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.

Surprise Cover Appearance by The Human Fly!

I admit I totally missed an appearance by The Human Fly on the cover of a Marvel book. But then, who had any cause to expect The Human Fly to appear on a Marvel cover?? Check him out at bottom right.

This was pointed out on Bleeding Cool and I believe they actually explain the reason for THF's appearance without meaning to. The solicitation for the above book, Illuminati #3, states that it is "villain vs villain". I think the cover artist was directed to draw The Human Fly and he drew the character he most closely associated with that name.

Simple error. Probably. You'd think an editor somewhere would pick up on it and maybe one did and shrugged it off. For that matter, perhaps the cover will be corrected by the time the book is available in January. Not a huge deal. In fact, it's pretty neat!

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.

Logan Legacy #2 hits where Amazing X-Men #12 misses

Amazing X-Men #12, the final chapter of the World War Wendigo storyline which guest-starred Alpha Flight, finally came out yesterday.

I say "finally" not out of eagerness, but because I couldn't wait for it to end. I hated the story.  I found several of the Alpha Flight members to be out of character, references to their recent history to be completely inaccurate, and the silly dialogue from some of the X-Men completely irritating. I didn't know Rockslide before this story and I could live a great life without ever coming across him again. I also have no idea when Iceman became such a tool. At least Guardian had an extremely impactful, though completely predictable, moment.

Thankfully, reading Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #2 afterwards offset a lot of that crap very nicely.

I'm not Wolverine's biggest fan (not even close), and I didn't at all follow the story leading to his "death", the reports of which are no doubt greatly exaggerated.

However, X-23, Logan Legacy's leading lady for this issue, is a character I've been curious about for some time. As the clone of Canada's most famous superhero, does she qualify as Canadian herself? The lady who carried this clone is an American, from what I can gather from internet research, so I'm not entirely sure. I was looking forward to finding out a bit more about her.

I'd also seen a few comments in social media about a pleasant surprise for Alpha Flight fans in this book. Of course, I assumed this meant that a current team member would appear, perhaps more than one. That was enough to provide the extra motivation I needed to make the purchase.

And I'm so glad I did.

I won't "spoil" it, even if the book came out yesterday.  A new(ish) character, referred to as The Chinook, appears and it is indeed a sweet treat, in my opinion.

If you look for it you can figure out from this post who our mysterious character is. But I can easily explain, without giving anything away, why I was so pleased at this story by making reference to the Amazing X-Men books.

World War Wendigo was sloppy in handling Alpha Flight's history, even a very recent, high-profile event like Northstar's wedding. In Legacy, writer Tim Seeley makes reference to characters we have either not seen in years, and had no reason to expect to, or whose most prominent appearance came way back during John Byrne's Alpha Flight run.

Said simply, it's a matter of respect. Amazing X-Men did not display much of it, Logan Legacy does.

As for The Chinook, it's unlikely (but not impossible) that we'll see much more of him, but I welcome any future appearances.  He and X-23 make a pretty sharp team, don't they?

Canada: Where the Good Whiskey Comes From

The above is from the Night Raven: House of Cards graphic novel, first published by Marvel UK in 1991.

I read the character's first graphic novel two years ago and if I hadn't read on another website that he is Canadian, I would never have known. There is little, if any, reference to his background in Night Raven: The Collected Stories.

Night Raven is the driver in the above partial scan of a page from House of Cards, however I still found myself questioning whether claims that he was Canadian were accurate. In the scene, he's trying to avoid being recognized and drawing attention to himself. It seemed very likely then that he was making up a background story for that purpose.There is one flashback vision later in the book that effectively confirms his half-native ancestry, but it does not specify that he was born and/or raised in Canada.

However, I failed to realize earlier that the two graphic novels can nearly be considered book ends to the character's adventures. The Collected Stories reprint his first 20 appearances in the UK's Hulk Comic. I believed that House of Cards did something similar with subsequent comic book short stories, but it does not. Night Raven's adventures following those in Hulk are actually text stories starting in a book called "Marvel Superheroes" (issue 382). I suspect that much of his background is actually detailed in those, and that is why a few resources are able to confidently state that Night Raven was born in southern Alberta in the early 1900's.

The unfortunate thing about the text stories is that they have not been collected or reprinted in any way since (that I could determine, anyway) and it seems rather unlikely that they every will be. That's too bad, because a few were written by Alan Moore prior to Watchmen being published by DC Comics.  I would love to see Moore's take on the character and may just have to find a way to track those down.

The Canuck who saved Strikeforce Morituri!

Superheroes die all the time.  Leave it to a Canadian to prevent superheroes who are meant to die from doing that very thing (even if it was quite accidental). ;-)

If you're not familiar with Marvel's Strikeforce Morituri series from the late 80's, you may want to look into it.  The concept was terrific.  Set in a future in which the Earth is under attack from an alien race known as The Horde, ordinary people could sign up for something called the Morituri Process which gave them super abilities with a nasty catch; They would invariably die from the procedure within a year (kind of like being the leader of Alpha Flight).

And the original writer, Peter B. Gillis, didn't mess around about this. There was no "loophole" out of it on his watch. What made the book particularly interesting was watching the characters deal with the sudden fame, the power, bureaucracy and the inevitable fate (their own and that of their teammates) of being Morituri.

Until this big dude came along.

Well, Revenge...And writer James D. Hudnall.  Hudnall's first story, in issue #21, is told from the perspective of a Paidean (the name of the World Government) soldier being interrogated about his experience as a Horde prisoner over the course of the previous year.  He was rescued by the Moritury team of the time, then coerced into "volunteering" for the program himself.  He didn't dig it.

That logo on Edwards' chest is the Hordian symbol for revenge.

Following his exposure to the Morituri process, Edwards developed the ability to turn matter into energy (in addition to the standard package of increased strength, speed, endurance, etc.).  He took to it rather quickly, as seen in the following page from #26.

There's probably no need to finish that sentence...

It seems that Edwards caught a virus while being held prisoner on the Horde ship, and that this virus was able offset the fatal Morituri effect. As a result, the characters were no longer "guaranteed" to die within a year.

Said otherwise, Hudnall pretty much took over the book and destroyed the concept that set it apart from the others starting in his very first issue.  Kind of a baffling move, really.

The series was cancelled after 31 issues, though a 5-part mini series called Electric Undertow was released shortly after.  It took place 10 years after the conclusion of the regular series and featured the members of the Morituri team that remained at the end of #31, Revenge included.

The 36-issues-in-total Strikeforce Morituri material was reprinted in its entirety over three volumes by Marvel Comics in 2012.

Alpha Flight Guest-Appearance in June?

When Marvel's solicitations are released every month, I scan them for any mention of Alpha Flight or their individual members.

It was pointed out, on the Comic Book Resources forum, that they are expected to appear in June's Amazing X-Men #8.  That wasn't immediately obvious in the solicitation, though the reference to Canada should have caught my eye, really.  Here's the teaser:

AMAZING X-MEN #8
CRAIG KYLE AND CHRIS YOST (W)
ED MCGUINNESS (A/C)
• Wolverine takes a trip back to Canada…
• But when he discovers that an old friend is missing, his visit soon transforms into a hairy situation.
• New writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Apparently writer Chris Yost confirmed Flight's appearance on Twitter, though I was unable to find the comment in question.  And the hairy problem referred to above looks to be of the Wendigo variety.

The mention of the discovery of an old friend being missing is interesting.  I wonder if they're going to end up looking for Guardian's ex, Heather (Vindicator) McNeil Hudson.  It would be about time...

Transonic of The Lights

Because I detest the X-Men, I'm only finding out now that in mid 2010, Marvel Comics introduced a Canadian character among a new group of mutants (because if there's one thing lacking in the Marvel Universe, it's a few more mutants).

The image below is a variant cover for Generation Hope #1 and it features one Laurie Tromette from Vancouver.  She would later adopt the nickname Transonic.  While the artwork is by Greg Land, I was not able to identify the porn actress he probably traced it from.

So what's Transonic's deal?  As I understand it, there was a period of time during which no more mutants were supposed to emerge.  Theoreticaly then, mutants were facing extinction.

Knowing Marvel Comics as we do, that scenario wasn't going to last very long.  Faster than you can say "We need more Wolverine books", Marvel opened the door for mutants to begin appearing again.  Laurie Tromette was the first of the Five Lights; The bunch of mutants that were introduced following that event.

Tromette made her first appearance in Uncanny X-Men #526.  She bookends the primary story.  In the first couple of pages, she is seen freaking out because she's in pain, her skin is turning blue and her hair is falling out.

I'm not sure what the issue is; Doesn't sound much different than my maple whiskey hangovers.

In any event, in the final few pages of main portion of the book, Tromette takes the only logical course of action in dealing with her discomfort and prepares to jump off a building.  But wouldn't you know it...

So that worked out nicely.  That is especially true for Hope Summers (that's her arm around 'sonic's waist in the above image), who also chose the most logical course of action when facing a suicide jumper.  That is, jump after her and try to talk her out of it in mid-drop.

Beyond that initial storyline, Transonic was a part of the Generation Hope series during its 17-issue duration and was later seen in the Avengers Academy book.

There was another Canadian-content surprise in this book.  No, not the mandatory Wolverine appearance, since nothing could be less surprising.  Rather, former Alpha Flight member Madison Jeffries pops by in a sub-plot in which members of the team tries to figure out why Kitty Pride can not turn off her phasing ability.  It's nothing more than a cameo but still an unexpected treat.

ICYMI Art: Alpha Flight by Marcelo Mueller

I particularly like the way Guardian came out on this:

It's been up on deviantart since August 20th, but only has a little over 100 views at this point.  Criminal. ;-)

Let your hearts be gladdened...Nelvana will return!

One of the original goals of this blog was to shine whatever small amount of light I could on some of the Canadian superhero characters from the 40's.  This country's history in the genre appeared to be sadly overlooked and under-appreciated.

Being that there are currently far more Canadian characters, publishers and creators than I'd originally expected to find, I inadvertently deviated from that goal.  Most mentions of Nelvana refer to her appearance on posters and the like, though the basics of her origins are included in the "Superheroes to call our own" post from February 2012.

I mention this now because of recently-announced plans to reprint Nelvana's adventures of the time.

Lost Heroes researchers Rachel Richey and Hope Nicholson (Richey also manages the Comic Syrup blog, while Nicholson is listed among the Lost Heroes producers as well) have acquired the rights to reproduce Nelvana's stories.  They plan to do so following a crowd funding campaign which will begin on October 1st.  You can follow their progress through this Facebook group.

Nelvana creator Adrian Dingle is said to be have been inspired to create Nelvana by Group Of Seven artist Franz Johnston's stories from the latter's travels to the Arctic.  Nelvana, in turn, was at least to some degree the inspiration for Alpha Flight's Snowbird character.  Snowbird's mother is named Nelvanna, with an extra "n", presumably to avoid legal issues.  Her grandfather is named Hodiak, similar to Koliak above.

Nelvana was often assisted in defending the north by her far less celebrated brother Tanero who shared dad's inability to have his true seen by "whites".  Tanero would usually avoid this by changing shapes to that of a flying Great Dane.

Well, that's ONE way...

These books are a lot of quirky fun and having them properly collected would be a real treat.  I'm excited to see this project move forward.

Hurry Up and Perk Up!

While writing about the New Recruits fundraising campaign last week, I mentioned a particular perk that they offered which I found to be a convincing encouragement to contribute.  Basically put, they offered something up front, which is a nice change from having to wait several months before seeing the benefits of your donation.

There are two other fundraising campaigns in which I've participated that feature(d) interesting perk ideas.

I need to hurry up in regards to the one that is currently ongoing.  The F1rst Hero campaign has a first-day contributor bonus which enables you to get a little more bang for your buck.

For that pledge, someone living in Canada can get the trade paperback version of the 4-issue series with extras shipped to him or her and if he or she is quick enough, the above preview book.  Not a bad deal at all.

Oh, what's F1rst Hero about?  I'm glad you asked!

What if everyone who ever had superpowers had gone insane and become a threat to society?  What if, after decades of this, one man gained abilities "far beyond those of mortal men" but kept his sanity?  Recently discharged from the Army and faced with a society that fears superhumans, a government that hunts them down and growing numbers of crazed supervillains all around him, JACOB ROTH must decide to either put himself at risk by using his powers to help people or do nothing and remain safe while innocent people get hurt.

The Canadian content appears to be among the creators.  Creator/Writer Anthony Ruttgaizer and Colourist/Letterer KT. Smith are both Toronto residents.  The book will be published by Pittsburgh-based Action Lab Entertainment.

The other perk that I thought included a cool feature is the one I originally selected for the Heroic campaign from Zenith Comics.

CANADIAN HERO - You get everything at the Reservist range, as well as a printed copy with the cover that will ONLY available for this Kickstarter! This tier is for Canadians only, all others use HERO tier.

Nice way to work in the extra shipping charges, since the "regular" hero tier is $15, as opposed to $25 for the "Canadian hero" one.

I might have taken this one a step further (though granted, there'd be an extra cost involved on the part of the publisher, so that's easy for me to say) and offered a Canadian-exclusive cover.  Zenith has a Canuck character named The Grenadier who was talked about earlier (look for the label at right).  A fan art pin up by a gentleman named Marvin Law was added to the Zenith Facebook page recently.

I am thinking along the lines of the rather awesome Phil Jimenez variant cover for Avengers #4.  The contents of the book were the same, but Marvel made an Alpha Flight cover specifically for the Canadian audience.

I doubt that the Kickstarter-specific cover will include the Grenadier, but I would gladly have plunked down a couple of extra couple of bucks for one that did.  Seems appropriate enough for the "Canadian Hero" perk.

ICYMI Art: Night Raven by Jonathan Wyke

I love this character.

The above image is the work of one Jonathan Wyke.  I like it, but even if I didn't I'd be stoked to find fan art of the character anyway.

For those unfamiliar with Night Raven, I first wrote about him here.  This find serves as a good reminder to get my hands on the House of Cards graphic novel.

Coincidentally, Jonathan's character sketch folder includes a "doodle" (I wish I could doodle that well...Jeepers...) of one of the many Canadian Shield characters that have been mentioned here.  This one is the original creation of deviantartist Agent Foo.

The folder includes another sketch of Night Raven and one of a character called Canadian Steel. Some pretty good stuff there, so give him a look.

TSOG expansion (or something)

This post was actually going to be written on Canada Day upon my return from my lovely cottage.  But there were so many other goodies to talk about that day that I focused on those instead.

For the past few months, I've been working on two other blogs, each dedicated to characters I particularly like and neither of which will come as a surprise to anyone who has visited this site for more than 30 seconds.

The first...

Let's quote the very quotable John Byrne for a moment.  This is in relation to the story in which Guardian was killed (huh...the first time...)

...I did that particular story because I felt Mac was the least interesting of all the members of Alpha, but realized that from his death I could generate a whole flock of interesting subplots and arcs. In my constant quest to make the members of Alpha more three dimensional, I was always looking for anything that could be used to generate depth in their personalities. Mac's death -- and their reactions to it -- was such a way. So, no, I've never regretted killing him.

No, of course not...

Here's the part that Byrne overlooked, in my opinion.  What made Guardian the "least interesting" character is also what made him the most relatable.  I can not relate to a Native medicine man.  I can not relate to a Plodex alien water creature.  I most certainly can not relate to a demi-goddess.

I can much more easily relate to an ordinary guy reluctantly putting on a power suit and trying to do the best he can to serve his country.  For that reason, Guardian has long been a favourite of mine throughout his goofy history and I continue to hold out hope that someone at some point will treat him with respect for an extended period of time.  In the meantime, I'm trying to sort out the finer points of that goofy history and that blog is my notebook of sorts.  So if you also happen to like the least interesting member of Alpha Flight, feel free to check it out and I hope you enjoy it.

The second...

Well, yeah...Information about the Captain isn't that hard to come by, but I was not aware of a resource that combined the several different versions, so that's what I'm up to.  That one is still very much a work in progress.  This will be rather obvious if you happen to visit as many of the pages are clearly incomplete.

Other characters may get the same treatment down the road, but probably not until the Captain Canuck blog is closer to completion.  Once the publication history is pretty well taken care of, I want to get into merchandise, art, magazine covers and articles, things of that nature. There are a lot of obscure appearances by the Captain out there so that could take a while.

ICYMI Art: Alpha Flight by Paul Pelletier

Still stalling while I catch up on my reading.  :-)

The image below was tweeted by the Alphaflight.net's Twitter account and originates from this tumblr page.

Guardian / Captain Britain by Toni Solanes

There's your dream Marvel team-up book.

This picture has been floating around for a while, but the comicartfan version had only 17 views when I came across it.  Can't have that. ;-)

All I know about artists Toni and Javi Solanes is that they are from Spain (and that is based on their deviantart profiles).  Guardian shows up in other artwork pieces from Toni, though unfortunately that does not include the "all-time favourites" folder.  It does, however, include the Alpha Flight pinup below...

...and an interesting one of a number of heroes teaming to take down Namor and Cyclops.

But then, as you can see, Toni uses Guardian as his avatar so perhaps we have more Guardian / Alpha Flight art coming.

Tags: Red Leaf Comics, Heroes of the North, are "it".

As I write this, the most "tagged" publisher in the past year and change of posting about Canadian heroic character types is Marvel Comics with a healthy 26.  That's hardly surprising; Marvel has an all-Canadian superhero team.  They often treat them like moose shit, mind you, but they still have them, as well as several other Canadian characters that aren't necessarily connected.

Next up is DC Comics with 17 tags.  A significant portion of those were the result of trying to change the "DC has no Canadian characters" perception.  They actually have several, though they have little connection to one another and are seldom used.

Next up?  Red Leaf Comics with 12.  Heroes of the North have the same number under the characters/titles category.

For a company based out of Arizona, I sure do talk about Red Leaf a lot, eh?  The reason why is actually quite simple: They make it easy to.  And it's something a lot of small publishers could learn.

The most frustrating thing about trying to be supportive of smaller publishers is when they won't "let" you.  For example, I recently wrote to two Canadians to ask if the publisher they were presently working for/with had other Canadian talent on board.  One didn't respond, the other confirmed there are others but didn't elaborate (the response was about five words long).

Also fairly recently, I offered to buy one publisher's entire line of books if they could give me a grand total price which includes shipping.  I never received a final answer, so that money remains unspent.

What does Red Leaf do differently?  A few days ago, publisher John Michael Helmer provided a digital copy of The Leaf #4 for me before it becomes available for purchase.  John has nothing to lose; I'll buy the print version regardless.  I've also received preview art from Red Leaf in the past.

Now I may not be able to provide John with a huge amount of exposure in return, but there's also no sense (from his perspective) in leaving stones unturned.  Some publishers get this, others don't.  Heroes of the North are friggin' unbelievable at it.  They manage social media as well as anyone I've seen.  Nearly 5000 Facebook fans and almost 30,000 Twitter followers speaks for itself.  They engage their fan base by making them feel appreciated and involved.  A few months ago they asked their fans to come up with names for characters based out of specific provinces, and to vote on uniform designs.  That's fun for fans.

Another example?  Andrew Lorenz over at September 17th Productions has sent me preview art for his Legacy book.  I haven't bought a single thing from this guy, he just appreciates that I'm interested and wants to keep that interest up.  Imagine that concept.

A few months ago I joked with Charlie McElvie, father of the Watchguard Universe, that if he made a Les Superieurs t-shirt available, I'd buy it.  So what did he do?  The obvious.  He called me on it.  Charlie made the shirt available, I bought it. What did this cost Charlie?  Judging from how fast he had the Supérieurs logo up on RedBubble, a few minutes tops.

I'm not sitting here begging for people to kiss up to me.  I know full well that being talked about on this blog is the furthest thing from instant fame and success.

But when you are in a position of selling a product, take any and every opportunity to be seen and talked about, no matter how small.  You never know what it could turn into.  Ignoring or overlooking interest is no way to sell your product.

Surprise Omega Flight appearance (maybe)

I can't imagine anyone saw even a mention of Omega Flight coming, let alone a potential appearance.  Here is the solicitations for Avengers #10, scheduled for release at the end of April.

AVENGERS #10
(W) Jonathan Hickman (A) Mike Deodato (CA) Dustin Weaver
50th Anniversary Variant by Daniel ACUÑA
“VALIDATOR”

• We learn that the Canadian super team Omega Flight got lost in a Garden Origin Site.
• Discover what happens when the Avengers go in to rescue them.
• Learn why ADAPTATION is the scariest word in the Marvel Universe.

How about that?

Now if the book is focused on the search for Omega Flight, there's a chance that the team itself will not be seen, of if they are, that it will be a brief appearance.  Nonetheless, the possibility that the group still exists in some form is pretty interesting.

That said, I'm a little surprised to see them referred to as a Canadian group.  Of the six members, only two were Canadian (for those just joining us, they were Sasquatch and Talisman, seen at right).  It may be that Marvel means to say a Canada-based super-team.

But maybe not.

Sasquatch, of course, was in the recent Alpha Flight mini-series but Talisman does not appear to have had many significant appearances since the Omega Flight book was being published.  Assuming that this is not some alternate reality gimmick (and I suspect that it's exactly that, especially since that looks like a re-imagined version of Aurora on the cover), she seems like a good candidate for inclusion in the storyline.

It would be a pleasant (if unlikely) surprise to find out that Talisman continued the group in some capacity, perhaps as an underground team while Alpha Flight is more visible.  It's fun to speculate as to which obscure Canadian Marvel character, whether a hero or a villain-turned-good-guy, could be a candidate for membership.

ICYMI Art: The Human Fly Now!

I frequent the Comic Book Resources site for news and reviews, but am admittedly less interested in reading the various columns and such.  There is one called "The Line is Drawn", with which I was not particularly familiar.  Here is the description of the concept.

So every week, I ask a question here. You reply to it on our Twitter page (just write @csbg with your reply) and our blog sketch artists will each pick one of your suggestions and I will post them here every week.

I may need to work my way through the archives 'cause this is potentially a pretty cool, fan-engaging idea.  Such was the case recently, at least.  The January 10th edition displayed the art resulting from the suggestions to the previous week's question, which was...

As the new year begins, I think of fresh starts, like perhaps a brand-new #1! So suggest lesser-known Marvel characters that you’d like to see be given the Marvel Now treatment and our artists will work up a cover of their first issue.

Among the mythical covers was this fun Human Fly drawing by Brendan Tobin.

That was good enough in and of itself, but in looking for a shot of the Human Fly against which to compare the updated uniform above, I came across the painting below.

At the moment, I don't know who to credit for the image above but if someone is aware of its source, by all means point me to it.  Edit: I was tipped off by Ed Torres on Twitter that the above is the work of Jun Bob Kim. Thanks to both of you.

Here is the full CBR page in question so you can view the other suggestions that received art treatment.  For the record, I'd be all over that Squadron Supreme book too.

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.

A 2-part ICYMI Art post

It's no secret that I love me some Heroes of the North. It is actually because I look forward to their product so much that I actually ignore the material that is offered for free on their website.  I want my books "unspoiled" and in print form when it hits shelves.

As a result of avoiding previews and such then, I don't know for certain what the image of The Canadian below is from.  I follow colourist Keiren Smith on deviantart and was made aware of it by an automated notice that she had posted new artwork.  It's for a story called "Timeout" but I'm uncertain as to whether it will be included in the upcoming anthology (Heroes of the North: CODA) or a future one.

As pointed out on Mrs Smith's page: Pencils by Gibson Quarter, Inks by Guillermo Ortego, colours by Kieren Smith.

The second part of this "in case you missed it" art post is, in my opinion of course, a terrific version of Alpha Flight's Snowbird.

I first spotted it on a tumblr search.  The artist is Yu Lyn Chen and this artwork was actually posted on her tumblr account about a year ago.

Check out her archive page for all sorts of other examples of her work.  I find she's just fantastic. I have never commissioned art before, but Chen makes it very tempting.  I can imagine she'd put together a quality Aurora (classic edition) in black and white.  Hmmmm...