LIVE BLOG – Marvel’s Fear Itself Press Conference

Today, we will be live-blogging the Marvel Comics Fear Itself press conference today featuring a mystery New York Times Bestselling creative team. You can follow along with the live blog, ask questions, and chat with other commenters. Comments and questions are going to be moderated, so make them good and we'll put them through to the chat room. (And because your comments will be moderated there will be a slight delay from when you submit them to when they appear.) You have to log into the live blog widget below to participate and when you do, we ask that you use your iFanboy screen name just so we know who's who.
 

The conference call with Marvel just ended and their big announcement was a new eight issue maxi series called Fear Itself: Alpha Flight from the creative team of Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak, and Dale Eaglesham.

Yes, that's right — Canada's favorite super team is back.

The series will launch in June with a special Point One issue drawn by Ben Oliver in May.

Spinning out of the current Chaos War story, where Alpha Flight was resurrected, the new book will feature the original Alpha Flight line-up and is being designed to please long-time Alpha Flight fans while being new reader and non-Alpha Flight fan friendly.

The biggest shocker of the call came from the premise. As this new series opens, Alpha Flight is back working for Canada's Department H, which means they are government agents again. As a result of the events in Fear Itself, the Canadian government turns fascist (shades of Civil War) and Alpha Flight turns against the government and become traitors. What! A fascist Canada? But they always seem so nice with their hockey and their maple syrup and their endearing accents!

When asked about specific members of the team, it was revealed that they are really trying to use Puck, possibly the most popular member of the team, but "we're having some difficulty getting him." Northstar, now currently seen hanging out with the X-Men in San Francisco, will definitely be a part of the team and that he and his boyfriend will play a big role. When asked about the villain of the series, Pak and Van Lente would only say that one member of Alpha Flight would not be too happy with turning traitor against the Canadian government and was going to turn against them.

On the call, Fred Van Lente described himself as a long time Alpha Flight fan and he was referred to as a walking Alpha Flight encyclopedia. Greg Pak is coming to Alpha Flight fresh so they provide a balance between a hardcore fan and a new reader. Dale Eaglesham, the only actual Canadian on the creative team, is proud to be working on the book and has been providing notes on the story to make it more authentic. He is also really excited to be drawing the book. After his work with Geoff Johns on JSA he was burnt out on drawing teams, but now that he's been away from team books for a while, he's looking forward to getting back to it. Team books, with their variety of characters and chances for interesting interpersonal dynamics are his favorite thing to draw.

We live blogged the conference call which you can read in its entirety below. Just click the play button.