Art Show: Destroy This Mad Brute

Octomaid



By Carla Wyzgala. [Girls Drawing Girls]

The Toronto Roller Derby



By Vince Chui. [Art Jumble]

Black Canary



By Joe Quinones. [Project: Rooftop]

After the break: bats, Snowbird, Frankenstein, Scud the Atomic Hellwretch, DC fliers, Saturn Girl, and a crocodalien.

Art Show: Death's Stagecoach

Pirates



By Todd Lockwood [Illustrateurs]

Amphibian



By Mathieu Reynès.

Sheena and Snowbird



By Katie Cook. [Tons of other Marvel heroes in that link]

Jurassic Park



Artist Unknown [Illustrateurs]

Dinosaurigami



By Petr Stuchlý. [Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs]

Knighthood, a ghost-cowboy, a warrior-goddesses, and the greatest team-up of all time after the break

Adventuregallery: Giant Crocs with Mines!

Snowbird



Katie Cook drew 200 sketch cards for an X-Men set and you can see 197 of them in that link. I had to share the Snowbird ones with you because, come on... it's Alpha Flight, but they're all just as awesome.

Operation: Black Gold



By Howard Purcell.

The Trouble with Mars



By John Stewart.

The Masters of the Pit



By Jim Steranko (courtesy of Golden Age Comic Book Stories).

Thongor: Warrior of Lost Lemuria



Also by Jim Steranko.

Alpha Flight: First Class

Marvel's asked some of their writers, artists, and editors to name the comic book deaths that have most affected them over the years. Proving once again how awesome he is, Fred Van Lente chose Guardian from Alpha Flight (presumably referring to the first time from Alpha Flight #12; not the time in the picture above).

That would have to be mine too, but this isn't about me. It's about Fred's being awesome. Over at the Alpha Flight message board, someone's got the right idea: Fred should totally write an Alpha Flight: First Class comic. Enough trying to create a new team of Alphans that people will dig. Why not go back to basics and tell more stories with Guardian, Shaman, Snowbird, Sasquatch, Northstar, Aurora, Puck, and Marrina?

Marvel's Ben Morse likes the idea too and - in most likely an unrelated statement - says that we'll probably have new Alpha Flight news around mid-2009.

Snowbird

I owe Fred Van Lente some thanks.

As everybody knows, I'm a huge Alpha Flight fan. But as much as I love it when my son shares my passions, I'm not about to push any particular interests on him. If anything, he's influencing my tastes. But thanks to awesome comics like Tiny Titans, DC Super Heroes, and the Marvel Adventures line, David's very much into superheroes right now. And thanks to Van Lente's Wolverine First Class, he's now also into Alpha Flight.

Or rather, one particular Alphan.



No, not Aurora. Though she's a favorite of mine too.

He's bugging me to dig out my old X-Men and Alpha Flight comics because he wants more Snowbird stories. I've held him off for a bit by buying the first Classic Alpha Flight collection, but that's not going to last me forever. I made the mistake of telling him about that one X-Men story where Snowbird turns into a real wolverine. He's not going to leave me alone until I read it to him. And I love that.

I've been meaning to talk more about Alpha Flight for a while now anyway, so this'll be another reason to find those boxes and start doing that.