps I should have specified that it was still a cult TV show in the U.S.
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