Aurora by Laércio Lima

Aurora by Rey Arzeno

1985: Alpha's Beta Flight part III: I Sing Of Pink Pearls and Lillies Gilded

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the third entry of Alpha's Beta Flight a new team is slowly forming. But before the renewed Alpha Flight can launch, we focus on some of the old Alphans and their problems. And oh boy, those will fill an issue or three.

"GILDED LILY

Try to forget her"

Considering Lily only made two additional appearances following her debut in March of 1985, I'd say forgetting her is a done deal. To be frank: Alpha Flight's early 20s didn't have the most memorable of villains, as this entry will prove. No, the true drama came from the team dynamics... for instance the already strained relationship between Shaman and his daughter Elizabeth who he had pretty much tricked into becoming Talisman without telling her she'd be unable to ever take off the coronet of enchantment that powered her. In #20, the truth comes out when Elizabeth decides she isn't cut out for superheroing...

"All I have to do to resign is take off this magical headband..."

Needless to say, she isn't happy about this and to make matters worse Snowbird assures her she's supposed to be the messiah. While she tries to take that in, Heather Hudson is trying to cope with the news as well. Barely a week into her tenure as Alpha's leader and she already has to deal with having a reluctant savior as a new recruit. And to make matters worse, a man about half her size and over twice her age starts flirting with her.

"Sure, see you in a wee bit."

Ow, Heather... talk about an insensitive crack about the man's stature. Moments later, Shaman discusses Puck's feelings for Heather with him and, true to form, gives him terrible advice. While Puck was planning to be a perfect gentleman and not act on them, Shaman tells him to go for it because Heather will soon need emotional support. Sure, but does that necessarily mean a romance, doctor love? 

Soon after this interlude, the story focuses on Alpha's other oddball romantic couple: Aurora and Sasquatch. The two lovers have been somewhat at odds ever since Sasquatch messed with her genetic structure. For one, she altered her costume to reflect her new identity, but as an unwanted after effect she also seemed to be developing a third personality that appeared to be a mix of her two current ones.  

"Everyone needs a change now and then, mon ami"

After passionately frenching the miner who wasn't complaining, an annoyed Sasquatch felt it was high time they had some alone time. That's why he took her for a semi-romantic getaway to Tamarind Island, where his family owned a seemingly abandoned estate he figured Alpha Flight might use as a base. 

"It was built around 1896, by a great-aunt on my mother's side.
She was something of a character by all accounts."

I'll say. Notice that golden hand holding back the right curtain? That's our girl... Lillian van Loont, better known as Gilded Lily, still alive after all these years. How, you ask? Well, #21 told her full origin story. In a nutshell: Lilian was an ordinary woman who became Diablo's apprentice and lover after the evil alchemist saved her from a car crash in the late 19th century. When the local villagers attacked his castle and imprisoned Diablo, she swore to avenge him which she did by seducing his attackers one by one and turning them into living golden statues she had all shipped to her home and alchemy lab on Tamarind Island. And now she was about to do the same to Sasquatch and Aurora.

"Who are you? What have you done with Walter?"

We already covered those questions, Aurora. For someone with superspeed, you sure have trouble keeping up. Anyway, Lily had already changed Langkowski into one of her living statues and was about to dip Aurora in gold as well when Walter managed to free himself by changing to Sasquatch. He easily rescued his girlfriend and then inadvertently revealed the secret of Gilded Lily's eternal youth.

"Sapriste!"

Talk about steampunk alchemic engineering... You can live forever as long as you don't mind turning into a robotic stickfigure. As creepy as this was, things got worse when Sasquatch removed her face plate thereby somehow breaking the spell that held Lily together. She crumbled into dust, along with her dungeon laboratory and all the upstairs furnishings, leaving behind an empty and barren mansion. That'll make Alpha's job a lot easier when they want to redecorate. 

Issue #22 also stars Aurora, this time she's paired up with her estranged brother Northstar. She shows up straight from her adventure against Gilded Lily. Moments after leaving Tamarind Island, she had a mental breakdown when Sasquatch tried to touch her romantically and flew off, eventually ending up at his doorstep, exhausted and frazzled.

" Yes, yes, I must try. But it is so hard..."

Well, it's hardly the first time Northstar heard that line in his bedroom... so he takes it in stride and decides to take her under his wing again. She gladly accepts his support and even accompanies him when he goes to visit Clementine D'Arbanville, an old friend from his days with the circus who wrote him a letter asking for help. Their reunion was... surprising, to say the least.

"Oh Jean-Paul, I'm so glad you came..."

Nope, sorry... I've used up the legally allowed amount of double entendres for one review. Still, given what we'd eventually find out about Northstar's preferences places this passionate kiss in an interesting perspective. Then again, Clementine does have pretty short hair. And speaking of women who know what they want: Clementine asked Northstar's help in dealing with Pink Pearl, a performer who has slowly been working to take control of Clementine's circus by hiring acts loyal to her. Wait, here she is now...

"Now, Pearl told you everything would be just fine.
If only you'd keep your nose out of Pearl's business"

I guess it's obvious how she came up with the stagename 'Pink Pearl', right? At any rate, you'd think a single woman, even one of Pearl's size, would be no match for two superheroes with lightning fast reflexes and the ability to generate light energy. Well, think again. For one, Pearl wasn't alone: her acrobatic associate Bones took on Northstar who soon found himself tied up with a slender, incredibly limber man on top of him (...). And as for Aurora, well... Pearl personally took care of her too.

"Sleep sound, baby."

Hey, I never knew Aurora was Russian or into motorboats. It goes without saying that Pearl's ultimate plans involved more than merely taking over a travelling circus. Pearl had her henchmen tie up the Beaubier twins and Clementine while she moved on to the final phase of her scheme. Once Aurora and the others woke up, Pearl explained the true purpose of her scheme as any classic, heavyweight baddie is wont to do. 

Long story short: Pearl is actually an undercover operative working for a number of unrevealed agencies who want her to bomb a top secret meeting between the prime minister of Canada and the president of the United States.  

"The... parties I represent don't wish to see this happen."

Pearl's people specifically chose Clementine's circus as a cover because they were aware she used to be a member of the Séperatistes, a violent terrorist cell who fought for an independent Quebec... A cell Northstar used to be a part of, as we learn in this issue. Pearl's reasoning is surprisingly simple: the explosive will inevitably be traced back to Clementine, ensuring that the Séperatistes serve as unwitting scapegoats. Luckily, Aurora recovered in time to use her powers to stun Pearl and her associates long enough for Northstar to join the fray. Eventually the twins are able to win the day, even if Pearl was only taken out by a poorly aimed blade thrown by her associate Bones.

All's well that ends well, especially after taking down enemies as swollen as Pearl. However, the little revelation that her brother was connected to or even part of a terrorist group wasn't lost on Aurora.

                        "You have said you no longer wished a place in Alpha Flight, North-Star.
                                                    C'est bien, when I tell them of your past,
                                                       you will no longer be welcome there..."

Talk about ungrateful... We'll see how Aurora's promise to rat out her own brother will play out next time. From issue #23 on, Byrne starts to actively tie up all the various, seemingly unconnected storylines. In a way, his take on Alpha Flight in its second year is very much reminiscent of how Jack Kirby structured the first ongoing Eternals series back in 1976. 

In a truly revolutionary move for the mid 70s, Kirby didn't stick to a single narrative. With seemingly casual disregard, he switched his focus to various groupings of characters, this kept readers guessing just who the true stars of the book were supposed to be while continuing the overall story. To Byrne's credit, he applied a bit more focus than Kirby by having at least one easily distinguishable main story, intersected with various cut scenes like the Talisman/Heather Hudson bit, an update on the paraplegic Roger Bochs and Madison Jeffries and the continuing mystery of Snowbird who had fallen out of grace with her godly ancestors since issue #12. 

"I am a child of the gods. 

And only they could strike at my very being like this. 

But... WHY?!?"

Next time, we'll get to the reason why Snowbird is in such distress. Turns out she's been unforgivably lax in her duty to fight and kill any of the Great Beasts she encounters. Also, we'll find out if Heather Hudson has been slowly losing her mind because she's been seeing dead people.

"... Oh my gosh..."

Is Alpha's first leader still alive? Find out next time in part IV of Alpha's Beta Flight: Black, White & Mac All Over...

1984: Alpha's Initial Outing part III: Oh my, Omega!

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

The year is still 1984 and John Byrne's about to finish the first twelve issues of Alpha Flight, a series he didn't particularly fancied working on from the word go. But that reluctancy led to an inspired level of daring creativity some would say bordered on carelessness, as we'll see in the third and final part of Alpha's Initial Outing.

"Soon, these heroes will face their greatest challenge... One of them won't survive it."

Back in 1984, before the age of online previews and spoilers galore, pretty much all you had to go by were Marvel's in house announcements, the "Bullpen Bulletins" which offered brief descriptions of upcoming events... and house ads like this one.

For posterity's sake, it's almost a shame there weren't any message boards around then for fans to discuss which of the heroess would bite the bullet. Having Marrina there is a bit of a red herring (pun intended), considering the aquatic Alphan hadn't been seen since issue #4 when she quit the team to accompany Namor the Sub-Mariner back to Atlantis.

But, as always, we're getting ahead of ourselves. There wouldn't be any dying Alpha Flighters until issue #12 and when we last left the team (that hadn't been together since #2) we were on the series' ninth issue which was part one of a Sasquatch two parter. Since we have a lot to get to, let's explain the plot of issue #9 with the recap provided in issue #10.

"For it had never truly been the Thing at all. It had been..."

This brief summary really doesn't do issue #9 justice. Byrne was going for an obvious hommage to the classic 1952 horror movie The Thing From Another World, based on a 1938 short story by John W. Campbell Jr. In it, researchers in a remote, arctic outpost encounter a supposedly deceased alien lifeform they take in to study, only to find it's still very much alive and out to make sure they aren't.

Pretty much the same happened with doctor Walter "Sasquatch" Langkowski, who was also visiting an arctic research facility when "the Thing" mysteriously showed up and started killing people left and right. Only, it wasn't Benjamin Grimm...

"Perhaps even Sasquatch cannot prevail
against one who possesses
all the powers of the Fantastic Four!"

Or... perhaps he would. After an interesting and particularly brutal battle that showed Langkowski losing control over his monstrous form, the Super Skrull was teleported back to space. Which, essentially, meant a death sentence.

" His atoms are scattered back across the Van Allen belts, soaking up more radiation.
If this murderous off-worlder even manages to get himself reintegrated again
he should last about five seconds before the cancer finishes him off"

That sequence, if nothing else, proved that Sasquatch wasn't too squeamish to send someone to his death... It's doubtful a member of the FF or Avengers would have dealt with their enemies, even if it was a Skrull who had murdered several innocent people. But, speaking of New York based heroes, guess where Alpha's leader Guardian is?

"I had no idea I'd be moving here, leaving Canada, maybe forever"

Guardian, the leader of Canada's premiere team of superheroes has just moved to New York City. Long story short, in a continuing subplot the Roxxon oil company had offered James Hudson a lucrative position at their New York branch. Seeing as he was effectively out of work since the Canadian government cut Alpha Flight's funding, he happily took the job and prepared to move to the States, along with his wife Heather. Unfortunately for Hudson, nothing was quite as it seemed. 

Alpha Flight I#11 really started to weave seemingly unconnected plot threads together into a neat little net the team would soon find themselves trapped in. Remember this lady from last post?

"Four down, one to go. So far the plan is proceeding perfectly."

Meet Delphine Courtney, a woman who's been visiting with and succesfully recruiting members of the Beta and Gamma Flight programs... Who all made their debut in a one panel flashback in Alpha Flight I#1. Courtney, using a mechanized form of mind control, all got them to come to New York. Surely, that can't be a coincidence? 

"But first, since you've obviously have not taken care of the matter yourselves,
some introductions."

As far as delivering obviously necessary exposition goes, this isn't too bad... Even if it doesn't make any sense. Remember, they're all former Flight members, some of them were even on the same team. Unless they were all mindwiped during their exit interviews, I'm pretty sure they remember who they shared a locker room with.

Alpha Flight I#11 is also the first proper introduction of Wild Child, Kyle Gibney, who would go on to have an interesting career as a hero, serving with both Alpha Flight and X-Factor during the 1990s. But none of that heroic potential is on display here, seeing as he almost guts Flashback before Courtney calms him down and introduces the mastermind behind it al...

"My name is Jerome Jaxon.
(...)
I propose nothing less than the utter destruction of Alpha Flight!"

Ah, how to explain Jerome Jaxon... Apart from the fact his name alliterates in the mighty Marvel manner (Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Otto Octavius, Doctor Doom etc), he's actually a bit of a sad sack. The reason why he hates Alpha Flight is James Hudson, who once worked for him as part of the research & development branch of Am-Can, a petrochemical company. 

There, Hudson came up with the prototype of the Guardian armor, which Jaxon realized could be used for more than coal mining: with some adjustments, it'd be a fantastic weapon of war. He planned to sell the design to the US military, only for Hudson to disable the one prototype that existed by stealing the psycho-cybernetic helmet required to operate it. The armor now useless, Am-Can fired Jaxon who grew bitter, desperate and despondent.

"I had failed in my attempted self-destruction... but I would never walk again."

In 1984, depicting someone, even a supposed villain, attempting suicide was positively unprecedented. And, to add insult to injury, Jaxon failed and ended up paralyzed. A broken man, both in the literal and figurative sense of the word. However, when he inadvertently figured out that Canada's national hero was actually his archenemy James Hudson, he regained his purpose in life.

Jaxon went to Am-Can's business rival Roxxon with this knowledge and the company was more than a little interested. They partnered him with Delphine Courtney and together, they worked out the plan to lure Hudson to New York for vengeance (and, one would assume, to get their hands on his armor). Having that vengeance carried out by former members of Beta and Gamma Flight, influenced by Courtney's devices to be out for blood, was poetic justice.

But how to get your hands on Guardian? Simple, capture his wife and tell him about it.

"I have your wife.
I am holding her in an office on the 43rd floor of Number One World Trade Center."

Sigh, the 1980s... back when seeing a flying object hurtling towards the WTC wouldn't cause readers' stomachs to turn (or internet fora to flare up). Inside the World Trade Center, Guardian discovered who was waiting for him in the closing pages of #11.

                                                   "Allow us to reintroduce ourselves.
                                                            We are Omega Flight!"

True to stereotype, even Canadian supervillains are so polite they take the time for proper introductions before trying to kill you. And with that, the setup for the year's capper was obvious. Alpha's instigator versus those he had allegedly scorned. So, where's the backup, where's Alpha Flight? Well, he sent an emergency signal back in #11, a call the membership received an issue later through their implanted communication chips. The only one to miss it was Marrina, who didn't have an implant but a hanger she wasn't wearing when the call came in.

Fortunately for Guardian, the others were able to make it. But it wasn't exactly a happy reunion. This issue started the trend of Alphans being outrightly hostile towards each other. Sasquatch had started seeing Aurora, which her brother Northstar didn't care for because he felt this wasn't in his schizophrenic sibling's best interest. Guess what, words failed...

"As soon as I uproot this makeshift hockey-stick..."

Way to emphasize the fact they're Canadian, eh?

Shaman used a little magic to break up the fight and then used a whole lot more to teleport the team to Guardian who was more than a bit relieved to get some reinforcements. It was Alpha versus Omega in a confrontation far more vicious and cruel than most superhero dust ups of the time. People were out for blood and pulled no punches. Wildchild savagely tore into Aurora, forcing Northstar to resort to extreme measures.

"The impact is not fatal, but it is only the phenomenal resilience 

of the half-human Wild Child that makes the difference"

Half human, eh? Wonder what the other half is. Still, that was hardly the worst that happened. Mere moments after arriving in New York, Snowbird started feeling faint, making her easy prey for the rough and tough Diamond Lil. Shaman was forced to help out his teammate, using a little magic to drive Lil temporarily insane...

"She withers away before my very eyes!"

So, what's wrong with Narya? Well, remember how Shaman assisted in Snowbird's birth? He used his powers to anchor the god-child to this reality, by literally binding her life force to Canada. As we find out now, this also means that as soon as she leaves her native soil, she'll die a painful death. An interesting reveal to say the least, though a little surprising given the fact she left Canada before without any visible discomfort... like when she attended the Hulk's big parade in New York City after the president pardoned him in Incredible Hulk I#279.

How to explain this one? Well, it's hardly No Prize worthy, but let's just say the reason she looked okay here was because she didn't have to rapidly expend her energies in a fight to the death. Yeah, that'll work, true believers. Also: apparently Sasquatch didn't have time to shave.

Back to the battle, where we're about to have the first, real victim...

"As the last, dwindling spark of his sanity flickers out,
for an instant, Smart Alec knows why."

Curiosity killed the cat... and the mind of the most intelligent Canadian ever to walk the planet or don a big, crazy hat with Cyclops style goggles. But we've yet to reach the bloody climax... The big silver and blue robot called Box was actually controlled by Jaxon, who used the device to beat Guardian to a pulp. However, turnabout is fair play...

"I might have been killed by the blast.
But then, I was certain to be killed otherwise."

Oh James, you don't know the half of it... Defeating Box by creating an overload that fried Jaxon's mind also caused his suit's power pack to overheat. Guardian only had a few seconds to safely remove it in a now classic, often imitated sequence.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

Then, in what has to be one of the most monumental moments of bad timing ever... His wife Heather stumbles into the room, after having freed herself a few pages earlier. Right in time to witness this...

"I wonder what's behind this door."

Faster than one can say "flame on!", Guardian is seemingly incinerated before his wife's eyes... And while Heather watches Mac get burned to a crisp, she realizes that it's all on her. If only she hadn't distracted him at the most crucial of moments.

And with that, Alpha Flight's first year as a team comes to an end... And what an illustrious first year it was. As if getting fired by the government in their premiere issue wasn't bad enough, the second featured their new member Marrina going crazy, mutilating a midget before storming off to fulfill her destiny: breeding a race of alien invaders. Issues 3 and 4 saw part of the team chasing the murderous Marrina, leading to an encounter with the Master of the World, which they only survived because of the Sub-Mariner and the Invisible Woman... Whose competency made Alpha look like inconsequential guest stars in their own book.

Then, issue #5 was all about Puck in a hospital gown, hitting drug peddling doctors (in a double fisted pulse pounder of an ish, true believers!). #6 is best remembered for Byrne getting away with 1/4 of an issue of blank pages followed by #7 and #8 in which Northstar and Aurora stretch out the barest of plots to fill the pages. Issues #9 and #10 are all about Sasquatch and the Super Skrull, which sounds like a bad Saturday morning kids cartoon, if not for all the gratuitous violence and bloody death...

                              "The lifeless thing that had been Megan Masterson is silent now"

But that all led to #11 & 12, the big finale which reunited the team to save a leader who had actually pretty much abandoned them by taking a job in another country... A leader who'd be dead by the end of #12 anyway. All in all not the most memorable of beginnings for a superhero team. Alpha Flight makes the original Defenders look calm, cool and stable... and their founders include Namor "breathing oxygen makes me go crazy" the Sub-Mariner, a silvery alien on a surfboard whose previous job was picking out planets for lunch and the friggin' Hulk. 

As stated before, Byrne had trouble figuring out what to do with "his" creations. "Alpha Flight was never much fun. The characters were created merely to survive a fight with the X-Men, and I never thought about them having their own title. When Marvel finally cajoled me into doing Alpha Flight, I realized how incredibly two-dimensional they were, and spend some twenty-eight issues trying to find ways to correct this fault. Nothing really sang for me. If I have any regrets, it would probably be that I did the book at all! It was not a good time for me."

Still, he tried and his second year on the book proved distinctly different than the first. A new leader, new members and the sense the team was actually, well, a team. Byrne tried it all in an anything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to storytelling just to keep himself amused. And he got away with most of this, one because's John Byrne and second because Alpha Flight wasn't exactly a household name... Not even in the house of ideas. This gave him ample opportunity to experiment and be as gross, creepy and weird as he wished. If nothing else, it gave us Marvel mainstays like Pink Pearl and Gilded Lily.

Maybe someday we'll revisit Alpha Flight year two. If you can't wait, by all means track down those issues... Marvel released the Byrne run in paperback back in 2011 and they're well worth getting: restored art printed on high quality paper with brighter than life colors... As the images in this overview prove, they really add to the experience. All things considered: even though 'Alpha' never gave John Byrne any flights of fancy, the Canucks never soared higher than with him at the helm.

Which, if you think about it, really says something, eh?

1984: Alpha's Initial Outing Part II: The I In Team

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

The year is 1984 and John Byrne is bravely soldiering on with Alpha Flight, a series he writes and draws but really doesn't care for. Still, Byrne didn't let on and even came up with some remarkably innovative ideas as we'll see in part II of Alpha's Initial Outing.

Before we get to the often discussed sixth issue, let's briefly cover issue 5 which was the first of a series of standalone tales. Byrne figured that since Alpha Flight was still effectively disbanded as far as the government was concerned, there was no team to speak of.

In a way, that makes sense. The book opened with Alpha Flight's funding getting cut and even though the team decided to stay together after defeating Tundra in their debut issue, they still had no money, no charter, not even a headquarters or place to gather. Is it any wonder they drifted apart?

That's why the fifth issue deals with Puck, one of Alpha's newest members who almost died when fellow recruit Marrina went nuts and nearly disembowelled him back in issue 2. Now we find out how Eugene Milton Judd, the dimunitive dare all's real name, is doing.

"You chicks must think I'm about the dirtiest guy in the hospital, eh?"

Truth be told, it was a bold choice on Byrne's part to focus pretty much an entire issue on a virtually unknown character who only had a handful of lines in the two issues he ever appeared in. Still, to his credit, John Byrne figured the best way to introduce readers to his latest creation was by showing just how awesome a hairy, pint-sized Canadian adventurer could be... Even without claws or a healing factor.

Judd accidentally uncovered a drug ring operating out of the hospital, after catching one of the nurses shooting up one night. Rightfully suspicious, the still gravely injured hero decided to don his duds and investigate the matter. He was able to covertly snoop and sneak, eventually hitching a ride on top of the van that delivered the latest supply to the hospital. One back at the supply depot, he fought and defeated the dealers, only to realize he was nowhere near healed.

                                       "Urrg... must be... losing... lot... blood..."

One really has to admire Byrne's visualization choices. Puck's impending black out is slowly hinted at. From the obvious trail of blood in the first panel, to the subtle whiting out in the second shot, followed by the bottom sequence that really tells the complete tale without any necessary dialogue. 

In the end, Puck is saved and the issue ends with him unmasking the ringleader of the drug cartel: the doctor Shaman entrusted Judd's care to. The physician tried to subtly kill Puck with a fatal insulin injection but Puck was ready for that and smacked the syringe right out of his hand.

"You create junkies, doc. That makes you about the lowest slime I can think of, eh?"

Just look at Puck without his mask. It's obvious this is the face of man who's been to hell and back. He's known suffering, hurt and loss but still he soldiers on, even if he's about to literally spill his guts. With him properly established, the issue closes out and that brings us to Alpha Flight I#6, the infamous white issue. 

It all started with a bunch of miners who accidentally set the Great Beast Kolomaq free. He's the second member of this feared band of evil deities that managed to return to our plane of existence in a relatively short while... and he couldn't be more happy about it.

"Free! Free! After a thousand years!"

Since this is still the Alpha Flight era in which the actual team doesn't appear, Byrne left it up to Snowbird to deal with Kolomaq. The issue was actually loaded with information about the Beasts, Narya, her ancestory and many other tidbits that would prove essential down the road. And it all led to a monumental fight that no one would see because Kolomaq whipped up a blizzard.

For about six pages, this was all we got. Blank panels, sound effects and dialogue that told all we needed to know about a mostly white heroine fighting an equally white villain in the heart of a snowstorm. Pretty ingenious as far as gimmicks go, though most consider this the ultimate in Byrne's shameless attempts to cut down on his workload.

Fair's fair: this story took place during 1984's Assistant Editor's Month, a line-wide event that had all the books' regular editors taking a break to attend the San Diego Comic Con. They left their assisants in charge, which allowed them to go a little crazy and experiment with the format. In

And if you still feel this was a poor excuse for Byrne to phone it in... Remember he was also writing and drawing Fantastic Four at the time... And that month's issue, #262 to be precise, featured the trial of Reed Richards who was facing galactic judgement after saving the life of Galactus. Not exactly a quick and easy topic to cover, especially when the Big G himself showed up during the proceedings. In a memorable moment, we learn that the cosmic devourer is so sense shattering every alien race processes his presence differently.

                      "A million and more alien eyes look upon him who is Galactus...
                                             And for each race the vision differs" 

For my money, inventive and memorably pages like that allow you some leeway. One can forgive Byrne for extending the white-out "gag" a page or two more if you consider he compensated by taking the time to come up with over 25 alternate Galactus lookalikes in the same month. In the end, as the captions assure us, Snowbird emerges injured but victorious after burying Kolomaq beneath an avalanche she caused right in the middle of the blinding snowstorm.

Issues 7 & 8 still don't feature Alpha Flight in, well, Alpha Flight. Taking so much time to focus on individual members was positively unprecedented and left a fair number of fans to wonder what the point of having a team book was when the actual team was nowhere to be seen. Still, this is all part of Byrne's devil-may-care approach to the title... Wildly experimenting just to see what will stick. In this case, he put the spotlight on the super speedy twins Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie Beaubier.

Back in issue #2, Jeanne-Marie acted a tad flakey when her schizophrenia took over during the fight against the Master. No wonder her slightly protective brother wanted her to get help. In this case, by taking her to meet with one of Montreal's finest psychiatrists.

                                  "There is nothing "the matter" with me, Jean-Paul (...)
                                      Doctor Bosson has simply confirmed that fact"

Considering Aurora/Jeanne-Marie would actually prove to be a semi-functional schizophrenic, the dear doctor is indeed a bit of a quack. But with the matter of his sister's mental health left (un)resolved for the moment, Jean-Paul is confronted by another ghost from the past, his old gay lover Raymonde Belmonde.

"A-hem!"

Now, despite the fact the late, great Tallulah Bankhead was famous for claiming there was "a touch of the homosexual in all of us", what caused John Byrne to make Northstar of the same sex persuasion? Well, back in 2004 he had the following to say about the subject:

"One of the things that popped immediately into my head was to make one of them Gay. I had recently read an article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN on what was then (the early 80s) fairly radical new thinking on just what processes caused a person to be homosexual, and the evidence was pointing increasingly to it being genetic and not environmental factors. So, I thought, it seemed like it was time for a Gay superhero, and since I was being "forced" to make ALPHA FLIGHT a real series, I might as well make one of them Gay.

From there, it was a process of elimination. I didn't want the homosexual character to be one of the girls, since that was something people tended to associate (rightly or wrongly) with Claremont books. Mac Hudson and Heather were happily married and I did not want to mess with that. Michael was widowed with a daughter, and that way lay what I considered too much of a cliche, if he turned out to be Gay. Besides, as a Native Canadian he was already the resident "minority". The new guy, Puck, had his own set of problems. Sasquatch would be just too damn scary!! So I settled on Jean-Paul, and the moment I did I realized it was already there. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have been considering making him Gay before I "decided" to so so.

Of course, the temper of the times, the Powers That Were and, naturally, the Comics Code would not let me come right out and state that Jean-Paul was homosexual, but I managed to "get the word out" even with those barriers."

And so he did, even though Mr. Belmonde wasn't too long for this world. He was the next victim of a gangster known as Deadly Ernest, a World War I veteran who was unable to die after he spurned Mistress Death back during the Great War. Properly annoyed, Death granted St. Ives' wish to survive and made him immortal. She did add a vengeful twist by making sure his touch instantly killed all living things. This curse first manifested itself when he returned home after the war and hugged his wife and infant daughter, inadvertently murdering them. 

In the end, "Deadly Ernest" was killed by his supposedly deceased daughter Isabelle who returned from the grave as the enigmatic Nemesis and ended up dismembering her dear old dad.

"The silver blade glimmers, ghostlike, invisible when seen on edge.
A shining white scythe flat on.
And in less than a second... it is all over."

Now, while all these solo tales of the individual Alphans were perfectly fine and serviceable, it didn't exactly tell any kind of cohesive story about the actual group. That's why the issues started to include short backup stories that briefly told the team's origins. The first few issues revealed how James McDonald Hudson went from being a bookish scientist who designed a mechanized mining suit to becoming Vindicator, Canada's premiere superhero. 

Byrne then recounted the history of the other Alphans, starting with Shaman. Born Michael Twoyoungmen, this Canadian Aborigine refused the teachings of his people, prefering to study the white man's medicine. He became a physician who married, had a daughter Elizabeth, and moved in next door to Heather McNeil's family.

All was right in the world, until Michael's wife got cancer and he ultimately proved incapable of healing her. Thereby breaking a promise he made to his daughter who did not respond too well to this double betrayal.

                                                 "Don't touch me! Liar! LIAR!"

Following the loss of his wife and his daughter turning against him Michael grew ever more despondent until one day a woman arrived with a package. Turns out it was the skull of his recently deceased grandfather who had served as his tribe's shaman. And despite the fact he lacked a mouth, let alone any inclination to scream, ol' grampa Twoyoungmen had quite a few things to say.

"Now, place my skull to one side, and take up the medicine bag on which it rests.
Open the bag grandson... Open it, and take out a handful of pine needles"

Spoiler alert: when he tried, he failed. Over the next two issues (5&6), Byrne showed how Shaman slowly embraced his legacy. A Native American (or, Aborigine) well versed in the western ways, who all but renounced his roots following an intense, personal tragedy... Only to realize his ultimate salvation lies in embracing his inescapabe legacy?

Why yes, that *does* sound a lot like Forge, the Cheyenne sorceror/mutant turned corporate mogul/inventor who Chris Claremont would introduce a few months later in August 1984's Uncanny X-Men I#184. A total coincidence to be sure, and at any rate, Shaman was still first ánd best.

Just look at these inspired panels.

                           "Do not think of pine needles. Know them. Touch them.
                                                 Feel them. Smell them (...)
                                                       Let them be real."

With Michael Twoyoungmen in place as Shaman, the next two issues (7 & 8) focused on telling the origins of Snowbird. Turns out the shapeshifting Alphan was actually an Inuit demi-goddess tasked to fight the gods' ancient enemies: the Great Beasts. But how she came to be is a tad ironic, if you consider who the gods chose to be the father...

"Now, mortal, will you grant yourself one night of pleasures... as the price for saving the world?"

Eagle eyed fans at the time realized Nelvanna's blonde sperm donor with the fancy headband was actually Richard Lawrence Easton, the weird little hermit responsible for raising the Ancient Beast Tundra back in Alpha Flight I#1. For, y'see, Easton was an archeology enthusiast contacted by Nelvanna and Hodiak just after he discovered Tundra's headpiece on a dig. 

He agreed to a one nighter with Nelvanna, but no one told him the gods have a slightly different concept of time.

"Thus does Richard Lawrence Easton flee the lands of men, into the realms of madness."

If nothing else, it's obvious Byrne used Alpha Flight to indulge his love for the spooky and the macabre. This particular sequence with Easton alone feels like something out of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, especially with the knowledge Easton would eventually be the one to raise Tundra.

Talk about an ironic twist. Still, he delivered the goods or so to speak: Nelvanna was pregnant with child and in time, needed a physician to guide her during birth...

So, who you gonna call?

 "TWO-YOUNG-MEN!"

As one of his first real acts as Shaman, doctor Michael Twoyoungmen assisted Nelvanna. Unfortunately, to bind the otherworldly baby to Earth, he used a spell that literally bound her to Canadian soil, which would prove a horrible mistake down the road. Shaman brought Snowbird into the world and took it upon himself to raise the rapidly growing faerie child, assisted by his old neighbor Heather McNeil and her husband James Hudson who considered both viable recruits for Department H's Alpha Flight initiative.

Speaking of recruits... John Byrne introduced yet another subplot in these issues. A mystery woman who began visiting some of the former Flight recruits... like the extremely smart and thoroughly unpleasant Alec Thorne. 

                                           "My name is Delphine Courtney.
                              My employer and I are involved in a project you may find of interest."

More on that in the third part of Alpha's Initial Outing: Oh My, Omega!