Quote Originally Posted by cmdrkoenig67 View Post
Perhaps I should have more clear, I meant current Marvel of the past 15 or so years...And of course it's their fault...They haven't used the right approach, their most recent screw up was Omega Flight...Marvel execs sabotaged that series before it came out.
"Sabotage" is such an ugly word
Marvel wants to make a profit off every title it publishes. Right or wrong, they didn't have confidence in the longterm profitability of OF and so they changed it to a mini-series. I agree that the drop in sales shouldn't be seen as a strike against the book. Issue #1's sales figures is the evidence that people are interested!

My point is, right or wrong, Alpha Flight has a stigma attached to it, after all these years, as a lovable loser. And that is taken into account when Marvel is drafting their year's strategy, and considering the products it's offering.

How do we remove that stigma? How does a person pitch Alpha Flight so that any misconception is eliminated?

I think that 1) one has to make certain that any misconception isn't, in actuality, kinda true... which means we have to be honest with ourselves, and 2) if that's the case, then whatever it is that's hurt the title's reputation, that facet has to go away, never to return.

Dana, you said, "What does one ignore and what does one use? Byrne's drama-ridden, in-fighting, non-team (which seemed to sell the best)? The government-directed (or in the case of volume 2, government-controlled) team? Lobdell's "All New, All Different with bad comedy" approach (All New and All Different hasn't really worked for any team, except the New X-Men relaunch in the Seventies)?"

That's it in a nutshell, right there.
My own personal thoughts are, you keep Talisman, Sasquatch, Jeffries, Snowbird, Marrina as the core of a family (moreso than a formal team) operating out of Canada, and you sprinkle in Northstar, Aurora, Wolverine as supporting cast, as well as the Great Beasts as a threat from time to time. Everything else from Alpha Flight's catelogue you put away. No Department H, no Master, no Plodex, no matching uniforms, no commentary on being "Canada's team", absolutely no resurrections of Mac, Heather, Eugene, Michael, Zha Zha or Major.

If you disagree with me, and believe that there's no stigma (right or wrong), then what the hell... resurrect them all, Launch Alpha Flight volume 4, fight the Master while wrangling with Department H in issue #1 and keep watching the monthly sales figures with eagerness.

Otherwise, the decisionmakers at Marvel see things differently. Why? And how can we help change that?