Wednesday, March 08, 2006

ALPHA FLIGHT #6 Marvel Comics, 1984



John Byrne is a cheeky lil’ scamp.

The writer/artist/creator of Alpha Flight, the ULTIMATE Canadian superhero team, had deservedly achieved superstar status by the mid-80’s after legendary runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four. For an entire generation of comic book readers, John Byrne WAS Mr. Marvel Comics. Say what you want about the guy, but I think the quality of his work throughout his career and his contribution to comics is beyond question. In some circles those are fighting words, but I’m a master of Cobra Kai karate and will crush all who oppose me.

Byrne is a legend, so he can be forgiven for pulling a stunt like Alpha Flight #6, the notorious “white issue.” Personally, I thought this comic book was brilliant, but you shouldn’t listen to me – half the time I am whacked out of my mind on a potent mix of Rock Star energy drink and meth.*

One of the interesting, but not entirely successful traits of Byrne’s first year on Alpha Flight was that many issues focused on different team members in solo adventures – Alpha Flight didn’t hang out all the time playing hockey and eating donuts, they had shit to do. Alpha Flight #6 turned the spotlight on Snowbird, a magical shapeshifting woman with creepy eyes whose alter ego was RCMP constable Ann McKenzie. In this issue Snowbird battles Kolomoq, a demonic Great Beast who controls snow.

Freed from a mystic prison by unwitting miners, Kolomaq menaces Canada once again. I love Kolomaq from a character design perspective – he looks cool as hell:

Plus, anybody who refers to themselves in the third person is OK in my book.

Anyway, Kolomaq goes on a rampage and Snowbird shows up to kick his ass. I’ll bet the terrified Canadian miners were not exactly reassured by her arrival on the scene: “Crap, it’s that skinny white gal, whatshername! I was hoping for Iron Man, eh? We are hosed.”

The battle begins, and the Beast of The Snow whips up a huge blizzard:

"Fool it now!"

What? What the hell does that mean? Somebody travel back in time and fire that letterer!

Snowbird’s shapeshifting powers are limited to turning into northern animals like white owls and white polar bears. She's fighting an all-white bad guy in a snowstorm. You can see where this is heading, can’t you?

That’s right – a five and a half page fight scene on completely white pages. Well, not completely white. The dialogue and panels and captions and sound effects are still there, it’s just that you can’t see a damn thing.

Behold:

Confession: I did a little photoshopping to make the scanned art seem whiter than it actually appears in real life. This comic was printed on cheap paper and my particular copy is not in the best shape, so it looks more like a fogbank than a snowstorm.

I don’t know, I think it takes balls and a sense of humor to pull something like that off. Even as a youngster I remember feeling a certain admiration for Byrne. I didn’t feel ripped off at all, I was amused and taken with the novelty of the whole thing. I mean, the story is still there. There are just no drawings.

Alpha Flight #6. Come on – admit it, it’s pretty clever. Set aside your Byrne Bigotry for a minute and give the man some props.
*I’m kidding, mom. I don’t drink that much Rock Star.

90 comments:

Tom Bondurant said...

I got bad New Edition flashbacks from "Fool It Now."

Anonymous said...

FOOL IT NOW!!!

Gotta say, I've always loved that cover, although John Byrne is a total dooooosh!

Jim said...

I just have this nagging thought that if a white shape-shifter and a white demonic great beast were fighting in a white snowstorm ... they, along with the reader, would be wondering what the fuck is going on. Reading that comic, I'd enjoy it much more if they were wandering around trying to find each other for 5 and a half pages, rather than fighting.

Anonymous said...

This is from back when Byrne spent his time and energy on writing clever and amusing stories.

If you pulled an old Teen Titans issue, I would have said the same thing about Marv Wolfman, too.

Now, there's an idea- Wolfman writes, Bryne draws.

Terry Long* and Alpha Flight star in..."FUCK YOU, INSUFFICIENTLY COMMITED FAN". Guest starring Supes, Bats, and not-dead Barry Allen.


* I am a bigtime believer in the theory that Terry Long was really Wolfman as the ultimate Mary Sue so he could act out his fantasies of hanging with the Titans and banging Wonder Girl.

dwinn said...

Fool it now, Candy Girl!

Peter said...

I always liked this issue. And a lot of Alpha Flight issues, at that. Oddly, Byrne doesn't look back fondly on this period.

Assistant Editor's Month rocked. I found it highly amusing :)

"Oemfo" word verification sounds like a nice sound effect for the Great Beast being punched in the nads ;)

Tenzil, if Terry Long was Marv Wolfman, did Byrne kill Marv?!

Anonymous said...

"Plus, anybody who refers to themselves in the third person is OK in my book."

You must love the Rickey Henderson, then.

Anonymous said...

Tenzil, if Terry Long was Marv Wolfman, did Byrne kill Marv?

Yeah, it's part of Byrne Ethos #1: Everything I didn't create is an embarrasing eyesore that must be removed or altered beyond recognition. It's taken 20 years at DC to bring back all the Superman Family stuff he threw out rather than modernized or re-imagined. People love that stuff. But It's Not Byrne!, so bye-bye.

Oh, and read as much old Teen Titans with Terry Long in it as you can. Now ask yourself, which makes more sense:

1) A smoking-hot 19 year old Amazon who hangs out with young men her age with spectacular physiques (Robin, Kid Flash, etc.) really wants to date a divorced, brillo-headed nebbishy college professor.

2) The writer is Mary Sue-ing bigtime.

Anonymous said...

Free! Free! After a thousand years! To suddenly speak the Englishes! You are suprised Kolomaq gets something wrong?! You feels!

Anonymous said...

Dave,

You forgot to add your "*" = "just kiddin' kids. Just say no." line at the end.

Corrupting today's youth...DAVE CAMPBELL!
Let's give him a hand, ladies and gentlemen!

Ahaha! Just kiddin.
Meth rocks!*

* = no, meth crystals!
Oh! A bad pun.

Sorry.

Yeah. Loved this issue too.
Bought it as a lad off the spinner rack.
Laughed out loud at the fight scene.

Remember that old WHAT IF? that had this joke in it?
Byrne pulled it off as a MAJOR SCENE in an issue.

Too damn funny!

~P~
P-TOR

David Campbell said...

Crap, I always forget those footnotes. I added it. Thanks P-Tor.

zailo said...

You missed it.
"Plus, anybody who refers to themselves in the third person is OK in my book." should be "is OK in David Campbell's book."

Anonymous said...

Is this from "assistant editor's month"?

I recall Byrne saying in an interview once that he had wanted to do an issue of Daredevil all from the hero's perspective--ie., completely blind. This was as close as he got.

A fun issue, indeed.

Anonymous said...

“Crap, it’s that skinny white gal, whatshername! I was hoping for Iron Man, eh? We are hosed.”

"Hey, watch it, eh? We might be related to her, you hoser."

Chris said...

For as much fun as it is to make fun of John Byrne strictly because he's exercising his right to behave like a barmy cantankerous old coot, the man did produce some classic work.

If this issue were reprinted today and had Geoff Johns' name on it, people would be praising it as "the most innovative idea for a fight scene in years"!

It's a good comic.

(And Byrne is still an irascible half-sane nutter!)

Anonymous said...

That's a great idea for yet another theme week: Assistant Editor's month.

It's all about Marvel Team-Up #137, where Aunt May becomes Galactus' new herald. It's a thing of beauty.

Anonymous said...

I first read this when it was reprinted in the UK. Now, at the time, they did reprints by printing a few pages of a US comic every week. If you were lucky, you'd get half an issue of Spidey, but mostly it was a third or a quarter of something.

Which meant that, if I recall correctly, we had a week's episode of Alpha Flight composed entirely of blank panels.

Skipper Pickle said...

Somebody travel back in time and fire that letterer!

Er, before or after he screws up and writes "Fool it now"?

i mean it's a great blunder. i'd hate to have fired him before he made it.

Plus, if there's no letterer, then the all-white fight scene gets even more vaguer, since all the word ballons will be empty....

Anonymous said...

Speaking of which... when are we getting Ultimate Alpha Flight, eh?

Anonymous said...

This is one of the first comics I ever owned. That and the X-men where Colossus & Juggernaut get in a bar fight. Thanks for the memories Dave!

Anonymous said...

You mix me with Rock Star energy drink?

smokedog said...

Sigh. I admit that I am part of the generation where I considered John Byrne to be the be all and end all of comics. Back in the day, I think I was in love with John Byrne (in a non-Brokeback way). Now it's tough for me to look at whatever he's doing now.

Thanks for taking me back to a time of innocent Byrne-love.

Anonymous said...

It's taken 20 years at DC to bring back all the Superman Family stuff he threw out rather than modernized or re-imagined. People love that stuff.

God, I hate the Superman Family. Even the dog. ESPECIALLY the dog. I'll buy a Krypto issue when he gets super-rabies and Clark has to take him out behind the woodshed to put him out of his misery with a kryptonite shotgun.

Oh, and Byrne's pretty awesome. I never bought Alpha Flight, but to see someone pull off the "polar bear blinking in a blizzard" gag for five pages in a comic - that's pretty sweet.

Anonymous said...

I realized Byrne was a total pretentious douche when he started quoting Shakespeare and attributing it to the Earl of Oxford.

I mean, come on! If it wasn't Shakespeare, it was Marlowe!

What a butt-head.

Unknown said...

iron lungfish --

I think that sounds awesome. Someone needs to do a Superboy Elseworlds comic that is a loose adaptation of Old Yeller. Imagine how much damage a rabid Krypto could do to Smallville...

Nik said...

Byrne's Alpha Flight rocks my socks off and I'll fight any man who disagrees. It still seems disarmingly deconstructionist for a superhero comic - the team hardly ever gets together, and when they do, someone usually dies. I love them first 25 or so Byrne issues and will until they turn to dust in my grave.

Anonymous said...

Back in the day, I think I was in love with John Byrne (in a non-Brokeback way)

By now I'm sure we've all seen a half-dozen Brokeback-remasters of classic movies ("Brokeback to the Future", et al).

But has anyone generated any Brokeback-remastered comics?

"Brokeback Crisis", anyone?

Angry Android said...

The fun thing aboug John Byrne is that he'll actually read this blog post & if we're lucky, he'll comment on it.

zailo said...

To answer h's comment, I think it was probably something like five pages of Black Panther fighting Cloak in a collapsed coal mine.

Word verif "glnctc"? Hmm. I guess I have been using that word wrong all these years.

Anonymous said...

John Byrne thinks this post is great! John Byrne is a big fan of people who refer to themselves in the third person! Even when they aren't actually the person to whom they refer!

Anonymous said...

I realized Byrne was a total pretentious douche when he started quoting Shakespeare and attributing it to the Earl of Oxford.

That's not pretentious, that's just flat fucking retarded. People who believe that Shakespeare's plays were really written by some upper-class twit with no theatrical experience, instead of Will Shakespeare the actor and co-owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (i.e., what we would call today call a "director/producer"), despite the huge amount of evidence connecting Will to those manuscripts, are idiots on the level of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.

Cool panel, though.

Bully said...

I'd buy that comic again in a second. I remember sitting around with a couple of my friends and trying to come up with other monochromatic comic story possibilities, none of which I remember.

How about, What If a blonde Latina girl fought Christopher Reeve in a yellow "coward" costume (because he's not a hero, y'know) in a pool of Mountain Dew?

Okay, that was a stretch. But I kids the John Byrne.

Anonymous said...

Even better than this was the spoof on it in one of the Ambush Bug comics: A page of completely black panels with word balloons supposedly depicting Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming sitting in the dark, telling Julius Schwartz about their ideas for a black-panelled spoof of this. They eventually settled on Ambush Bug fighting someone in a black hole, meaning a completely black page with no art OR words.

"I love it! What do you say, Julie?"
"I say *neither* of you is getting paid for this page!"

Anonymous said...

Didn't Calvin and Hobbes do a Sunday panel that was all white with a black dot? It was Calvin's "polar bear in a snowstorm" gag.

If nothing else, this issue proved the value of a good letterer.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious post, but i have a question: What in the world is Mary Sue-ing?

Anonymous said...

This is great news...

'Simpsons' Come to Life in Online Video

Anonymous said...

I always liked Byrne, and I loved Alpha Flight.

Bill Reed said...

Hey, remember when Byrne was bashing Quitely for not drawing with enough lines or whatever the hell?

Yeah.

Yeah.

DougBot said...

There's not much difference between this and Longshot comics, which you should read if you haven't yet.

Shane Simmons rocks.

Marc Burkhardt said...

John Byrne was great - until he had Superman execute the Phantom Zone criminals had turned Supergirl into a pile of pink, shape-shifting goo. (Hmm...sounds like fan-fic.)

"Fool it now" is a great typo, but my poor eyes also had that monster guy call Snowbird "Goo-Child."

I'm sensing a theme in this post...

Anonymous said...

Cannot believe this...

Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'

Anonymous said...

iT IS OFFICIAL

Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'

Anonymous said...

Baseball Launches Steroids Probe

They should have done this sooner and cehck check Chef to see if he is high on the juice

Anonymous said...

DHS Press Secretary Arrested on Child Seduction Charges

did you see this...

Anonymous said...

Can't wait for thsi to come out...

Nintendo Renames Next-Gen Game Console 'Wii'

Anonymous said...

Have a look at this...

Gas Price Gouging Vote Passes As Bush Voices Opposition to Tax Cuts

Anonymous said...

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U.S. to Renew Diplomatic Relations With Libya

Anonymous said...

Great Apes Found to Be Able to Plan for Future


on another note....

Anonymous said...

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Pentagon: Iraq Insurgency Strong Into 2007

Anonymous said...

Bush Pleased With Iran's Initial Reaction to Incentives Package

this is quite something...

Anonymous said...

Teenage Boy Killed in California School Shooting



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Anonymous said...

Report: $1.4 Billion Went to Fraudulent Aid for Katrina Victims


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Anonymous said...

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Robert Byrd Makes History as Longest-Serving Senator

Anonymous said...

Suicide Bombers Fail to Hit Convoy in Afghanistan

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Anonymous said...

Israeli Warplanes Target Suspected Hezbollah Bunker in Beirut – [may have the leader of the terrorists]

the war contines hopefully this all ends soon and there is real peace

Anonymous said...

I THINK THIS IS QUITE SOMETHING....

Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Rejects Rice Proposal

Anonymous said...

Israel Intensifies Hezbollah Attacks Deeper Into Lebanon


-----------------------------------

Anonymous said...

Democrats Back Lamont; Lieberman Files for Independent Run

why is this happening what is going on in America

Anonymous said...

I am not thrilled about this

Suspect Arrested in JonBenet Ramsey Murder

Anonymous said...

12 Passengers Arrested After Flight to India Returns to Amsterdam

I wish this had not happend

Anonymous said...

Hurricane John Upgraded to Category 4 Storm

SCARY....

Anonymous said...

Pakistan: We Will Capture Bin Laden If He's Found

pretty good

Anonymous said...

Gunman Kills One, Wounds 19 in Shooting Spree at Montreal College

this is quite something

Anonymous said...

Gunman Kills One, Wounds 19 in Shooting Spree at Montreal College

this is quite ...

Anonymous said...

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Chavez Says U.S. Empire Will Soon Fall, Calls Bush 'Devil'

Anonymous said...

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Former President Bill Clinton Defends Handling of Usama bin Laden in Combative FNC Interview

Anonymous said...

see this

Renewed Activity Seen at Suspected North Korea Test Sites, U.S. Intelligence Says

Anonymous said...

see this yet

Small Aircraft Crashes Into New York City High Rise, Killing Yankees Pitcher Cory Lidle

Anonymous said...

Venezuela Stymied in First Day of U.N. Security Council Voting

this is -----

Anonymous said...

I do not get this
Kerry Apologizes to Troops, Families for 'My Poorly Stated Joke'

Anonymous said...

Rumsfeld Is Gone

good news at last

Jeff said...

Man, I love Bryne's Alpha Flight run. And big portions of Mantlo's, too, but the first dozen issues of this book are some of the best written in the 1980s, and if you disagree, I propose a wrestling match!

Anonymous said...

McCain, Former Secretary Thompson to Form Presidential Exploratory Groups

----

Anonymous said...

Four American Contractors Reportedly Kidnapped in Iraqi Convoy Attack

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British Airways to Contact Passengers After Traces of Radiation Found on Planes

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Anonymous said...

British Airways to Contact Passengers After Traces of Radiation Found on Planes

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Anonymous said...

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Gates Wins Unanimous Senate Committee Approval as Defense Secretary

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Two Missing Climbers Still Sought; Body of Third Identified

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Gerald Ford Remembered for His 'Calm and Steady' Hand

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Gerald Ford Remembered for His 'Calm and Steady' Hand

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New Secretary-General to Fill 2 U.N. Posts This Week, Could Bring Controversy

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New Video Appears to Show Body of Saddam After Hanging

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White House Tries to Sell Iraq Plan to Skeptical Republicans

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In Video, Al Qaeda No. 2 Al-Zawahiri Taunts President Bush's New Iraq Plan

Mister Sinister said...

didn't Kolomaq just fall off a cliff or get caught in a landslide, because it was snowing?

Snowing so hard we can barely see the action?

I felt a little screwed there.
it was like if the Entire Infinite Crisis went on in the dark.
Too dark
it would suck

verif:
nhjpjhvy-

No Hoj-Poj Heavy-

No Cameron Hodge is heavy anymore

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