John Byrnes shtick of being a better artist now than Then is old and tiresome, and Ive lost a great amount of respect for him as a public figure and an artist, but I thought he was ahead of his time (perhaps accidentally, due to Byrnes lack of desire to produce such a series at all) with Alpha Flight. Certainly the characters were the best he ever designed, costume and otherwise. But it was the structure of the series itself--having a team which never actually WAS a team, and in fact could never function as a team given the expanse of Canada and their separate lives, that made AF special. I really enjoy the idea that the series might concentrate on two-or-three issue arcs starring one or two of the characters, building up with subplots to involve the others, and culminating in an annual issue or two starring the entire team together, being the core of the structure. Team-book fans hate this idea, but Im not a fan of team books, per se. I still think such a structure might be viable in a series today, though naturally the uniqueness has been removed by all the variant Avengers and X-Men teams ie Some Hacks Favorite Line-Up. And, without hyperbole, Alpha Flight was the last of the best John Byrne, story- and art-wise. And my favorite Alphan? Box, inhabited by the spirit of Walter Langkowski. Just in the Top Ten robot designs of all time, at least the more simian early version in blue rather than the Colossus redesign in red. Interesting too that the two Box robots were blue and red, like Rockm Sockms.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:50:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015