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Alpha Flight Minimates!


Jay Tigran

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Not having read AF, would the robot head be better in the TRU exclusive vindicator? Just wondering which I should pick up an extra set of.

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Not having read AF, would the robot head be better in the TRU exclusive vindicator? Just wondering which I should pick up an extra set of.

Nope, she was impersonating James McDonald Hudson, AKA Mac, AKA the guy in this set. I do believe, if memory serves, that the costume his wife Heather ended up wearing as Vindicator actually came from the imposter... but it's been a LONG time since I read those Alpha Flight comics.

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It's like we've been sitting at the train station watching our train roll in very slowly, and now that it's here, I'm ready for the next train.

It's been like that for a lot of stuff since we found out we were getting Kang, hasn't it? Like the idea of a thing is better than the thing itself? With all of the fan service lately, maybe we've also been getting a bit... entitled... :confused:

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1340203915[/url]' post='233341']
1340199185[/url]' post='233320']

It's like we've been sitting at the train station watching our train roll in very slowly, and now that it's here, I'm ready for the next train.

It's been like that for a lot of stuff since we found out we were getting Kang, hasn't it? Like the idea of a thing is better than the thing itself? With all of the fan service lately, maybe we've also been getting a bit... entitled... :confused:

For The Royalty! [/inferno]

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Not having read AF, would the robot head be better in the TRU exclusive vindicator? Just wondering which I should pick up an extra set of.

Nope, she was impersonating James McDonald Hudson, AKA Mac, AKA the guy in this set. I do believe, if memory serves, that the costume his wife Heather ended up wearing as Vindicator actually came from the imposter... but it's been a LONG time since I read those Alpha Flight comics.

Looks like you read it a bit longer than I did or my memories much worse than yours. I remember what happened to Marina(Spellcheck)and was a little disappointed with that. So here's my question, who is the current Vindicator? Is it James or another recruit? I seem to remember them pretty much killing off some of the original team a few years back? Not trying to sidetrack the thread anymore than it already has. I was just a fan of the original run. Is it possible the won't reveal another exclusive and split up the remaining teams into 2 packs? Is their rogues gallery big enough they could do that?

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Not having read AF, would the robot head be better in the TRU exclusive vindicator? Just wondering which I should pick up an extra set of.

Nope, she was impersonating James McDonald Hudson, AKA Mac, AKA the guy in this set. I do believe, if memory serves, that the costume his wife Heather ended up wearing as Vindicator actually came from the imposter... but it's been a LONG time since I read those Alpha Flight comics.

Looks like you read it a bit longer than I did or my memories much worse than yours. I remember what happened to Marina(Spellcheck)and was a little disappointed with that. So here's my question, who is the current Vindicator? Is it James or another recruit? I seem to remember them pretty much killing off some of the original team a few years back? Not trying to sidetrack the thread anymore than it already has. I was just a fan of the original run. Is it possible the won't reveal another exclusive and split up the remaining teams into 2 packs? Is their rogues gallery big enough they could do that?

Hey, you're not sidetracking the thread if you're actually talking about Alpha Flight, unlike some other people around here. Yes, Alpha Flight was killed off, rather unceremoniously, in New Avengers a few years back (BENDIS!). They were replaced for a time by Omega Flight, a hodgepodge of characters heading to Canada in the wake of the Civil War (Beta Ray Bill, US Agent, the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman). This lineup also included Weapon Omega, whom was the guy wearing the Guardian suit that was not James McDonald Hudson or Heather Hudson. I don't know whatever happened to him, but I thought the Omega Flight mini series was pretty disappointing, so I'd be glad to forget him.

Alpha Flight did return, though I don't know how. They starred recently in a well-received, though quickly-cancelled, series; here's the collection. I'd expect them to remain a strong part of the MU for awhile, as (if I recall) people were pretty POed when they were killed off (BENDIS!!).

EDIT: oh, I meant to mention that Mac was brought back a few times over the years, first at the end of the original series run (where he was wearing a fairly horrible looking costume with inverted colors), and then again during the Steve Segle/ Scott Clark revival in the '90s (which I thought was pretty good, particularly for the time). Byrne killed him off because he thought he was a boring character, but I don't think he understood that Guardian was the iconic character from the group, and I think the book always struggled with the Guardian-shaped hole at the center.

Edited by hellpop
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This lineup also included Weapon Omega, whom was the guy wearing the Guardian suit that was not James McDonald Hudson or Heather Hudson. I don't know whatever happened to him, but I thought the Omega Flight mini series was pretty disappointing, so I'd be glad to forget him.

The new Weapon Omega was part of Osborn's Dark X-Men, and recently turned up in X-Men Legacy, looking for help with his out-of-control powers. He's still a poorly-conceived character, but he's hanging out with Mimic, and anything that boosts Mimic's profile (and chances of a Minimate) is a good thing.

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So I just read up on them via wikipedia, seems that Bendis heavily implied that they were killed off, but never really showed it, and folks had to confirm who did or didn't die later, without really explaining how or how some others survived? And Puck was confirmed dead, but then just re-appeared without any explanation?

House of Ideas, babay!! :buttrock:

Seriously though, that is all shameful. Even if a given writer doesn't respect a character or team, he should have enough respect for the fans of them to at least explain when and how someone dies. And if/when they are brought back to life, that should be explained, too!!

Edited by karamazov80
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Both Marvel and DC have been extremely sloppy during the Quesada and DiDio eras, respectively, in keeping track of continuity. It's one thing to forget/ignore that a character died three decades ago and slip him into the background of a group shot, but quite another to just outright ignore the death of a fairly major character that happened under your editorial/publisher reign.

One of the things I've always found odd about Bendis' reign as Marvel's top writer is that I've never sensed that he's really a fan. On the one hand, I suppose that frees him up creatively from any self-imposed shackles; on the other, it's allowed him to blatantly disregard long-established personalities and undervalue many characters, like Hawkeye, the Vision, and Alpha Flight. In that New Avengers story, he basically used Alpha Flight as a bunch of jobbers to get his monster heel over, which was pretty disrespectful to the characters and their fan base.

I promise I'll stop bringing up Bendis just to bash him... soonish.:happy:

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I figure this set is clearly based on the early Byrne Alpha Flight issues....those first 25 (or so) were really great. It did go downhill pretty fast after Bryne left, but in the end, no matter who kills off the characters, who takes their place, if they come back or not, those 25 issues are still a good solid story, and I'm glad to have the minimates to represent it.

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I always liked the episode of X-Men the animated series that they appeared in, though they looked cool and diverse, outside of the OHBOTMU I never really read much of them. I tried when they were relaunched in the late 90s, but just never cared for the title. Still VERY excited for these packs. The Alphaflight team was always a centre piece of my toybiz collection because of the diverse and interesting costumes (though rather incomplete).

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A while back I posted something about AFX having an exclusive Minimate set for SDCC on their Facebook page. Their reply was yes, maybe two. Think we'll see AF II with Sassy, Shaman, Auraura, and Snowbird?

Edited by Rheul
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A while back I posted something about AFX having an exclusive Minimate set for SDCC on their Facebook page. Their reply was yes, maybe two. Think we'll see AF II with Sassy, Shaman, Auraura, and Snowbird?

IIRC, the last official word from Zach — before AFX showed the Alpha Flight set — was that there was only one more Marvel set to be announced. So, I think that's it for SDCC. Given all of the other hints we've seen (DST interview comments about cross-selling, "set 1," the blatantly obvious missing characters like Sasquatch), I would think a second box set somewhere, somehow is a good bet. NYCC seems as likely as anything.

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Both Marvel and DC have been extremely sloppy during the Quesada and DiDio eras, respectively, in keeping track of continuity. It's one thing to forget/ignore that a character died three decades ago and slip him into the background of a group shot, but quite another to just outright ignore the death of a fairly major character that happened under your editorial/publisher reign.

One of the things I've always found odd about Bendis' reign as Marvel's top writer is that I've never sensed that he's really a fan. On the one hand, I suppose that frees him up creatively from any self-imposed shackles; on the other, it's allowed him to blatantly disregard long-established personalities and undervalue many characters, like Hawkeye, the Vision, and Alpha Flight. In that New Avengers story, he basically used Alpha Flight as a bunch of jobbers to get his monster heel over, which was pretty disrespectful to the characters and their fan base.

I promise I'll stop bringing up Bendis just to bash him... soonish.:happy:

No, don't stop. You're not bashing him if you call it like it is.

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I have a lot of love and respect for Bendis' earlier works. Torso, Goldfish, Alias, Powers, Daredevil. But all of those are dark, gritty, crime dramas. He wasn't cut out to write "team" or "event" stories, because that wasn't the types of stories that he told. Even Ultimate Spidey, while entirely different in tone, was more of the type of singular character work that he specialized in.

Bendis became a huge star at Marvel, and naturally they wanted to capitalize on that, so they gave him Avengers, and he went off the rails on the crazy never-ending "event" train that eventually plowed into the rest of the Marvel Universe. But seriously, who wouldn't jump at the chance to do something like that?

It would be the same as taking David Fincher (or Chris Nolan as the case may be) and having him write and direct a Justice League movie. His style of story-telling just isn't suited for that material.

Faults aside, he created one of my favorite characters of the last decade, Jessica Jones. A character that was never originally meant to be anything more than a way to tell his style of stories within the existing Marvel Universe. Seriously, if you haven't read Alias, do yourself a favor and pick up the full run, I think it went 38 issues.

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I think he's capable of being an excellent writer, but I think his talent wanes the larger the scale he's working on. Smaller character driven books he does well, but I think you could argue his work on Avengers isn't even writing, more of a conception piece. He has big ideas for a grand scale story, but they're consistently dissatisfying. To me, my biggest complaint with him would be he can have an idea most writers could get years worth of stories out of, and he does one or two issues on it before moving on to his next "big idea." And from a purely spiteful level I really don't like how he shoves his favorites down the readers throats while seemingly getting pleasure out of misusing and or killing others just because he doesn't like them.

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I will say I wouldn't feel so strongly if he just had a couple books, but Quesada essentially lets him run the Marvel Universe however he wants, and he seems to take relish with rubbing it in the fan's faces if they every don't react positively to something.

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