X-Men In General

Ah, one of those "above top secret" things that every organization has. How original.

Well then Alpha Flight probably never knew it happened. I seem to recall that when Wolverine escaped and was found by the future Vindicators, they didn't know Weapon X existed then either.

In practice, the whole thing was basically just an excuse to kill off some forgotten Dark Age mutants nobody had used in the better part of a decade, such as Siena Blaze, Bulwark, Locus, D'Gard, and Bolt. It was kind of a crappy series with all sorts of "mysterious" goings-on with Mr. Sinister and John Sublime popping in and out at various points, ultimately ending with the latter chasing Colcord and his staff underground. There they've remained.

Well, good thing it was characters nobody cared about, then.

I hesitate to ask, but was this when all the Alpha Flight members I mentioned above were inexplicably replaced by a bunch of Straight White Male-types?

I assume you're referring to the team often referred to as "Alpha Flight III" with Major Mapleleaf, Puck II, and them. It wasn't total Wonderbread; Puck II was half Chinese, Yukon Jack was First Nations, and Centennial was black.

No, I think there was another one, when Madison Jeffries replaced Box, where Heather was the only woman, Puck wasn't actually a dwarf, and the two First Nations characters (Shaman and Snowbird) disappeared, and Northstar joined the X-Men or something; man, why does Alpha Flight get dumped on like this?

"Marinna's an Atlantean" Actually, she's an alien.

You might be thinking of Bill Mantlo's run in the '80s. For a while, the team consisted of Vindicator, Madison Jeffries, Sasquatch (in Snowbird's body), and trainees Purple Girl and Manikin. He did add a couple more trainees, too - a black girl named Laura Dean and her freakish twin sister, Goblyn.

Mantlo wass the one who "revealed" that Puck's dwarfism was caused by magic and that his original height was 6'6", then he got rid of Puck entirely. He "revealed" Northstar as a fairy, and then sent him to live with fairies. He cured Aurora of her split personality and sent her to live in a convent. He got rid of Shaman and Talisman. He had Snowbird get married to a mortal and have a kid, and then killed off Snowbird, her husband and her baby. He had the original Box go insane and merge with Madison's brother so they both had to be killed.

In short, Bill Mantlo systematically destroyed everything John Byrne had set up. And the worst part is that he didn't tell particularly compelling stories in the process. Mantlo, to be blunt, was an absolute shit writer on Alpha Flight.

Wait — so, Mantlo put most of the good characters on a bus for who-freaking-knows-why, and replaced them with a bunch of young, wet-behind-the-ears trainees?

WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?! (You don't have to answer, but honestly, it just freaking baffles me. Without Northstar, Aurora, Shaman, Puck, Snowbird, etc., you do not have Alpha Flight. You instead have a hollow shell that kinda-sorta resembles Alpha Flight, and four young-uns who took the places of better, more deserving characters, that's what you have.)

Out of curiosity, did the book get any better after Mantlo left, or did Mantlo irrevocably send it down the path of no return?

edited 13th Sep '14 3:23:59 PM by kkhohoho

It did get better after he left. He started the process of bringing Talisman back into the fold before he left. Then James Hudnall finished bringing her back, along with Shaman. And the writing was better under Hudnall. Mantlo's problem was that he brought the angst to self-satirical levels. Characters would repeat their personal problems every single issue, and those problems defined the characters to a ridiculous degree. The characters stopped being people. They lacked authenticity.

Hudnall was better. Still not a great writer, but he was much better than Mantlo.

Man, why dump that much on Alpha Flight? They're cool, not as cool as Excalibur, but cool nonetheless.

Presumably, Mantlo figured he was keeping things interesting. It's worth remembering that John Byrne killed Guardian off in the 12th issue of the series. Byrne also killed off Sasquatch (though brought him back and put him in the Box armour). He put the characters through plenty of torment. I think Mantlo wanted to give happy endings to many of them, even when that "happy ending" meant dying, as with Snowbird.

So I don't think it was any intentional "dumping on." I think it was just that Mantlo didn't really get what made the book so good under Byrne.

edited 13th Sep '14 3:44:05 PM by Tiamatty

A random X-related question that popped into my head: is there any substance to the rumor that, when he wrote his infamously bizarre Generation X run, Larry Hama was actually trying to get the book canned?

I would tend to doubt it. Why would Hama take over a book just to try to get it cancelled? It's a genuinely nonsensical thing to do.

If he didn't like the last writer, it's plausible. 'Course, Hama's too good for that, guy managed to have Snake-Eyes be an engaging main character.

So, to bring up an old topic, the kinds of folks who'd attend an art sale of stuff by Xavier School students, not the kinds of people who'd care one way or the other about Mutant rights, is that a good assumption?

Well, there are people interested in great African-American art, great Latino art, etc. so I don't see any reason for people not to be interested in mutant art, necessarily.

edited 15th Sep '14 6:30:42 PM by HamburgerTime

As long as they're not the kinds of collectors who treat art from other cultures as some kind of bonus points, like art collecting is a competition.

I'm sure plenty of people in the MU are into mutant art. But they probably still wouldn't go to a high school's open art show. Because mutant or not, it's still a high school art show.

"I sure can't wait to see pretentious quotes over pre-existing pictures, incomprehensible sculptures, and horrifying vectors of the student's profiles!"

Wither could probably have helped with something like this if he were alive; he was supposedly the best artist at Xavier's.

Uncanny X-Men this week: I know you're hurting Iceman but shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuup. It's bad when Firestar who's been an X-Man for five minutes gets it.

edited 18th Sep '14 11:55:32 AM by MegaJ

I liked Iceman in UXM yesterday, actually. His reaction made sense, and was done well. I also liked Firestar - Bendis treated her with more respect than Aaron or Kyost did, by making her mature and intelligent. I'm also liking Scott's character arc.

ANXM was good, too. Lots of cool vignettes for them all. I liked Laura jumping off a motorcyle, bouncing off a bus, and grabbing hold of a truck. It was insane and awesome.

ANXF was great. A lot of fun. Just, like, ridiculous fun. Renaissance Faire! Drunk Wanda! Pervy Danger! Facial expressions that don't make me think "Deal With It"! (I'm disappointed that Di Giandomenico's back next issue. Pop Mhan's a great match for PAD, while CDG is a horrible match.)

Maybe it was just me (or typeface or so) but the way Laura was instantly cursed out on the football field was really good at getting across "Yes, you are in the ultimate universe. Where everyone save Spider-Man is an asshole."

Ult. Thor was pretty cool. As was some of the X-men.

Yeah, but from Ultimates Vol. 3 on it went downhill a lot.

As far I can remember, ultimate Tony Stark was an okay dude. Hell, in ultimate Spider-Man he was the contrast to Captain America over how they treated Peter, with Tony being the nice one and Rogers the dick.

There are plenty nice people in the ultimate universe. It is just they are overshadowed by the assholes.