Big(gish) News From The Big Two

I was expecting a big announcement from Marvel and/or DC to come out of Fan Expo, similarly to how a new Alpha Flight book and Justice League Canada were announced at past Expo events. Of course, Alpha Flight was scaled back to a mini and Justice League Canada was stripped of much of anything that made it Canadian, so any news would be looked at with a suspicious eye anyway.

Instead, the news came within the last 24 hours or so but predictably involves both of those properties.

First things first, Justice League United is done as of December.

Written by JEFF PARKER
Art and cover by TRAVEL FOREMAN
On sale DECEMBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • FINAL ISSUE 

Artist Travel Foreman returns for this “trippy” trip to the House of Secrets to reveal at last how Adam Strange came to be trapped in the Zeta Beam! And just what will that mean for the mysterious, reality-warping Breakers that have brought so many disparate heroes and villains to the team?

Can't say I'm crushed, but I'm somewhat surprised. That I knew of, the book was selling well and DC had just installed a new creative team with issue #13. Perhaps early reactions to that new team and direction were not encouraging?

In any event, Equinox ultimately feels like a huge bunch of wasted potential and while I loved the Adam/Alanna Strange designs, I couldn't really think of them as Canadian. I'm sure they'll pop up again somewhere at some point but I won't agonize over it in the meantime.

And following JLU's exit comes yet another comeback by Alpha Flight. In some form, anyway. The Captain Marvel News Twitter account shared some info gathered at the Long Beach Comics Convention.

Let's get some specific quotes from the Comic Book Resources article referred to in the top tweet above.

"[Marvel] wanted to give her a specific mission," (co-writer Michele) Fazekas continued. "I think they wanted to give Carol her own thing that was hers, separate from the Avengers." 

This mission involves Carol being on a space station above Earth -- with some unexpected teammates. "One of the things that's exciting about the space station," (co-writer Tara) Butters said, "is Carol is starting to be Earth's first line of defense -- on the station with Alpha Flight."

Some familiar members, some new ones. Marvel's record with new Alpha members hasn't been very good over the past 20 years or so (Murmur, Flex, Radius, Yukon Jack, Centennial, Earthmover, etc, etc), so I can't help but be a little apprehensive there too.  But honestly, I'd pretty much given up on Alpha Flight so the bar is set pretty low at this point.

Ironically, as Marvel bends over backwards to provide "diversity", Alpha Flight is probably the most diverse team they've ever had. Yet they have been given little attention or respect throughout Marvel's newfound age of enlightenment. Go figure.