Our Semi-Regular Look at Marvel and DC's Upcoming Offerings

We've known for some time that some original members of Alpha Flight were going to appear in this most recent volume of Captain Marvel. The first issue hits shelves on Wednesday but Comic Book Resources filled us in a few days ago when they displayed the preview material below.

It shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but why the hell are Alpha Flight's names so hard to get right? Marjorie Lu botched Northstar's in her X-Men book, and now these writers get Aurora's wrong.

It's Jeanne-Marie. "Jean" is a male name.

I know it doesn't affect the story and is largely irrelevant. But it would have taken 30 seconds to Google her "real" name to ensure you have it right. As it is, it shows a lack of care. And if you don't care, I don't.

And yet they got Langkowski right. Go figure.

Three editors credited on this book, by the way, in addition to two writers. Five people combined whiffed on that error.

Meanwhile DC has decided that if you can't beat them, join them. Marvel leans on its wars, whether Secret or Civil? Well, let's recreate some of our past events too, such as...Bloodlines!!

Written by J.T. Krul
Art and cover by V. Ken Marion
On sale APRIL 6 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T 

When a meteor crashes to Earth, bringing with it an unspeakable alien presence that terrorizes a nearby small town, the lucky ones die first. As for the rest, they find themselves locked in a hellish struggle for control of their bodies and their minds. This isn’t just an invasion. It’s an infestation. What would you do if the greatest threat to humanity was hidden away inside you? 

Award-winning writer J.T. Krul (Teen Titans, Green Arrow, Jirni) and superstar-in-the-making V. Ken Marion (All New Soulfire, Jirni) bring you their dark and horrifying science-fiction epic about tortured souls who are cursed to a fate worse than death...much worse.

You remember the original Bloodlines, right? It was intended to launch a whole bunch of new characters and...it failed miserably to do so. But for TSOG purposes, it did deliver some Sparx!

See what I did there?

I've posted about this character a bit in the past. Her real name is Donna Force (nice and easy to remember) and she came from a family of Superheroes based out of the fictional town of Timberton (I believe) in British Columbia.

The above cover to the first issue of Bloodlines certainly seems to indicate that we'll be seeing a redesigned version of her in the book. Honestly, while she's appeared sporadically here and there since her first appearance in 1993, I was convinced we'd seen the last of her.

But who knows if her original origin will have stuck? They made Adam and Alana Strange Canadian, they can certainly decide that Sparx is American, right?

That could be a Canadian setting on that cover. But the infestation is said to hit a particular town. Are all the characters from that one town? If so, I find it hard to believe they'll place it in Canada.

Hey, maybe Donna's just on her way to a shopping trip or concert in Seattle! Whatever works.

Canadian Heroes all over the map

Added a new toy!  Hope it works!

There's a new button at the end of the bar under the banner.  It is rather unimaginatively called "Map".  If you right click to open it in a new window, you will be taken to, well, a map which displays the birthplace and/or base of operations of a number of Canadian comic book characters.  They are separated by categories at the bottom left, that you can choose to isolate or remove from view using the legend at top right.  Use the scale at top left to zoom in and out.

Some notes:

• Daydreamer is not a member of Alpha Flight but I couldn't have her in the Indy category either, so she's with the Marvel team.
• Credit to Heroes of the North for eschewing the obvious choices for home towns.  For example, Acadia is in New Brunswick, but rather than make her a Moncton native, she is from Bouctouche.
• Look WAY up to find Snowbird.
• The old South Park gag about "downtown Canada" could well have been based on DC Comics.  Not a single character has a defined place of birth.  Plastique is clearly from Quebec, but where?  And in the case of a character like Sparx (whom I suspect has faded out of continuity with the New 52 anyway), her home town of Timberton is in British Columbia, but fictional.

There are some glaring omissions due to lack of info, or perhaps of clarity of that info.  Even though he is bar none the most prominent Canadian character in comics, Wolverine's actual birth place is actually quite vague.  I have seen it referred to as both southern and Northern Alberta, making it somewhat hard to guess.  I've also found one source which claims he was born in New York state.  Strange that this wouldn't have been determined by now.

In many other cases, there is consensus, but not specification.  Marrina was born (hatched?) on the coast of Newfoundland, but I don't know where on that coast.

Anyway, I have 30 characters currently listed, but it's still being worked on.  If the map does not display properly for you, please slip me a word at jf4nier@gmail.com to let me know.

Acquired at Comiccon, part two: Superboy and the Ravers 1-4

You could probably come to a fairly accurate estimate of what I paid for the Canadian and Fleur de Lys figurines described in the previous post.  Those don't tend to come cheap.

However, I feel worse about having paid $5 for the first four issues of Superboy and the Ravers.  Great Caesar's Ghost, what a lousy book.  But what the hell do you want, it's from the 90's! It was to be expected.

In describing Krimzon Kaine earlier, I stated that when a creator goes through great lengths to make a character cool, said character can often come off like a clown.  Exhibit A: Superboy.  The leather jacket, earring, round glasses and shaved sides...They wanted him to look cool, but he ends up looking like a male prostitute.

But who cares?  I bought the book for a little exposure to Sparx (top left), one of few Canadian characters in the DC Comics pantheon.

There is a huge cast in this book (or at least the first three issues that I've read) but Sparx still manages to carve out a presence.  She's the lovable sweetheart type who likes puppies and wants everyone to be friends.  However, she initiates the whole thing by taking Superboy to the "Event Horizon" intergalactic rave (???!!) in the first place, and for this I can never forgive her.

All right, maybe it's not THAT bad.  The art is very flashy and there are interesting guest-appearances by a Darkstar character and Adam Strange.  It may be that there are parts of the story with which I'm not familiar because I did not read Superboy's series at the time or the subsequent issues in this series.

Sparx is likable enough.  In fact, her ultra-nice behaviour is a refreshing change from all the posers and attitude in the rest of the book. But not to the point that I'd be in any hurry to continue buying back issues of this book. 

According to comicvine, other members of the Force Family appear in later issues.  That may be interesting, but I'd just as soon direct my attention to Canadian characters that have greater potential for exposure down the road.

Sparx and the Force Family

Sparx is among the characters I came across while looking for Canadian content among DC Comics a few weeks ago. Here she is, cropped off the cover for Superboy and the Ravers #6.


Frankly, at first glance, she didn't seem particularly interesting so I ignored her when suggesting (in jest) Justice League Canada. But her entry on comicvine refers to the rest of her super-powered family and that part was intriguing. Here's an excerpt:

The Force Family are the largest and probably only mainstream continuity supergroup in DC Comics' Canada...The Force Family lives in a rustic yet high tech Fantastic Four styled compound in the fictional town of Timberton, British Columbia. And it appears that the entire town of Timberton is populated by members of their extended family. The town of Timberton also hosts a Force Family museum, filled with statuary which seem to indicate that they have been operating since the time of the Roman Empire.

The bulk of Sparx's appearance were in Blood Pack (ugh) and Superboy and the Ravers (groan). A few members of the Force Family seems to have shown up in only a few issues of the latter.

A lot of comics sucked in the 90's so I'm not kidding myself; probably these characters were part of that stew. But I could see a good writer squeezing something out of this.

Marvel has a Canadian team, and they have a "fantastic" family-based team. DC has neither (I know they did briefly...more on that later) but they could update these characters, who are barely more than blank slates anyway, and combine the two aspects in one package. It'll never happen, but I'd love to see it.