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I finished the Hulk Visionaries (short-run, avoid it) by John Byrne which included his entire run on Hulk and I joked that all that was left was Alpha Flight, She-Hulk and one I left out, Namor. Turns out, the first Alpha Flight volume had already been released! So, Byrne only has a few things left. There’s the rest of his Alpha Flight run (#’s 9-28), a brief run on Cap (#247-255), a small run on Avengers, and Avengers West Coast (some of which is on the Darker than Scarlet trade), his FF stuff is done, an Iron Man run, his Namor and She-Hulk run, and his Spidey stuff. All his X-Men stuff is collected, or I have it already and X-Men The Hidden Years, too. I never realized how much Byrne did at Marvel, I always remembered his big stuff (Flight, X-Men, Namor, She-Hulk and FF) but never realized all the other stuff he did. Anyway, this collects Alpha Flight #’s 1-8, continuing with the Canadian team he helped create in the pages of the X-Men.
Spoilers Ahead
-Alpha Flight #1- Vindicator stands in the emtpy room where Alpha Flight called home. The whole thing has been shut down by the government. So he flies home as a new threat is growing up north. It seems some old man is ressurecting an earth-god named Tundra and succeed! Vindicator sees this on TV and flies off. He doesn’t contact his teammates (who are introduced in the opening pages) but his wife, Heather, does. The regulars are contacted, the mystical Shaman, the metamorph Snowbird, the powerful Sasquatch, the twin speedsters Northstar and Aurora, as well as two new members, Marrina (an aquatic hero) and Puck (the diminutive tumbler). They all convene and team-up to stop the land-mass and the day is saved. They decide to stay together, whether government sanctioned or not, and they must decide on a new name. Puck chimes in saying, “I was recruited for Alpha Flight, and I’m gonna be in Alpha Flight.” Thus, Alpha Flight is reborn.
-Alpha Flight #2- Alpha Flight has a training session when Marrina goes mad all of a sudden, and nearly disembowels poor Puck. She dives into the water and takes off. Alpha Flight is stunned, but help out Puck before looking for Marrina. We delve into the origin of Marrina, being found as an egg at the bottom of an ocean by a fisherman, and being raised to adulthood. We got back to the present where Marrina meets someone called, The Master! Following that, we have a series of back-up tales documenting the origins of the various characters. Here we see Vindicator working for the government and when he learns his work will be used for the US government, he destroys plans for his device.
-Alpha Flight #3- Snowbird received the call last issue and seeks her teammates, who have crashed looking for Marrina. They are in a ship under the ice and are attacked by the ship’s defenses. They reveal that Aurora has a split-personality disorder. Marrina learns that the Master was actually captured by an alien ship forty-thousand years ago and he’s now alive looking to take over the world with his ship! Or something equally crazy. Namor and Invisible Girl show up at the end of the issue. The Vindicator back-up continues, as Heather brings him Department H to get him out of trouble and use his technological prowess. When the FF appear on the scene, new superheroes are born, with Vindicator (now renamed, Guardian) being the first!
-Alpha Flight #4- We learn that Namor asked Sue to come with him due to a disturbance in the natural balance of things and that’s how they ended up on the ship. The Flight members try to deal with Aurora’s split personalities. We get a little more indepth on the origin of the ship, how they get the dominant species of each world to assist in taking the world over. Humans were chosen, of course. The Flighters rescue Marrina, destroy the ship, then escape in time for it to explode. It was a quick ending, especially since the main stories were shorter the last two issues. Anyway, Marrina leaves Flight to stay with Namor for the time being, and I bet Byrne used that on his Namor run.
-Alpha Flight #5- We finally see how Puck is doing, and he’s trying to heal despite all the pain. One night, he tries to get some meds and finds a nurse shooting up drugs. He investigates further, tells the head doctor and finds the ones behind it all. The case is wrapped up nicely but Puck knows something else is up. He finally figures it out and discovers the doctor was behind it all. Nice little Puck story. The back-up origin focuses on Shaman, who at first rejected his grandfather’s mysticism, but when his wife dies and his young daughter leaves him due to the hate she has, he has nowhere else to turn. To make matters worse, his grandfather just died. Its interesting to note that Shaman lived next door to Heather and her family before he left.
-Alpha Flight #6- The rotating Alpha Flight spotlight continues, as we see Snowbird in her human identity getting chewed out by her boss for leaving work. She gets put in jail but breaks out when she senses an old mystical foe return. His name is Kolomaq and the fight between the two takes place in a complete snowblind. We, the readers, don’t see anything but hear all the sound effects and Snowbird’s inner monologue. Snowbird eventually reburies the villain and flies off. The workplace scenario was never resolved, at least not in this collection. The Shaman origin concludes, as he accepts the ways of his grandfather a decade after his wife died, with Dr. Strange approving of it at the end from afar.
-Alpha Flight #7- Northstar is worried about his sister, since she is displaying her Jeanne-Marie personality which he doesn’t like. He takes her to a doctor but he can’t find anything. The Aurora personality returns when a purse-snatcher takes her purse. They end up meeting an old friend of Jean-Paul who is under fire from a mobster named Deadly Ernest. That’s why Aurora’s purse was stolen. Northstar finds out his friend had a daughter who just came back into his life and finally Deadly Ernest shows up, kidnaps Aurora (who he thinks is the daughter) and kills the friend of Northstar just by touching him. Northstar vows revenge. The origin of Snowbird is told in the back-up, with a man finding a weird headband. He dons it, impregnates a mystical woman, then wakes up ten years later. Shaman oversees the birth of Snowbird’s human form.
-Alpha Flight #8- Northstar finds the lair of Deadly Ernest, with his sister hobnobbing him, and he is shocked to say the least. He gets captured, is freed by a new woman named Nemesis with a powerful sword. We get the origin of Deadly Ernest, which doesn’t matter a few pages latter when Nemesis kills him. Northstar takes her mask off but we don’t see her face. Nemesis leaves and Aurora and Northstar fly away. When Northstar tells his sister he thought she got in Ernest’s good favor by sleeping with him (like she did Sasquatch), she gets pissed and tells him she doesn’t want to see him anymore. Northstar has lost his sister again. The origin of Snowbird ends with Heather and Guardian meeting Shaman and learning of Snowbird’s powers. Meet the two newest members of Alpha Flight!
-Marvel Age #2- This just includes an interview with John Byrne about the origins of Alpha Flight and he just gives us a rundown of the characters, their origin and backstory, and the new members as well as upcoming stories. There are the handbook entries on all the original members as well.
-The Bottom Line- This was much more up my alley as compared to the Hulk story. The issues were a mixed bag (the back-ups took away pages from the main story) but were enjoyable. I like the characters themselves, and they were all featured in these first 8 stories. It is clear Byrne knew what he was doing, subtly introducing characters and putting in upcoming plot threads. Marrina quickly left the team, some of the stories seemed rushed (because of the lack of pages) but overall it was a good run. I really liked Byrne’s art here, as it was very sharp with some slick, tight inks. I don’t know if this is an absolute must-read but fans of Alpha Flight need to pick this up and it is an enjoyable 8-issue run. Moderately recommended.
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