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Post by electricmastro on May 14, 2020 21:07:37 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. Ah, fair enough. lol
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Post by rberman on May 14, 2020 21:34:17 GMT -5
Doctor Who was pretty unknown even among nerds in the USA until the second half of the 1980s. Not until the Matt Smith years was it well enough known to make it to the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
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Post by badwolf on Feb 3, 2021 19:49:11 GMT -5
Alpha Flight #4
"Resolutions!"
What th-? I'm only on issue 4? Oh, right, there was all that other stuff.
I think this cover and the previous issue's are my favorites of the run.
Ok, the beginning of this issue backtracks a little bit from the dramatic conclusion of last issue. Susan and Namor are still en route to investigate the "troubled waters" that Namor experienced over in the FF's book. The Fantasticar's sensors are picking up something strange under the ice, something huge and artificial. Imminently, the craft is blown up by the same security system that wrecked Alpha Flight's ship. Snowbird, in bear form, notices the explosion but continues on into the Master's base.
Cut to Mac, Sasquatch and Aurora--or rather, Jeanne-Marie. Walter is still in the dark about her split personality and questions why Mac thought she would be appropriate for the Alpha team. Mac explains that he didn't know about that aspect until later on. He mistakenly addresses her as Aurora and, offended, she goes off. Walter suggests that he look for Northstar instead, as he stands a good chance of bringing her out of this state. He also hints that there's something going on between him (Walter) and Aurora. While Mac searches for Jeanne-Marie's brother, he changes to human form as he thinks it will be less frightening. Not a great idea as she is appalled at being in the presence of a "naked" man. He talks to her anyway, but just as he's finally getting through to her, Jeanne-Marie reasserts herself and lashes out.
Mac finds Northstar, who hasn't been getting anywhere despite having flown hundreds of miles within the complex. He believes he has figured out the purpose of the complex and that it spells doom for the entire planet.
Susan and Namor, of course, survived the blast thanks to her invisible force field. Namor brings them down safely and observes that even the snow and ice is corrupted somehow. Even Susan can feel its wrongness. Namor rips out a huge chunk of ice and they search beneath the water, even as its tainted property weakens Namor second by second. They find the amazing underside of the Master's complex and surface in an interior pool. Invisibly, they observe the Master's explanation to Marrina of her true origins. A distant, conquering race, bent on colonizing as many planets as possible, has sent ships to countless worlds, luring in only the most dominant inhabitants and then taking them apart. Their genetic codes are then written into eggs, millions of them, which are spread across each globe.
The ship the found the man who would become the Master, after 10,000 years experienced a drive failure and crashed, causing its eggs to be released prematurely. The genetic conditioning was incomplete, so that when Marrina's egg was found and opened by the benign Gladys Smallwood, it became imprinted by her.
Marrina rejects this story and maintains that she is human, not an alien monster, but the Master tells her that her programming is still intact, or else he would not have been able to summon her, nor would she have savaged her teammate when the call went out.
Namor and Susan finally step in, but the Master sets the ship's defenses against them. Snowbird arrives, having travelled through the ventilation system as a swarm of mosquitoes, and frees Marrina. The Master makes a hasty exit. Everything is still going according to plan. The rest of Alpha finally converges in the control area, Jeanne-Marie still struggling in Sasquatch's grasp. Guardian comments that it sounds like the damage they've done along the way has caught up with them...
Susan again saves the day with her force field and once they're safe above water, Namor and Marrina try to search for the Master, but there's no trace of him or even the ship. It's completely dissolved, presumably returning the minerals it sapped from the water in the process. Several minutes later they return and Marrina announces that she is leaving with Namor, as they've decided his people would be best suited to answer the many questions surrounding her.
Alpha Flight departs, and Guardian cautions Sasquatch not to write the Master off just yet. In civilian guise, they meet with Dan Smallwood, Marrina's human "brother", and break the news to him.
Following this issue, the omnibus presents a brief excerpt from Fantastic Four #261, as Namor and Susan share a kiss (as a reminder of "what might have been") at the Baxter Building. Namor and Marrina bid Susan farewell and head to Atlantis.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2021 0:34:37 GMT -5
happy to see this thread resurrected.
LOVED Byrne's Alpha Flight, even tho they didn't really turn into a "team" book until at least 9 issues in. . it was more solo adventures, if I recall.
and later on, I LOVED the design of Talisman, even if I never really understood her powers (I took them to be Shaman without the pouch to do whatever is needed, basically)
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Post by badwolf on Feb 5, 2021 17:33:13 GMT -5
Alpha Flight #5
"What Fools These Mortals Be..."
Eugene Milton Judd a.k.a. Puck is recovering from the wound inflicted upon him by Marrina. He is in good spirits and charms the nurses, who are crazy over both him and his doctor, Michael Twoyoungmen (Shaman). But several hours later, the pain gets to him again. He calls a nurse but gets no response, so with some difficulty he gets out of bed to see what's what. Nobody at the station or the lounge but he finds Nurse Daly in the storeroom and she appears to be about to give herself an injection. She lies badly and takes him back to his room to give him a shot. Judd notices that her hands are shaking. Fortunately it's not going directly into his arm.
Relieved of the pain, Judd thinks about what he just saw. He suspects, but decides he needs more evidence before bringing it to anyone's attention. The next day he sneaks through the hospital, easier than most for someone of his size, and looks through the medicine cabinets. He finds a supply of painkillers that appears to have been diluted, but there's more than Nurse Daly could be using herself. He decides that now it's time to go to the hospital authorities. He asks the administrator to give him 48 hours to uncover what's going on.
That night, he dons his costume and heads through a service tunnel to find Daly making a deal with some shady types. He hitches a ride on the back of their van and lets them take him to their hideout at an abandoned boathouse. He listens for a bit before he's spotted, then springs into action. His battle banter includes educating one of the men on the subject of his condition--achondroplasty, a lack of growth in the long bones. He takes out the gang but the strenuous motion has opened some of his stitches. He tries to go for a phone but passes out.
He wakes up in hospital with the administrator and a police detective. Apparently he was able to make a call before he passed out and they were able to come get him. The detective thanks Judd for his work. Outside Judd's room, the doctor tells the detective that Judd might not make it through the night. The doctor returns to Judd for his next dose. Judd has a hard time believing that Nurse Daly was the mastermind of the operation, but the doctor tells him she claimed to be just a tool for the drug gang. As the doctor fills the hypodermic, Judd notices that the label is peeling off, revealing another one underneath. He takes out the doctor before the dose can be administered. Peeling off the top label he finds another one for insulin; he was about to be the victim of an overdose, one which wouldn't show up on an autopsy unless specifically looked for. Judd tells the doctor that he's even worse than the likes of Nurse Daly, because he gets people hooked. He makes to call the detective sergeant back to pick up the rest of the "garbage."
---
Beginning with this issue, and continuing through the next several, we essentially get solo stories (or duo, in the case of the twins) of the Flight members. Some might lament the lack of a "team" book at this point, and I think I might have been ever so slightly disappointed by it at the time (even though I still loved the stories), but it was a good idea. This is Byrne developing the characters to be fully-realized--not surprising since his well-known comment about them being "just a bunch of characters who could survive a battle with the X-Men." I daresay that these issues are a big part of why I love the team... and I also daresay that they are some of the best issues of the run. Even some of the stories past the first year will involve smaller subsets of the full team... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Rereading this issue, I noticed that at the beginning of the story Michael told Judd to invoke the name of the Great Spirit if he needed help. Why didn't he do it when he was in dire need after the gang fight? Maybe he wanted to handle it on his own... or maybe he simply wasn't thinking straight due to the pain. (Or maybe he was afraid Snowbird would show up. He confessed to Michael that she spooks him badly!)
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Post by badwolf on Mar 15, 2021 20:59:44 GMT -5
"Snowblind"
Corporal Anne McKenzie, Snowbird's civilian alter ego, is being grilled by her superior officer about her unauthorized absences. She tells him they were authorized by his predecessor, which he doesn't take well. She's ordered to confinement pending a full investigation. Her colleague Doug Thompson sympathizes with her and she appreciates his kindness, though she wishes she could be more open with him.
Meanwhile, forty miles away, an oil rig inadvertently unleashes Kolomaq, one of the Great Beasts and the embodiment of winter. This is sensed by Snowbird, who transforms and escapes through the outer wall. That's going to be tough to explain!
Guardian flies above the city on his way back home, finally learning to enjoy being a "super-hero." He arrives to find his wife out, having left a note and the days mail, which includes a letter from Roxxon, the American oil company. He is shocked by the letter he reads, but we'll have to wait to learn its contents...
Snowbird has engaged Kolomaq, showing him her true identity. He recognizes her as the spawn of Nelvanna and Kodiak, and unleashes his power. They battle savagely, Snowbird pushing her powers to their limits and finally tricking the Beast into burying himself under a collapsed cliff.
The storm fades, and Snowbird is met by the site foreman. She advises him to cover over the area with concrete. As she leaves, she worries about the re-appearance of two of the Great Beasts in such a short time. The mystic barriers appear to be weakening...
---
January 1984 (or technically, a few months earlier) was "Assistant Editors' Month"; allegedly the chief editors of the books, as well as the EIC, were out of town and had left the books in the hands of the assistant editors to do as they wished. Many issues that came out that month had a comedic slant, while others remained serious but had some kind of humorous feature in the back, or on the cover. The only book Byrne got totally silly on was The Thing, in which bashful Benjy nearly got trounced by an oversized Dutch Boy called Goody Two-Shoes. (In the backup story, the Thing visited the Marvel offices and gave the creative team a piece of his mind.) In Fantastic Four he got meta and wrote himself into the story as a witness to the trial of Reed Richards. Here, he played around with sequential art conventions by having Snowbird's blizzard battle with Kolomaq take place among a series of white pages, the only narrative provided by text boxes, sound effects, dialogue and panel design.
And people are still mad about it! They call it "the blank issue." (In fact, only five and a half pages are "blank.") I even recently heard someone state that it had "scores of blank pages" which is odd as there was not even one score of story pages in the typical comic book of the day.
Personally, I thought Byrne's attempt to lighten the load of creating three books a month was clever and funny, and I still do.
Years later (recently in fact) I would find out that Assistant Editors' Month was a hoax, a publicity stunt, and that the editors knew what was going on. A part of my brain still chooses to believe in it though, much like I choose to believe the "bullpen" was as Stan described it in his columns.
Truth-in-Advertising Dept.: Beginning the previous issue (I forgot to mention) and continuing for the next several, the cover corner boxes only feature team members that actually appear in the issue. (This issue also featured the conclusion of Shaman's origin story, discussed earlier in accordance with its placement in the omnibus.)
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 15, 2021 21:34:47 GMT -5
"Snowblind"
Corporal Anne McKenzie, Snowbird's civilian alter ego, is being grilled by her superior officer about her unauthorized absences. She tells him they were authorized by his predecessor, which he doesn't take well. She's ordered to confinement pending a full investigation. Her colleague Doug Thompson sympathizes with her and she appreciates his kindness, though she wishes she could be more open with him.
Meanwhile, forty miles away, an oil rig inadvertently unleashes Kolomaq, one of the Great Beasts and the embodiment of winter. This is sensed by Snowbird, who transforms and escapes through the outer wall. That's going to be tough to explain!
Guardian flies above the city on his way back home, finally learning to enjoy being a "super-hero." He arrives to find his wife out, having left a note and the days mail, which includes a letter from Roxxon, the American oil company. He is shocked by the letter he reads, but we'll have to wait to learn its contents...
Snowbird has engaged Kolomaq, showing him her true identity. He recognizes her as the spawn of Nelvanna and Kodiak, and unleashes his power. They battle savagely, Snowbird pushing her powers to their limits and finally tricking the Beast into burying himself under a collapsed cliff.
The storm fades, and Snowbird is met by the site foreman. She advises him to cover over the area with concrete. As she leaves, she worries about the re-appearance of two of the Great Beasts in such a short time. The mystic barriers appear to be weakening...
---
January 1984 (or technically, a few months earlier) was "Assistant Editors' Month"; allegedly the chief editors of the books, as well as the EIC, were out of town and had left the books in the hands of the assistant editors to do as they wished. Many issues that came out that month had a comedic slant, while others remained serious but had some kind of humorous feature in the back, or on the cover. The only book Byrne got totally silly on was The Thing, in which bashful Benjy nearly got trounced by an oversized Dutch Boy called Goody Two-Shoes. (In the backup story, the Thing visited the Marvel offices and gave the creative team a piece of his mind.) In Fantastic Four he got meta and wrote himself into the story as a witness to the trial of Reed Richards. Here, he played around with sequential art conventions by having Snowbird's blizzard battle with Kolomaq take place among a series of white pages, the only narrative provided by text boxes, sound effects, dialogue and panel design.
And people are still mad about it! They call it "the blank issue." (In fact, only five and a half pages are "blank.") I even recently heard someone state that it had "scores of blank pages" which is odd as there was not even one score of story pages in the typical comic book of the day.
Personally, I thought Byrne's attempt to lighten the load of creating three books a month was clever and funny, and I still do.
Years later (recently in fact) I would find out that Assistant Editors' Month was a hoax, a publicity stunt, and that the editors knew what was going on. A part of my brain still chooses to believe in it though, much like I choose to believe the "bullpen" was as Stan described it in his columns.
Truth-in-Advertising Dept.: Beginning the previous issue (I forgot to mention) and continuing for the next several, the cover corner boxes only feature team members that actually appear in the issue. (This issue also featured the conclusion of Shaman's origin story, discussed earlier in accordance with its placement in the omnibus.)
Well, it might have been, if that joke hadn't already been done, in What If? #34 (What If Goes Crazy)...
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Post by badwolf on Mar 16, 2021 11:23:54 GMT -5
Well, it might have been, if that joke hadn't already been done, in What If? #34 (What If Goes Crazy)... No, it still is. The "joke" or point isn't that the characters are white, it's that the blizzard is so massively intense that there is no visibility whatsoever, which the foreman also comments on after it is over.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 29, 2021 10:44:47 GMT -5
Alpha Flight #7
"The Importance of Being Deadly"
Jeanne-Marie Beaubier has finished up a first meeting with a psychologist, who afterwards speaks to Jean-Paul alone. The doctor sees nothing wrong with Jeanne-Marie and ascribes Jean-Paul's perceptions to improper expectations, due to the very different upbringings each has had, apart from one another. Jean-Paul resigns himself to this diagnosis for now, as he cannot disclose the details of their super-hero lifestyle, although he knows the doctor is wrong.
The twins are walking down a city street, Jean-Paul mentions an old friend who helped him through some difficult times and Jeanne-Marie is eager too meet him. Suddenly a mugger, who has no idea who he's dealing with, snatches Jeanne-Marie's purse. Aurora immediately rises to dominance and easily stops the man, insisting they wait for the police. They are disappointed to find that the criminal's bail has already been posted and he is to walk free. The chief constable explains that the man was in the employ of one Ernest St. Ives, a slippery local crime boss who is rumored to have ties to the Maggia.
Out on the street, they run into Jean-Paul's friend, Raymonde Belmonde. He is immediately charmed by Aurora, but notices how she refers to "Jeanne-Marie" as if she were another person, one she did not particularly like. Jean-Paul attempts to explain it away, and Aurora inquires why Raymonde's cafe is empty during what should be a prime dining hour. Raymonde, who has sussed out who the twins really are, tells them about his business' financial problems, which are due to the interference of a man named Ernest St. Ives.
Raymonde's daughter, Danielle, appears and chastises him for involving strangers in their problems. Jean-Paul is shocked to find he has a child, and Raymonde explains that she is the result of an earlier phase in his life, and that they have recently reunited after the death of her mother. Aurora insists on hearing more about St. Ives, since it was one of his thugs that assaulted her.
Two of St. Ives' men enter the cafe, looking for Raymonde. Northstar could easily handle them but does not want to reveal his secret to Danielle. They bring both Aurora and Raymonde to the car, in which St. Ives waits. Raymonde tells St. Ives that he's not willing to sell his business at any price. They have been through this before and St. Ives has had enough. He removes his leather glove and places his hand on Raymond's face. A few moments later, Raymonde falls to the ground, dead.
Mistaking Aurora for Raymonde's daughter, they hustle her into the car and drive off. Northstar stands, helpless and enraged, as he swears to kill St. Ives for what he has taken from him.
Interlude: A man named Alec Thorne is involved in a public chess tournament with several opponents simultaneously. He breaks for lunch and is startled when a beautiful woman addresses him by both his real name and his Gamma Flight code name of Smart Alec. She introduces herself as Delphine Courtney, and makes him an offer he can't refuse...
---
So this is the issue that first suggests Jean-Paul's sexuality. I was 12 when this book first came out and it went completely over my head at the time. Years later, when folks on the internet were mentioning it I had no idea what on earth they were talking about! Then I dug the issue out again and...oh yeah, there it is! Mind blown. Nicely handled, Byrne!
What also went over my head at the time was the title of the story, which is a play on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. When I finally did learn of that play, this issue immediately came to mind.
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Post by badwolf on May 10, 2021 13:50:26 GMT -5
Alpha Flight #8
"Cold Hands Cold Heart"
An autopsy has been performed on Raymonde Belmonde but the attending doctor cannot figure out how he died. He says it looks as if a "light has been switched off." This means there can be no proof he was murdered, but Northstar won't let it end there. After obtaining St. Ives' address he heads to his mansion, finding no defenses as he enters. He speculates about how his sister's personalities would come into play in her current situation.
Meanwhile, across Montreal, a mysterious red-and-black-clad figure springs into action, speaking of retribution. She calls herself Nemesis.
Northstar enters a room and is surprised to find Aurora and St. Ives apparently having an amicable time. He is immediately knocked out from behind by one of St. Ives' men, and Aurora introduces him as her cousin Jacques. St. Ives apologizes and has him taken off to a comfortable place to recover. He says that he and Aurora have "business" to discuss.
Northstar awakens and is met immediately by Nemesis. He tells her the story so far and she comments that Alpha Flight were an inspiration to her. As they explore the house they come to a locked door, which is scarcely a problem thanks to Nemesis' sword, which she explains is only an atom's width, and therefore can slice through almost anything.
St. Ives and Aurora are conversing at opposite ends of a very long dining table. She asks about his death touch and he tells her his story. He was a French soldier in World War I, the only survivor of his company, when he is taken down by a blast. Then, mustard gas. The spectre of Death appeared to him but he rejected her touch, so she cursed him with the touch of death, which he discovers when he is found by another soldier.
Aurora finds his story incredible, but she believes that he believes it. Nemesis and Northstar enter, the former having taken care of St. Ives' guards. Nemesis issues a decree, which I'll quote verbatim as I'm going to refer back to it later:
"The time has come for you to face the blade of retribution. Only your death will bring peace to my soul, and the soul of my father."
Northstar notes the mention of "father." Aurora springs to her brother's side, having no need to keep up the act any longer. Nemesis attacks Ernest and misses. He attempts to use his death touch on her (through her mask) but fails. "You cannot steal the life of one who has no life to take," she tells him, then slices off the offending arm. Northstar tries to stop her from going further but before he can reach her she slices through St. Ive's body in several directions. Thankfully we are spared the aftermath but Northstar is properly horrified. He refers to her as "Danielle" but Nemesis madly insists that she is not Danielle, only Nemesis. Thinking to bring her to her senses, he pulls off her mask and finds that he was mistaken. The face he sees, with its lifeless eyes is that of "one who carries upon her shoulders the anguish of the world." She hits him with the flat of her blade, only knocking him out. She turns to Aurora, who tells her she will leave Nemesis to her holy cause, but the police will be there soon so she'd best depart.
Returning to Belmonde's cafe, they find Danielle, who seems surprised that Jeanne-Marie has escaped. Aurora explains that Ernest thought she was Danielle, and he would not have harmed his partner. Both Northstar and Danielle express shock, but Aurora knows Danielle is faking it. By playing along with St. Ives she found out all about the deal Danielle made with him. Danielle tries to run in vain but Aurora trips her and soon the police take her away.
Later, Aurora explains to Northstar that all of St. Ives and Danielle's arrangements had been done over the phone, he had never seen what she looked like. But Aurora wonders why her brother thought Nemesis was Danielle, when St. Ives clearly thought Aurora was. He replies that he assumed she romanced herself to safety. Aurora is rightfully offended and throws it back at him. Flying off, she tells him that their partnership is hereby ended, and Northstar is left alone to wonder, perhaps for the first time, if he's gone too far.
---
The "solo" stories in the first half of the run are among my favorites, and this is probably #1 for me (followed closely by the next two-parter). It leaves the reader with a lot to think about. It's a little confusing actually, due to some egregious lettering errors, but also because of a certain amount of ambiguity. There a lot left unanswered, the chief question being...
Who is Nemesis?
Even though it doesn't make sense by the end, when I first read this story all those years ago I too thought she was Danielle Belmonde. This was probably based on a number of things:
1. Nemesis states clearly that she is avenging her father. 2. Her cries of "I am not Danielle! I am Nemesis! NEMESIS!" sound exactly like what someone would say if they were Danielle but desperately denying it.
3. They have the same hair color (superficial I know, but then why give them the same hair color? Of course, now I realize that different people working on a book aren't always on the same page, and Byrne may have intended it to be different.) 4. My experience of storytelling at that point might have demanded that any "mystery" character in a story had to be someone who appeared elsewhere.
Eventually I abandoned that idea. Unless Danielle has a split personality that would alter her so physically into whatever Northstar saw (the reader never sees Nemesis' face) it just doesn't work at all.
Returning to her monologue to St. Ives, I decided that she must simply be the daughter of another man who had been killed by Ernest.
But...
Why would Byrne repeat himself like that, in the same story? Just to set up the Nemesis/Danielle confusion? That didn't seem right. Why not have the prior victim be Nemesis' brother, lover, or anything else? Why another father/daughter situation?
Now all these years later I believe that Nemesis is actually Ernest St. Ives' daughter. She phrases herself in such a way above because, due to how he's changed or what atrocities he has committed, she no longer sees him as her father. Ending him will put her "real" rather to rest.
As to how she has managed to live so long (I'm thinking her quest kept her alive) or where she got her atomic blade, that is left to the imagination. When she first appears, she intones a prayer to a "night mother" to bless her blade... but whether this is something real, or something she believes, or a metaphor, we don't know.
Do you believe St. Ives' "origin" story? Surely stranger things have happened in the Marvel Universe, but from Aurora's "grounded" perspective we can understand why she is dubious. Personally, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It's not a stretch to imagine that the effects of the gas, coupled with his terror, caused him to have a vision based on whatever his spiritual leanings were at the time. Probably the gas reacted with something in his body makeup and changed his physiology, activating his death touch.
Why did Nemesis wait until now to strike? Has she just acquired the blade? Probably just dramatic license...
If you've read this story, tell me your theories!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 10, 2021 14:31:52 GMT -5
I remember getting that comic from The Bay store in Montreal, during a trip where I had landed remarkably few books. Still, it was always great to have one more John Byrne comic to read! As was often the case wth early Alpha Flight appreances (whether in the X-Men or their own books), French names were often odd. Aurora had been named "Jean-Marie" originally, which is a man's name; it was properly modified to Jean ne-Marie in the AF book proper. Here it's Raymonde who gets a lady's name; it should have been Raymond. I like the character of Ernest, although the pun "Deadly Ernest" was almost enough to make one long for his death-inducing touch. He was a suitably spooky villain. Who is Nemesis?
Even though it doesn't make sense by the end, when I first read this story all those years ago I too thought she was Danielle Belmonde. This was probably based on a number of things: 1. Nemesis states clearly that she is avenging her father. 2. Her cries of "I am not Danielle! I am Nemesis! NEMESIS!" sound exactly like what someone would say if they were Danielle but desperately denying it.
3. They have the same hair color (superficial I know, but then why give them the same hair color? Of course, now I realize that different people working on a book aren't always on the same page, and Byrne may have intended it to be different.) 4. My experience of storytelling at that point might have demanded that any "mystery" character in a story had to be someone who appeared elsewhere. Eventually I abandoned that idea. Unless Danielle has a split personality that would alter her so physically into whatever Northstar saw (the reader never sees Nemesis' face) it just doesn't work at all. Returning to her monologue to St. Ives, I decided that she must simply be the daughter of another man who had been killed by Ernest.
But... Why would Byrne repeat himself like that, in the same story? Just to set up the Nemesis/Danielle confusion? That didn't seem right. Why not have the prior victim be Nemesis' brother, lover, or anything else? Why another father/daughter situation? Now all these years later I believe that Nemesis is actually Ernest St. Ives' daughter. She phrases herself in such a way above because, due to how he's changed or what atrocities he has committed, she no longer sees him as her father. Ending him will put her "real" rather to rest. As to how she has managed to live so long (I'm thinking her quest kept her alive) or where she got her atomic blade, that is left to the imagination. When she first appears, she intones a prayer to a "night mother" to bless her blade... but whether this is something real, or something she believes, or a metaphor, we don't know.
Do you believe St. Ives' "origin" story? Surely stranger things have happened in the Marvel Universe, but from Aurora's "grounded" perspective we can understand why she is dubious. Personally, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It's not a stretch to imagine that the effects of the gas, coupled with his terror, caused him to have a vision based on whatever his spiritual leanings were at the time. Probably the gas reacted with something in his body makeup and changed his physiology, activating his death touch. Why did Nemesis wait until now to strike? Has she just acquired the blade? Probably just dramatic license... If you've read this story, tell me your theories!
I must admit I never spent too much time thinking about that mystery; Ernest's origin was well within the bounds of comic-book science/mysticism, and I assumed that Nemesis's own origin was deliberately kept as a secret for the nonce, perhaps to be revealed later. I did wonder how a one-atom thick blade could hold any semblance of shape, especially when one uses it to hit objects (especially with the flat of it). Darncoolmagicium can be forged into pretty much anything!!! The idea of being sliced by something one atom thick is pretty impressive, though. And that scene where Nemesis chops Ernest in several quarters as easily if he were made of smoke looked very good. I, too, thought that Nemesis was Danielle, and that her cry to the contrary was that of someone who has given up on their old identity.
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Post by badwolf on May 10, 2021 16:11:49 GMT -5
Based on the nature of Ernest's demise, I think it's safe to say neither he nor Nemesis were meant to appear again (even though they both did, in other hands.) I think she was just meant to be left a mystery. I feel like he did something like that in FF too, but I can't think of the example. Wendy's friends, maybe.
"Deadly Ernest" was really just a nickname used by the locals, not an official supervillain name (that would have been cheesy yes!)
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Post by badwolf on May 11, 2021 9:20:38 GMT -5
I must admit I never spent too much time thinking about that mystery These are the things I think about when I can't sleep at night... which is often, these days.
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Post by badwolf on May 11, 2021 10:23:12 GMT -5
Next up in the omnibus is a series of excerpts from Fantastic Four #266-268. Due to complications with Susan Richards' pregnancy, Reed Richards has solicited the aid of various radiation experts, including Bruce Banner, Michael Morbius, and Walter Langkowski. When none of them can come up with any answers, it is Walter who suggests bringing in Otto Octavius. Okay, this is the excerpt part that really bugs me. The full FF atory is great, but taken out of context these small bits are meaningless and confusing. Worse, if the reader hasn't read the full story, it robs him/her of some really powerful moments. I get that including the full issues might have been overkill, but if I'd been the editor I'd have left them out entirely. The only real connection to AF continuity is that it explains how Langkowski knows the Thing's current situation in the next issue of Alpha Flight.
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Post by Graphic Autist on May 11, 2021 10:52:36 GMT -5
I own the Alpha Flight by John Byrne Omnibus, and I agree with you that the FF excerpts would have been best left out.
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