AM: And Omega Flight? This will still be yours, even though you're not in the Heroes office?
Schmidt: Yeah. Alpha Flight, historically, has been edited in the X-Men office becasue they were created in Uncanny X-Men. Omega Flight really isn't any different. That was actually a project that was approved before I switched to the X-Men office. Very little work had been done on it when I got there, so that seemed like a good project to hand over to me because I could put my own stamp on it and make it my own very quickly. Scott Kolins is drawing the first issue, he'll probably be done at the end of next week. [He's] the fastest comic artist alive. I'd actually like to have him and Mark Bagley race. [Laughs]
AM: How long does he take on an issue?
Schmidt: Scott can do an issue in three weeks, but he could probably do one in two if he needed to.
AM: And he has a lot of detail to his work.
Schmidt: Yeah, theres's a lot. He's a very stylized artist, but on the right thing, he's the right guy. I hired him to do the Annihilation Prologue and was blown away by the detail and character nuances. He's a fantastic storyteller. He's going to be colored by Brian Reber, who's taking over coloring X-Factor fro me and who is also coloring the project we can't talk about. It's gonna blow people away. He's amazing and he's just fantastic over Scott. They're working very well together and closely. Mike's scripts...it's not Alpha Flight. That's why it's Omega Flight. It's got more action and bigger thrills than Alpha Flight has probably ever had. It's no-holds-barred.
AM: There was a glimpse of this in Choosing Sides, but what's the deal with the formation of the team?
Schmidt: Yeah, there was an eight-page USAgent story, which threw people into a fit. [Laughs] The basic gist is that due to the Civil War and the extreme crackdown in the superhero community on unregistered heroes, but also on villains, nobody is being left untouched by Civil War. You gotta have some of thse supervillains go on and get outta here. Their choices are Mexico, where there's not a whole lot of stuff to loot, or Canada, which is a lot closer. So they start corssing the border. Alpha Flight no longer exists, as anyone who reads New Avengers knows, so Canada has to start daeling with superpowered villains crossing the border, tearing up the country. So they form this new team to essentially just stop bad guys. The country's super-crime jumps up about 700% and it's time to go get 'em.
AM: Poor Mounties. Can you talk about the team?
Schmidt: Not really. I can talk about two of them. USAgent, who's essentially on-loan from the United States. Then we've got Beta Ray Bill. Nothin' says Canada like Beta Ray Bill.
What's funny, is that lined up unintentionally. At the end of the Stormbreaker limited series, starring Beta Ray Bill, he took on a human identity who lived in Canada. That wasn't, at the time, a set up for doing a Canadian superteam book, but it winds up pretty well and there's more to it than that. It's interesting. I think people will be entertained. If it were me, as a reader, I'd be going into this book like "how the heck does this make any sense if these guys are together." but when all is said and done, I think it will.