Flight Plans - Part One (of Six): Puck

Posted: Thursday, January 29, 2004
Posted By: Jason Brice

This is the first in a series of quick question and answer sessions with Scott Lobdell, the writer of the upcoming third volume of Alpha Flight. Over the course of this series we will be focusing on each member of the new team in turn, and in this initial installment the spotlight falls on the brand-new Puck! If you read All The Rage regularly, some of these questions will be familiar, but make sure to read to the end...

Formerly a puggish acrobat, "Puck" was the alias of Eugene Judd. But the new Puck is very different...


Jason Brice: Is it true that the new Puck is female?

Scott Lobdell: Yes, the character who will eventually (after a year) take the name of Puck, is female. She is also very hot, and very CanadAsian, and very much like a certain jug-eared little guy who originally went by that name! And, much like Eugene Judd himself, this young woman has sort of "hyper-gymnastic" abilities that make her at once fun and formidable!

JB: Why the change?

SL: Why the change?! Didn't you hear? Life is about change!

If there wasn't change, we never would have had Tobey Maguire as SPIDER-MAN because Stan Lee's publisher told him no one was interested in teen super heroes -- that teens were only sidekicks! We wouldn't have had the family dynamics of the FANTASTIC FOUR, because heroes are supposed to get along, not bicker like real people! We wouldn't have had STORM, NIGHTCRAWLER and COLOSSUS if the X-MEN hadn't changed into the ALL NEW ALL DIFFERENT X-MEN! GENERATION X?! AGE OF APOCALYPSE?! ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN?! THE ULTIMATES?! (And lets not even get started on the modern day versions of GREEN LANTERN and the FLASH! And what about SMALLVILLE?!?) Dude, if we, the audience, didn't crave change, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale would be sitting on a sidewalk somewhere sharing a flaming barrel instead of being one of them greatest comic book storytellling teams in the industry!

Change is good!

Change rocks!

Why change?! I ask thee -- why NOT change?!

JB: Will the "old" Puck appear in the new series?

SL: Well, for starters, don't let Eugene hear you call him "Old Puck"! And for enders, he and Guardian, Vindicator, Snowbird, and Shaman, and the other guy who's name I always forget are ALL in the series (making a cameo in the very second issue! Woo hoo!). Verily, they HAVE to be in the series -- otherwise I'll have no one to spin off into UNCANNY ALPHA FLIGHT!

JB: The initial run of Alpha Flight frequently centered around themes of transformation, even Puck was not immune to this - do you envisage your run touching on similar ideas at all?

SL: Hmmm... it doesn't seem likely to me. People familiar with my work notice I usually tend towards stories about redemption, rather than transformation. Heather transforming into leader-with-suit, Puck transforming from dwarf-to-really-tall-guy-with-demon-inside-him, Sasquatch transforming into animated-female-dead-body-of-Snowbird (!??!) and Northstar transforming from gay Olympic skier into faery...? No offense, but they all seemed like stories for the sake of stories, rather than stories about the particular characters. Will all the characters in ALPHA FLIGHT change over time? Yes. But by changing does that mean they will transform...I'm thinking not.

JB: Puck was very obviously Canadian in his spoken mannerisms. Just how Canadian will the series be? Do you see it necessary to be proselytizing on behalf of a whole country?

SL: I don't know that geography has much emphasis in super heroing, does it? The AVENGERS and the FANTASTIC FOUR and even the X-MEN are all located in America...but I don't often see them saluting a flag or trying to convince Dr. Doom that democracy is better than a dictatorship. (And for the record, I come out in favor of democracy over dictators!) So, no -- I can't imagine the series is going to be overly Canadian-centric. Certainly they are acutely aware they are Canadian citizens one and all, but I'm pretty sure they are going to be too busy saving the world to worry about recording public service announcements for the local radio stations.

JB: In the first issue of the initial series we see Puck graduating from Beta Flight to the main team. Do you plan to develop Beta Flight and/or Gamma Flight as training units in time?

SL: Beta, Gamma, Omega...I LOVE the idea of different levels of the team -- some official, some not. How about a Black Ops section?! But not for a while. Clay and I want to concentrate on making the ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT ALPHA FLIGHT exciting up the wazoo -- and the inevitable spin-off, UNCANNY ALPHA FLIGHT starring Mac & Co. -- first...then as the series progresses will look at the other letters of the alphabet for inspiration.

JB: Slightly off topic, but... will you explode James MacDonald Hudson again, or just let the poor man rest in pieces?

SL: Has he melted yet...? That could be a new take! (Rest assured MacFans...James remains in one piece throughout the series!)

JB: Is there one character that you can say with absolute certainty will not be returning in this incarnation of the team?

SL: Well, to be honest...it has been very hard for me to figure out who is alive and who is dead any more. I haven't been reading as many comics as I used to -- and in Ye Olden Days, when a character died, it seemed to be a big deal. Now it is almost like we "hear" about characters dying off panel...or, even when they do die, there's no funeral, there's no memorial, sometimes there's not even any reaction at all! So to answer your question..I'm not sure which of Alpha Flight (in its myriad incarnations) is still alive -- making it hard for me to know who is available to come back and who is off limits. If any of your Silverados wants to help me out with a roster of Alive vs. Dead... it would be mucho appreciated!


That wraps us up for this installment of the Flight Plans Q&A series. Make sure to check back next time when we get the lowdown on the most heroic nonagerian of all time: Centennial! If you'd like to help Scott with his research, please email: flightplans@silverbulletcomicbooks.com.

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