Friday, October 4, 2013

1978 - The Canadian Shield


On the origins of Alpha Flight from Byrne Robotics:
"It was Chris who came up with the name Alpha Flight. My name for the group, back when they (or some of them, anyway) were fan characters, was the Canadian Shield. This was not a reference to SHIELD, in the Marvel Universe, but to the arc of mountains that curve around Hudson's Bay. (Hudson's Bay also gave Guardian his real name.) 
Obviously, we couldn't use "the Canadian Shield" for the group in X-MEN, so after I gave up trying to come up with something better, Chris used "Alpha Flight", which I have never much cared for.

Guardian went thru something similar. I was told I could not use my original name for him because of the Guardians of the Galaxy. So Chris started calling him "Major Maple Leaf" and I was desperately afraid that would stick. I tried to come up with something else, but nothing worked. It was Chris who dubbed him "Vindicator", naming him after a WW2 fighter plane. When I asked what Canada had to "vindicate" there was no answer. Thus we got the first of many names that had nothing to do with what the character was all about.
By the time Alpha got their own book, I was able to argue in favor of restoring "Guardian", tho many still call the character "Vindicator", unaware of this "behind the scenes" stuff."

1 comment:

  1. Agreed, "Vindicator" is a silly name for him, but it does sound cooler than "Guardian."

    ReplyDelete

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