What can be said? Bendis badly misused Alpha Flight, because he lacks and respect for the founding team. Which is too bad, as the core of Alpha Flight had so much potential. As far as Herculese goes, I believe that the Snowbird there IS the real Snowbird - which is to say, the one that died so long ago. She's there...because she's a goddess. Dying on the material plane just sent her to her pantheons home plane of existance. I think that the writer was assuming (and I have NO PROBLEM WITH THIS!) that - much like Thor and Hercules, Snowbird is now a full deity again, and that she could return to the earth if she wished to. Perhaps she didn't earlier because she felt that her physical death on Earth was to...raw. To soon. Perhaps she can visit Earth, but nolonger feels the old connection to mortal life. She'd have rejoined a new Alpha Flight that had included her old friends (her connections to them perhaps still fresh), but not this one.

   The problem with the team is that bad writers (Bendis...) have screwed with them so much, that their's not much left to salvage. The  main teams of the Marvel Universe (Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men) all have a core of founders to regroup the team around. Bungling and poor writing has killed off EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM...except for Sasquatch, who is (and always has been) the least interesting member of the team. It's almost as if the only surviving Avenger was Hank Pym, or the last surviving X-Man was Iceman. Without a strong core, they keep trying half-assed re-launches that almost always fail to sttract or please the teams oldest fans. Sales spiral into the toilet, and the once great franchise stumbles and fails again.

   Any new team shouldn't be based on yet another scattering of generic-seeming leftovers from Department H or any Gamma, Beta Omega Flight. A new team should include more old members, who have backstory to draw from that will please old readers as well as new. Alpha Flight was once a high-selling book, and it can be again! Granted, I'm from Michigan (and legally Chippewa to boot), so the characters in Alpha Flight always seemed closer to me than than the New York based heroes (except for the always diverse X-Men), but still...I can see potential for the new book. I just hope it's not SASQUATCH and five guys I've never heard of. Or, who are all named after OR based on a "Canadian" stereotype, designed to be so blunt and obvious that even an American can get it.

   My hopes are for a group that would include Talisman (with her fathers medicine bag, a winderful plot device with bottomless potential), Heather Hudson (the groups Kitty Pryde, in that she is both group conscience AND an effective team builder), Northstar (a complex character who can inject the X-Man connection when needed) Persuasion (an older character with a simple, direct power and good character development), Snowbird (who can easily be considered the teams Thor, with the Inuit gods to add plot points), Sasquatch OR a new Box (NOT just MADISON JEFFERIES in the Box armor again! He's dumped Heather, and married the woman who helped kill Heather husband. I don't think she'd be willing to work with her, and he wouldn't join without Diamond Lil. I'd rather have Heather on the team than him), and perhaps one or two of the newer characters. 

   One Former Character I'd rather not see on the teamagain, is Aurora. She could be a FACINATING character...but she brings nothing but discord and unrest to any team. Unless a writer is able to straighten her out, she will pick a team member to be her 'boyfriend', but eventually toss him aside in a way that will create bitterness. She will shit on Northstar often, then whine when he gets hurt. Worst of all, the only returning plot point about her is her unstability. She's a nun - she's a slut - she's a nun - she's a slut - yadda, yadda, yadda. They just can't seen to think of anything new for that girl.

   Villains? Scramble (a clever writer could do it without having to resort to time travel), The Master of the World (if taken seriously) the Great Beasts (SCARY!), Delphine Courtney (who's memory could have been downloaded into any other computer, and who could manipulate someone into creating a non-metalic body for herself. Perhaps - considering the fact that he killed her - she finds a way to steal the body of Lillian Crawley...the wife of Madison Jefferies!) and Jerry Jaxon (whose mind could still be clinging to semi-conciousness in the old Box armor) as well as a smattering of old, thought to be dead, villains. Do you remember how cool Bedlam and the Derangers seemed...before they were all killed so quickly! I've always felt that a character as interesting (and powerful) as Bedlam should have been able to make them THINK he'd been killed, but that he actually escaped. A talented writer could pull it off. Gary Cody is in a mental hospitol all these years, and in the end it turns out that Bedlam (who had erased his mind) swapped into his mind just before being killed. I'm just saying that a cool villain needs to be kept around. Would Kang, Doctor Doom or Ultron better if they'd each died when it seemd as if they had? Nope, they come back...and so should Scramble, Courtney and Bedlam. It CAN BE DONE!