Canadians: Do you like Alpha Flight?

In My Humble Opinion
1

For some reason it just occured to me to wonder: why did Marvel create them? For those who may not know, Alpha Flight is a Canadian superhero team, of which the infamous Wolverine was briefly a member before heading to warmer climes.

So why? Was there a huge demand for it? I’m not saying that Canada shouldn’t have their own team, or anything at all distrespectful to that great country, I’m just curious about what Canadians themselves think of the team? Affection? Bemusement? Do you just shrug and say “Eh?” and not care?

2

I’m just guessing here, but my thought is that some marketing studies indicated that there would probably be some $$$ to be made “if we went this way.”

Other than that, I got nuthin’

3

Alpha Flight first appeared as guest stars in X-Men, which, at the time, was being drawn by an artist named John Byrne, who is a proud Canadian.

A lot of fans hate what Byrne did with the Fantastic Four and Superman. But Alpha Flight was one of his good deeds.

4

I collected the first series steadily until the artwork went to hell and issue after issue had mystical villains, sometime around issue #75.

5

What do you have against mystical villians?

6

In small doses, not much, but right on the heels of a zillion “Dreamqueen” issues, they slid into some story arc about an ultra-powerful and ultra-bloodthirsty demon. That was enough for me.

7

A proud naturalized Canadian. He’d been living in Canada for something like 8 years when he and CC created Alpha Flight; he suddenly ran out of jobs at the time he naturalized. I’m sure there’s more to it than just that but it still drew a lot of rolleyes at the other side of the Atlantic.

My own response when I see Spain in foreign media is along the lines of “someone pass me a full-body antigerm suit before I touch that”. Glorious exceptions are either intentionally comic (Terry Pratchett, Asterix) or… done by a Spaniard. I’m told that Mexico and Canada don’t fare much better in US media.

8

mbh:

There was someone who hated Byrne’s run on Fantastic Four? (Other than, perhaps, Barry Dutter, a letterhack who was well-known for hating She-Hulk.) I thought it was pretty much universally regarded as the best run on that book aside from Lee’s and Kirby’s.

9

I’ve never been a big Fantastic Four fan, and I HATE John Byrne, but I know the recent Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo run was a fan favorite, and even I liked it.

10

Um, I think Byrne is hated more for his more recent Spider-Man & Hulk runs. And his Doom Patrol is a bit thin, & we fans of Alan Grant’s version of the Demon are a bit upset at him, & there are some cranks who didn’t like the Wonder Girl character he added to Wonder Woman, & his take on Superman was jarring at first…

But on the FF? Nah, I think that’s probably fondly remembered now, especially compared to some runs on that series.