Alpha Flight
Wolverine Against Alpha Flight
Alpha Flight tries to capture Wolverine.
Alpha Flight, Promotional art by John Byrne and Top row: Sasquatch
Alpha Flight is a fictional superhero team published by Marvel Comics, noteworthy for being one of the few Canadian superhero teams. Created by John Byrne, the team first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979).
Alpha Flight is noted for being “Canada’s answer to the Avengers.” Most team members have distinctly Canadian attributes, such as Inuit or First Nations heritage. Throughout most of its history, the team has worked for Department H, a fictional branch of Canada’s Department of National Defence that deals with super-powered villains.
The team was originally merely a part of the backstory of the X-Men’s Wolverine but, in 1983, Byrne launched an eponymous series featuring the group, which continued until 1994. Four short-lived revivals have been attempted since. After the resurrection of the team in the one shot comic Chaos War: Alpha Flight which was published as part of the Chaos War event, they went on to star in an eight-issue limited series in 2011.
Publication history – Pre-regular series
Alpha Flight first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979). They were sent to follow up on Vindicator’s first mission to retrieve Wolverine from the X-Men.
The initial makeup of Alpha Flight was pan-Canadian, including:
- Guardian: Originally Weapon Alpha, then Vindicator, James MacDonald Hudson is a scientist from Winnipeg, Manitoba who wears a suit of battle-armor, allowing him to fly and manipulate Earth’s magnetic field. Guardian is sometimes the team leader, and wears a stylized maple leaf flag on his costume.
- Northstar: Jean-Paul Beaubier, from Montreal, is a mutant with powers of super-speed and light generation.
- Aurora: Jeanne-Marie Beaubier is Northstar’s twin sister who suffers from disassociative identity disorder (multiple personalities). Like her brother, she is also a mutant with powers of super-speed, flight, light generation, and molecular acceleration.
- Sasquatch: Walter Langowski is a scientist from British Columbia who can transform into a giant fur-covered beast resembling a Sasquatch. This character originally developed his powers from a Hulk-inspired gamma radiation experiment that was affected by a solar-flare. Eventually, it was explained that Sasquatch is actually a mystical monster.
- Shaman: Michael Twoyoungmen is a First Nations medicine man fromCalgary. He is both a skilled doctor and sorcerer.
- Snowbird: Also known as Narya, she is an Inuit demi-goddess from Yellowknife, who can transform into animals of the north.
Volume 1
Though reluctant to take the job, John Byrne wrote and drew the series for 28 issues before handing it off to another creative team. During that time, the series attracted fans with storylines that dealt with one or two characters at a time, seldom bringing all the members together. This unusual approach contrasted with other Marvel team series like the X-Men, the Avengers, or the Fantastic Four.
Promoted from Beta Flight despite Department H being closed down by the Canadian government were:
- Marrina: An amphibious woman from Newfoundland, she was a former member of Beta Flight before joining Alpha Flight. She is actually part of an extraterrestrial invading force known as the Plodex.
- Puck: Eugene Judd is a dwarf bouncer from Saskatoon with enhanced strength and extraordinary acrobatic abilities.
Heather MacNeil is the wife of James Hudson. After Guardian’s apparent death inAlpha Flight (vol. 1) #12, she becomes the leader of the team. Later, she takes a replication of his costume and takes the codename of Vindicator then Guardian.
After Byrne left, the series was written by many others, including Bill Mantlo,James Hudnall, Fabian Nicieza, Scott Lobdell & Simon Furman. It continued for 130 issues,and introduced dozens of characters and villains (the most prominent of which were Talisman, Madison Jeffries, Box, Diamond Lil, Manikin,Persuasion, and Goblyn), and featured cross-overs with other characters in the Marvel universe. The series ended in 1994.
Volume 2
In 1997, Marvel restarted the series as a Volume 2, with largely different characters. The series was written by Steven Seagle, then known mainly for his work for DC Comics’ Vertigo line, with art mostly by Scott Clark and Duncan Rouleau. One issue, #13, featured guest art by Ashley Wood in an unusually conventional style for him, but still very distinctive for a Marvel superhero comic. This series ended in 1999 after only twenty issues and an annual. The new additions to the roster included:
- Flex: Adrian Corbo is a mutant with the ability to transform his limbs into sharp weapons. He is the half-brother of Radius.
- Manbot: Bernie Lechenay is a human/Box robot cyborg.
- Murmur: Arlette Truffaut is a young mutant from Quebec City with powers of mind-control and teleportation.
- Radius: Jared Corbo is a mutant with the ability to create a force field.
- General Clarke: Sinister new director of Department H, responsible for many of the dark plots surrounding the team. Gains some measure of redemption with his sacrifice in issue #12.
Returning members were Vindicator (Heather Hudson, with a new costume and new geothermal powers), a de-aged Guardian (who turned out to be a clone of the original James Hudson, set at age 19), and Puck. Sunfire was also briefly a member while looking for a cure to a crippling illness.
The focus of this series was on Department H’s consistently hidden agenda and Alpha Flight’s reluctance to comply thereto. The conspiracy plotline saw Weapon X allowing an incarnation of the Zodiac Cartel to kidnap Madison Jeffries, who was subsequently brainwashed into becoming the group’s “Gemini”. To keep the group from interfering with their “deal”, Department H employed its own brainwashed onto the membership of the team into forgetting Jeffries’ kidnapping. Also, Department H employed an actual sasquatch as the new team’s version of Sasquatch, without telling the team that it was not Walter Langkowski as their teammate. Department H also arranged the kidnapping of Diamond Lil, another former Alpha Flight member and Madison Jeffries’ wife, when she began to enquire about the location of her husband, with the intent on using her as a test subject for illegal medical experimentations.
Despite initial positive buzz, the series never took off and the conspiracy plotlines were downplayed for the remaining six issues of the series. The series itself ended with issue #20 with most of the major storylines (such as the identity of the younger version of Guardian) unresolved, until Wolverine V1 #140-142, when the plotline was resolved with the return of the real Guardian and the heroic sacrifice of the clone version.
Volume 3: “All-New, All-Different” Alpha Flight
In 2004, Marvel started a new volume of Alpha Flight, with the “All-New, All-Different” prefix.
The first six-issue story arc, which shows Sasquatch attempting to construct the new team, is called “You Gotta Be Kiddin’ Me.”
The new team recruited by Sasquatch includes:
- Centennial: Rutherford B. Princeton III is a 97-year-old man whose mutant powers of superhuman strength, invulnerability, flight, and heat vision manifested after being awakened from a coma by Sasquatch.
- Major Mapleleaf: Lou Sadler is the son of a World War II super-hero of the same name. He is secretly a normal human who rides a superpowered horse.
- Nemesis: Amelia Weatherly is both an adversary and ally of the old Alpha Flight. She has the power of flight and is skilled with a magical blade.
- Puck II: Zuzha Yu is the daughter of the original Puck. She has superhuman strength, speed, and agility.
- Yukon Jack: Also known as Yukotujakzurjimozoata, he is a mysterious man from a primitive tribe, bought from his father by Sasquatch.
The second six-issue story arc, entitled “Waxing Poetic,” saw the return of some original team members as both the original versions visited in the past, and temporal copies brought to the present. These members were Guardian, Vindicator, Puck, and Shaman. The series was canceled with issue #12.
