hey goatschool

[VangelicSurgeon]

heres that maple leaf motherfucker I was asking you about!

 

[goatschool]

yeah, that's Vindicator. he died before i stopped reading comics in my teens, but i think there was a series of people that wore that costume. the powers came from it.

i would date the fish lady if she wore leg warmers.

 

[FrostGiant]

That's awesome! A Canadian super hero, eh. Is that dude powered by the music of Rush?

 

[VangelicSurgeon]

I swear to god he was called weapon alpha or something equally lame in the issue I had with him in it. It was a 'Classic' Xmen though, maybe it was before he became Vindicator? Or maybe it was the name of the suit. Either way it was definitly the first time the guy had used the suit.

 

[avi]

I remember the flying North Star people or whatever they were called

 

[VangelicSurgeon]

Alpha Flight is a Canadian team of adventurers, most of whom have superhuman powers, which was organized under the auspices of the Canadian government's Department H. Roughly ten years ago James MacDonald Hudson, an engineer, resigned from the Am-Can Petro-Chemical Company in Canada when he learned that a special super-powered suit he had built for the company for use in geological exploration was going to be used by the United States military instead. Hudson secretly destroyed Am-Can's copies of the plans for the suit and made off with the psycho-cybernetic helmet that was necessary to make the suit work, and which he could claim as his own property with legal justification. Shocked by what happened to Hudson at Am-Can, Heather McNeil, the executive secretary to Hudson's immediate superior there, Jerome Jaxon, also resigned from the company. McNeil arranged for herself and Hudson to meet with officials of the Canadian government, who heard their story and settled with Am-Can for any damages incurred when Hudson reclaimed his helmet. Hudson was then invited by the Canadian prime minister to participate in the creation of Department H, a top secret research and development agency within the Canadian Ministry of Defense. Soon afterwards Hudson married McNeil, and within the next few years Hudson had recruited the mutant called Wolverine as one of the Department's special agents (see Wolverine).
Reading a newspaper account of how Reed Richards and three of his friends became the Fantastic Four inspired James Hudson to create a team of superhumanly powerful agents to go on missions for the Canadian government. Wolverine aided Hudson in the initial phases of the creation of the team, which would be called Alpha Flight, and it was planned that Wolverine would lead the team. However, Wolverine eventually left Department H for his own reasons and joined the X-Men (see X-Men). Hudson continued to develop his super-powered suit, and it eventually became the costume that he himself wore as a member of Alpha Flight. As a costumed agent Hudson at first called himself Weapon Alpha, later changed his code name to Vindicator, and finally settled upon the name Guardian. Hudson reluctantly became the leader of Alpha Flight himself after Wolverine's resignation.

 

[goatschool]

As a costumed agent Hudson at first called himself Weapon Alpha, later changed his code name to Vindicator, and finally settled upon the name Guardian. Hudson reluctantly became the leader of Alpha Flight himself after Wolverine's resignation.

ah, there you go.

"vindicator" was later (in comic timeline) incinerated in front of his wife while trying to disable a bomb. pretty upsetting to a 13 year old reader.

the flying twins were aurora and northstar... and northstar was revealed to be gay.

i know that through CNN though and not the comics themselves, of course.

 

[VangelicSurgeon]

you know who else is gay? HANK McCOY! No lie!

 

[avi]

a lot has changed in the world of comics since I read them regularly

 

[xfer]

wow, hank is gay now??

i love how the alpha flight backstory is totally written to appeal to disaffected-but-not-too-disaffected Canadian kids just finding out about nasty America.

 

[azal]

you guys are such geeks, seriously.

 

[FuSoYa]

I remember the hockey puck guy. I hated him.

 

[xfer]

look how unbelievably woolly he is!!

 

[lizard]

I only remember the gay Rawhide Kid who was unveiled a few months ago. I can only guess what he uses his rawhide leather for...

and he does have a kinda pouty look, too.

some might also wonder about what his right hand is doing.

 

[xfer]

i do remember when northstar was outed, and everyone was like "who the fuck is northstar and what is his power?" way to pick an uber-minor superhero to be the gay jackie robinson of marvel!

 

[lizard]

 

[LuminousAether]

Hank McCoy isn't gay now, he simply made a joke about being gay and now in the comic series he is a straight character masquerading as gay in order to gain PR for homosexual mutants. I know this because it is in New X-Men, which is probably the best X-Men series ever. The reason, of course, is because it is written by Grant Morrison. If you've never read a comic book before, by far the best place to start is his comic book The Invisibles, which reads like The Matrix on very hard drugs. One specific story arc was based upon a Marquis de Sade story that had time-travelling, the black plague, orgies that contained necrophilia, beastiality, sex with inaminate objects, and other pervestions, and weird BDSM dressed time-travelling assassins.

 

[goatschool]

a friend made me read the corporate x-force stuff and i thought it was so good - it'd be a good sequel to this x-men

 

[xfer]

huh, that's actually pretty cool-sounding and more complex than what i originally thought.