Alpha Flight in History of the Marvel Universe #1

History of the Marvel Universe #1
Jan 2012

There’s just no way to condense the entire history of the Marvel Universe into a single 48pg book, but this attempt is actually a pretty good try. Narrated by The Watcher, events from the Golden Age (1940s) up to Spider Island (2011) are summarized into short descriptive paragraphs, approximately three per page, accompanied by iconic images to bring life to just about every corner of the Marvel Universe that can fit into a single volume. Despite the movie-centric characters depicted on the cover which hints at a fairly mainstream theme, the writers made some unusual choices in this book, as noted in this good review of the issue. The inside back cover of the book has an useful and extensive reference guide to link the narrative paragraphs to trade paperbacks and hardcover collections so readers can find the full story. In reprinted artwork from various issues, several Alpha Flight members appear.

Because there’s so much information to fit in to such little space, the writers just didn’t have the luxury of including everything. The most notable omission is that which was so notably included in Marvel Saga #1 (Dec 1985) – the origin of Alpha Flight as an idea germinated in Mac’s head after reading about the Fantastic Four in the newspaper. It really would have been nice to include that but Alpha Flight Collector can’t complain – we got a full reproduction of the first on-panel appearance of Alpha Flight in Uncanny X-Men #121!

Founded by the Canadian government’s Department H and led by Vindicator (later Guardian), Alpha Flight included the massive Sasquatch, mystic Shaman, Inuit goddess Snowbird, and super-speedster twins Aurora and Northstar. The team’s first contact with the X-Men occurred when Alpha Flight was ordered to bring Wolverine back to Canada; after hostilities ended, the two squads became allies. Despite soon being disbanded, Alpha Flight continued as an independent group and became allies of other worldwide heroes.

Other appearances in this book include:

• A splash page from Contest of Champions #1 featuring Sasquatch as a member of The Grandmaster’s team
• A cropped version of the trifold cover of Infinity War #4, featuring Sasquatch’s doppelgänger and Sasquatch, who is unfortunately obscured by an overlapping semi-transparent text box
• A splash page from Infinity Crusade #1 featuring Windshear, Sasquatch, Puck and Talisman answering The Goddess’ call to service, without the word “YES!”, a bizarre omission
• Art taken from the cover of X-Men: Alpha (Note: the original cover for X-Men: Alpha is foil stamped; the artwork reproduced in this issue is flat like the 2nd printing cover) featuring Age of Apocalypse Wild Child
• A panel taken from Avengers Forever #12 featuring Sasquatch from an alternate timeline in which he was a member of the Avengers

Overall, a fairly good showing for Alpha Flight and just about what was expected, but for fans who really want to learn about the history of the Marvel Universe, consider the Blockbusters of the Marvel Universe #1 handbook instead, which has full pages of extensively detailed text instead of quick blurby descriptions.

Coverage of Northstar’s wedding in the New York Daily News

New York Daily News Vol.93 -Number 333
Wednesday May 23, 2012

Marvel’s big announcement yesterday on The View that Northstar and his boyfriend Kyle were to be married in a nigh-unprecedented same-sex interracial wedding was picked up by various international news periodicals, the largest of which in New York City is the venerable New York Daily News, which has been continually published since 1919. It’s actually the fourth-largest newspaper by circulation in New York City, but none of the other large New York City papers picked up on the news, including USA Today, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, nor Newsday. The New York Daily News gave nearly a full page of coverage, the most extensive of any of the national or international papers covering this event. Guardian (Mac), Sasquatch, Snowbird, Shaman, Aurora, Puck and Marrina appear in preview art to the cover of Astonishing X-Men #51, and of course Northstar and Kyle appear as well, including images from Astonishing X-Men #50, released on the same day as this issue.

click to enlarge

The article, titled “Gay wedding for ‘X-Men’” is nearly identical to the on-line article published the day before, with a few minor wording changes. The amazing wrap-around cover to Astonishing X-Men #51 by Dustin Weaver and colored by Rachelle Rosenberg is the main illustration modified with an overlaid caption that unfortunately obscures part of Snowbird but otherwise reproduced well in newsprint. Other images in the article are a modified version of the soon-to-be famous proposal splash page by Mike Perkins which has the speech bubble thankfully enlarged, and in the lower left corner, a great image of Northstar snipped from the cover art of Astonshing X-Men #50.

It should be noted that both Reuters and AP picked up the story, so in addition to Ethan Sacks’ story above, dozens and dozens of other newspapers (in more than one language!) published an article, some with an accompanying image, some in color! Here is an abridged list of major newspapers from around the world who I have confirm to have joined The New York Daily News in correctly identifying the newsworthiness of Northstar’s wedding (all in English except where noted) by publishing the story in their print version:

Cape Breton Post, Canada
Cebu Daily, Philippines
Daily Telegraph, UK
Edmonton Journal, Canada
El Universal, Mexico (Spanish)
Hindustan Times (Delhi), India
Hindustan Times (Kolkata), India
Hindustan Times (Mumbai), India
Il Giornale, Italy (Italian)
Journal Pioneer, Canada
Kingston Whig-Standard, Canada
Los Angeles Times
Nanaimo Daily News, Canada
National Post, Canada
Northern Territory News, Australia
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
San Jose Mercury News
South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
The Amherst Daily News, Canada
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Dominion Post, New Zealand
The News, New Glasgow, Canada
The Press, New Zealand
The Southland Times, New Zealand
The Sun Times, Canada
The Timaru Herald, New Zealand
The Trentonian
Times Colonist, Canada
Toronto Star, Canada
Toronto Sun, Canada
Truro Daily News, Canada
Washington Times Daily
Winnipeg Free Press, Canada
… and more!

Nearly all of these contained at least one image, so globally the number of people who saw this Alpha Flight appearance today was likely in the tens of millions. The circulation for the New York Daily News alone is around 700,000 and is easily eclipsed by the Los Angeles Times (800,000), Daily Telegraph (900,000) and Hindustan Times (1MM+), so I’m fairly certain of this estimation.

Note: Yes, that’s Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli nude on the cover of the New York Daily News today. Sigh. Something about this blog just can’t keep the sexy away…

Alphans in Fear Itself: Fellowship of Fear #1

Fear Itself: Fellowship of Fear #1
Oct 2011

Part of the Official Handbook series, this book contains both a “Saga” portion and regular handbook entries that blend together to tell the backstory of the massive Fear Itself storyline. The first portion of the book, roughly akin to a “Fear Itself Saga”, is narrated by the Fear Lord D’Spayre and tells the story of recent events in the Marvel Universe. No, you won’t find the harmless 1980s-era funtime battle-o-rama like the Contest of Champions, or Spidey getting his new costume in Secret Wars, nah – this is all about widespread damage, high body counts and all-around devastation. The second portion consists of handbook-style entries for various dreadful characters and terrifying events in the Marvel Universe. Murmur and Radius appear in the Saga portion of the book and several members of Alpha Flight (Vindicator, Shaman, Snowbird, Sasquatch and Marrina) appear in one of the entries. Additionally, the Dreamqueen has a one page entry.

Wait – the Dreamqueen wasn’t in Fear Itself! Well, some of the events mentioned in the Saga portion and many of the entries in the handbook portion are not directly related to the Fear Itself storyline, but they do fit with the theme “all things frightening!” quite nicely, so it’s all good. For those of you who keep track of these sorts of things, she had an entry in the OHOTMU ’89 update (issue #2) and one in the OHOTMU Master Edition in 1993 (issue #28), but this one is completely re-written in the modern style – it even refers to Laura Dean as Pathway!

In the Saga portion of the book, D’Spayre gleefully recounts events in the Marvel Universe from the perspective of how frightening it must have been for the characters. For instance, The House of M storyline, which wasn’t exactly in the horror category and likely didn’t frighten any readers (who were too busy trying to figure out who was left powered and depowered in its aftermath), is described chillingly:

Millions upon millions of beings were left powerless, their very identities torn to shreds, terrified to be left vulnerable and weak in a threatening world.

Creepy, and well-done. The accompanying image for this text is taken from the array of depowered mutants as depicted in a two-page splash from New Avengers #18. The actual image shown is the modified version from the House of M entry in the Blockbusters of the Marvel Universe #1 handbook, as can be seen by the slightly rotated image [to better fit the grid into the small horizontal space]. The four Alphans shown in that array are Murmur, Radius, Wild Child and Windshear, but in this cropped image, only Murmur and the very top of Radius’ hair can be seen.

The Alphans have been highlighted in red below. Look for Radius’ hair in the extreme lower right corner of the image. For a larger version of the original and for more info on that panel and its importance to Alpha Flight, please click on the link above to the post for Blockbusters of the Marvel Universe #1.

In a new two-page entry for the Chaos War event, one of the inset illustrations is a miniaturized version of a splash page taken from the Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 one-shot showing five members of Alpha Flight watching the battle with the Great Beasts just as Walter revealed the corrupt bargain he had made with them. There is also a very well-written account of the events of that issue as well as some other mentions of the Alpha Flight resurrections in Chaos War #5 and the team’s current status.

Just in case you wanted to see Heather’s butt, here is an inset from the original page showing each of the characters in greater detail:

Oh and since this a is a blog about collecting comics, I’d like to take this opportunity to mention where I picked up my copy of this issue: Coliseum of Comics in Kissimmee, FL, while on vacation with my trusty sidekick.

It’s one of the best (and largest) comic shops I’ve been in with a great staff, a great selection and best of all, free parking! So if you’re ever in the Orlando/Disney area, make sure to stop by and check it out!

Snowbird cameo in Herc #1

Herc #1
June 2011

As advertised at the very end of Chaos War #5, Hercules returns in a new series written by Alpha Flight (volume four) writers Fred van Lente and Greg Pak. After the main story is an eight page “Hercules Saga”, describing the major events in Hercules’ life with text in caption boxes arranged around key panels from various issues. This is very similar to the “Atlas File” found at the end of Namor, The First Mutant #1. Snowbird appears in one panel as a member of the God Squad, with art reprinted from Incredible Hercules #119.

The panel as re-printed omits two text elements, a speech bubble from Amadeus Cho and the graphic descriptor, “BRZTWAKTZ”, but neither of those obscured Snowbird even in the original panel. Here is an inset from the panel as reprinted:

The accompanying text by writer John Rhett Thomas is somewhat inaccurate. It says,

Hercules headed an unlikely assortment of gods – including Snowbird, Ajak the Eternal, Demogorge and Amatsu Mikaboshi. …Hercules yielded to Athena’s wisdom and used Mikaboshi’s talents to achieve victory against the Skrull gods.

This is not exactly how it went down. In Incredible Hercules #120, Snowbird, in yet another burst of awesome, was the one who killed Kly’Bn by ramming Demogorge’s spine at full force into his back while Mikaboshi duplicitously killed Sl’Gur’T. The omission of Snowbird as being responsible for achieving victory against the Skrull gods is unfortunate, but was likely written that way because the rest of the narration had to do with Mikaboshi coming back later as the Chaos King.

Note: this issue has a variant cover by John Romita, Jr.

Herc #1 – John Romita Jr. variant

Captain Underpants joins Alpha Flight in Chaos War #5

Chaos War #5
Mar 2011

The Chaos War story line comes to its conclusion in this final issue of the five-issue mini-series. The plot lines leading up to this issue ought to be familiar to Alpha Flight fans who saw four dead members resurrected in the Chaos War: Alpha Flight one-shot, and reunited with four living members. After a brief cameo in issue #4 of this series, Alpha Flight appears more extensively, and with an important and serious outcome for the team. Guardian (Mac), Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird, Marrina, Northstar and Aurora appear in this book, having teamed up in the one-shot. Although Heather was also resurrected in that issue, she doesn’t appear in this one.

The opening page of issue #4, which showed various images of events spun out of the various mini-series, one-shots and other books of Chaos War, is mirrored with the opening page of this issue to show how they all converge together, literally and figuratively. The various characters (Thor, Hulks, Dead Avengers and Alpha Flight) are neatly brought together through some complicated space/time thingy, as explained by Sasquatch, who correctly places Alpha Flight’s former whereabouts, as mentioned in the one-shot, as Alberta. It was a nice touch for writers Greg Pak and Fred van Lente to have Walter explain this in character as a brilliant scientist instead of having Amadeus Cho give us the technobabble again.

During the battle sequence with the Chaos King baddies, only Sasquatch and Guardian are shown, and only in three panels, which is a bit disappointing since Alpha Flight at the time of this battle consisted of eight members. Perhaps it was just too much to fit into the limited space of the panels with all the busy action of the battle and overwhelming number of characters in this issue, on top of having to actually wrap up the entire story line.

For those of you who keep score, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the series penciler Koi Pham draw Sasquatch, but he does so in a markedly improved style over two previous versions in Mighty Avengers #21 and #23.

After the Chaos King is defeated, there’s an expository scene of “What just happened?”. Mac does the asking in two panels, but claims to be an actual “Rocket Scientist”, which frames him in an agreeably complimentary light as a genius, but isn’t technically right, as his background is more in petrochemicals and cybernetics than aerospace. However, since he has been in outer space at least once (OK, I won’t mention the Plodex thing from v3!), and it was an attempt to make the guy look good, I’ll give the writers a pass on this one.

It should be noted that up until this issue was published, it wasn’t known for sure whether or not the resurrections in the one-shot would be permanent or if the dead Alphans would wink out. This was explicitly stated as a known risk by the characters in the one-shot, and in a few interviews, neither Jim McCann nor any other writer confirmed there would be any more Alpha Flight beyond this issue. But, after Hercules re-sets the entire world back to how it was before, the resurrected members of Alpha Flight remain!

click here to show very big version of above panel

The resurrected members are confirmed as permanently resurrected in a quiet scene of post-hubbub solemnity on a beach at the base of the new Mount Olympus. There hasn’t been such an important turn of events in Alpha Flight history in a long time, and to add serious emphasis to the magnitude of the moment, none other than the very, very top Marvel A-List characters help out: Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America each take part. I get the sense that this formality was extended particularly as a nod to Alpha Flight fans to make up for the paltry and unceremonious way the unfortunate events of New Avengers #16 played out. The respectful gravitas of the scene isn’t lost on us, especially since other permanently resurrected characters from other parts of the Chaos War story line go unmentioned.

Unfortunately, this moment is imperfect – besides for not being a splash page featuring Alpha Flight in full, the panel has some outright mistakes. The issue still stands in the official category of “understated awesome”, but it’s fun to pick nits out of comics. First, there is a minor error in the speech bubbles. The dialogue from the previous panel reads:

Spidey: Hey, the big guy comes through. I always knew he would.
Iron Man: In more ways than one.
Captain America: How’s that?

The next line is uttered as Alpha Flight is shown on the beach: “Look who’s not dead anymore.” This ought to be uttered by Iron Man (or Spidey), but instead, the speech bubble comes from Cap, which makes no sense, as he wouldn’t be answering his own question.

Second, where’s Heather? Likely nearby, safe and sound, as Mac’s demeanor isn’t consistent with a fellow who has just lost his wife to a snarly chaos demon, but why the team would be shown this way with a pretty damn important member missing is not clear.

Third, the strange coloring in that panel, possibly caused by an odd spectrum from the sun at the horizon. Snowbird, a brunette now, is shown wearing a green cape, Marrina is wearing a red swimsuit, Iron Man (shown between Spidey and who I believe is Luke Cage) is completely miscolored, and Shaman… Shaman is shown wearing… I don’t know what… someone’s underwear? …outside of his costume? He should be drawn with just a belt!

The beach panel is the only appearance of Captain Underpants, Snowbird, Marrina and Northstar in the book. Aurora appears also, and again on the last page, seen from behind standing next to Mac as they face Mount Olympus.

Note: the cover to this issue was originally intended as the cover to the first issue of the series. Thanks to alphaflight.net member -K-M- who points out an alternate, unpublished version of the cover:

click to enlarge

What If… Alpha Flight were imperceptibly tiny?

What If? #200
Feb 2011

Note: this issue has a wraparound cover. The back is shown below and the cover in its entirety can be seen here.

I’ll speculate that somewhere last year, one of the guys over at Marvel figured out that they had published about 199 or so issues of the “What If…” series over the years and that it deserved a celebratory #200 issue.

Great idea!

After a run starting in 1977 which lasting through 1988, the series relaunched in 1989. That series ran through 1998, and lay dormant until it was relaunched in 2005 with a series of irregularly published one-shots at the rate of five or six per year that neither picked up the previous numbering nor had their own sequence, so the notion of a 200th issue really took some careful indexing and collecting. I’m obviously impressed by the effort of my speculative fellow indexer and collector. Alpha Flight appears on the covers of two What If…? issues, both of which are reprinted.

This giant issue includes a main story, “What if… Norman Osborn won the Siege of Asgard?”, a backup Watcher/Galactus story by none other than Stan “The Man” Lee, an interview with former Marvel EIC Roy Thomas, and a two-page spread featuring the question, “What was your favorite What If?” as answered by various Marvel writers, artists, editors and executives. In the response given by Tom DeFalco, who picked the one I would have picked, a thumbnail of the cover of issue #34 is reproduced, with a very very tiny image of Mac on the cover. In truth, one can barely even see it but Alpha Flight Collector knows it’s there.

A larger version of the cover:

Mac holding a beer and wearing a ski cap:

Following a full reprint of What If… #35, a Daredevil story, two double page spreads index all 200 What If… issues, including a numbering scheme for the 2005 series, the titular question for each issue, along with two giant 10×10 arrays of cover thumbnails. In the array, Alpha Flight appears on the cover of #34, as mentioned above, as well as on the cover of #59 from the second series. That issue is officially titled, “What if… Wolverine had remained a captive of Alpha Flight?”, though the tagline on the cover asks, “What if… Wolverine led Alpha Flight?” On that cover, the original six Alphans appear on the left and right side of Wolverine. Again, the cover shown is very tiny but one can make out the characters. Unfortunately a white border obscures part of Shaman.

A larger version of the cover:

Both left and right sides show the full team:

....

The back cover of issue #200:

Alphans appear in X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight

X-Men: Curse of the Mutants Spotlight
Jan 2011

Note: This issue is unnumbered. The Marvel Spotlight series, a promotional series featuring artists and events since 2005, has not been numbered, but unofficial numbering by fans was possible as issues were released. Since this issue does not even retain the title “Marvel Spotlight”, it is difficult to place it in any numbered sequence in that series.

This oddly titled issue seems at first to be focused (like, oh I don’t know, a spotlight maybe?) on the vampiric Curse of the Mutants story line, with the event logo on the cover and reprinted elements from Paco Medina’s promotional poster for the event. However, once you open it, you’ll find it’s actually a spotlight on three simultaneous events from late 2010/early 2011: Curse of the Mutants, Shadowland and Chaos War. Alpha Flight appears in reprinted art from the Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 cover.

Despite the fact that Mister Jeffries and Northstar, both members of the X-Men during the Curse of the Mutants story line, appeared in several of the event’s issues, they do not appear in the Curse of the Mutants portion of the book at all.

In the Chaos War portion of the book, a half-page interview with Jim McCann, writer of the Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1 one-shot, offers a saccharine but warmly loving account of the one-shot, which was released in the same week as this issue. Also included is a reproduction of the art from Salva Espin’s much criticized cover (note Northstar and Aurora’s reversed costumes, Northstar’s rounded ears, Shaman’s odd warpaint and Snowbird’s impossibly long cape). The interview by staff writer Dugan Trodglen can be seen in its entirety at Flightpath07′s blog: Canada’s Own – The Flight, along with a great review of the one-shot!

Captain America comments on Alpha Flight members in Heroic Age: Heroes #1

Heroic Age: Heroes #1
Nov 2010

Note: Despite the really big “Super Heroes” title on the cover, the inidicia drops the “Super”, and just leaves “Heroes”. A counterpart issue, “Villians” is solicited at the end, so it makes sense.

This files-type handbook as narrated by Captain America, who recently took over as official head honcho of all superheroes, contains 64 pages of entries in the form of note cards for various heroic characters and teams in the Marvel Universe. Written from the standpoint of a New Age “moment of clarity” as explained in the trippy introductory page, it gives a brief summary of each character, along with an comment about how the character could or couldn’t be used as a potential ally or Avenger. Aurora, Northstar, Sasquatch, Snowbird and Talisman have 1/3pg entries.

The format of the entries is a small inset picture, usually a head shot, then a listing of “Affiliations” and “Status” followed by a short set of comments. Pros and Cons are listed for each entry right above a Power Grid, a bizarre new power rating system based on heroic attributes (altruism, conscience, courage, etc.). Since most of the heroes are pretty much good guys, they all score 8s, 9s and 10s, with the exception of a few oddballs. The writers pulled off an excellent job with these entries, having only a few paragraphs to summarize entire characters, give recent info and Cap’s opinion about their suitability to join forces with him. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this one, as some of the “Cons” listed for certain characters are snarkily honest as described previously.

Each of the entries for Alpha Flight are very nicely done, factually correct, well-balanced, and sounding likely what Steve Rogers might say about them. One particularly amusing detail is in Aurora’s entry, where one of her Cons is:

usually operates under jurisdiction of the Canadian government

which at first might just be a comment on how she is outside of Captain America’s jurisdiction, until you look at what it says for other foreign nationals:

operates under jurisdiction of a foreign government

and no other foreign nationals have their country named in this manner, as if to say that working with the Canadian government is a singularly vexing Con.

Northstar’s entry has an inset image taken from the same panel of the X-Men Annual (2007) as Aurora’s, and Cap flat out says he could make a “very talented Avenger” which is an interesting comment, but unlikely to happen any time soon.

Sasquatch’s entry has an inset image taken from the cover of Alpha Flight v3 #10 and also suggests that Captain America will be “reaching out to [him] as a potential ally”, but how and where this would occur isn’t known. Strangely, he doesn’t mention “Walter Langkowski” by name, which is just as good because it would likely be misspelled, anyway.

Snowbird’s entry has an inset image taken from her 8pp story in Marvel Heartbreakers #1 and reveals more explicitly about the ending of her second marriage, mentioning the unfortunate events of New Avengers #16 where several Alphans were killed, “the stress of which caused her marriage to self-proclaimed demigod Yukon Jack to fall apart.”

Talisman’s entry has an inset image taken from the cover of Omega Flight #1 and makes a particular point to refer to her tribe as Tsuu T’ina, but also as Sarcee, the deprecated Blackfoot term. Unfortunately, her power is only listed as 8/10, which really ought to be higher if Captain America had more experience working with her.

The individual Alpha Flight members listed have had less association with the Avengers than some others, and most all of them are dead: Gary Cody from Avengers #249; Roger Bochs from Avengers #272; Marrina from Avengers #282-293; Puck, Heather, Diamond Lil and Shaman from Avengers #320-324; all dead! Notably missing from this issue is Madison Jeffries who appeared in the Crossing Line story arc in the Box armor. Why Aurora and Northstar were listed but not Jeffries is puzzling, as Jeffries has had about the same interaction with the Avengers as the twins, and they were all active X-Men members at the time of publication. Otherwise, five surviving members of Alpha Flight did make it onto Captain America’s radar, a very nice showing in an enjoyable handbook.

Northstar and Jeffries in Origins of Marvel Comics: X-Men #1

Origins of Marvel Comics: X-Men #1
Nov 2010

Similar to other “Origins” style books, this is a collection of single-page illustrated origin stories. Written, drawn and colored by a wide variety of creators, thirty-six X-Men members (out of a much larger pool) have entries that cover the basics of their origin and backstory. Though it’s laughably impossible to write anything remotely comprehensive in a single illustrated page, the writers succeeded in telling a nice synopsis in the short space allowed, and in some cases include well-researched details that surprise even the sophisticated reader. Some of the material is directly reprinted from earlier books of this type, and some entries for characters previously included were re-written, notably Wolverine’s entry from Origins of Siege #1 (which had already been reprinted) to exclude Mac and Heather. Northstar gets a full page entry and Jeffries appears in the full page entry for the X-Club. Additionally, Vindicator (Mac), Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird and Aurora appear in Northstar’s entry.

The page layout of Northstar’s entry is divided into quadrants using the Beaubier’s signature starburst shape. The upper left quadrant shows a highly glared-out version of what Nightcrawler saw when Northstar and Aurora used their brilliant light power in Uncanny X-Men #120, their first appearance. Here are the panels from that book depicting the event from a different perspective:

Note that in that issue, the reader was shown only shadows of the twins (which are reversed left to right from what you would expect to see from the rear perspective), and it wouldn’t be until issue #121 that we would see a full appearance.

The second quadrant shows Alpha Flight standing on stage with Canadian Flags draped behind them at some unspecified time, but likely before they were disbanded by the Canadian government and before issue #1, since neither Puck nor Marrina are shown. The lower left quadrant shows a re-creation of Northstar’s absurdly arrogant portrayal in Uncanny X-Men #414 just prior to his failed rescue of the explosive mutant boy Peter, marking the first time he joined up with the X-Men. The final quadrant shows him kicking Skrull ass in San Francisco, in re-creation of what was otherwise an off-panel brawl in Secret Invasion: X-Men #2 (2008). Overall, a nice single page summary with accurate art elements from David Yardin, who got the pointy ears right (though it is sad that it needs to be mentioned since it’s a basic element of the character’s appearance). He put a circumscribed “X” on Northstar’s costume in the Secret Invasion portion of the page, which could be either an error, since he wasn’t wearing the X in that issue and wasn’t an official member back then, or just artistic license to show a canonical image of his current costume.

Mister Jeffries appears in a catch-all page for the X-Club (the X-Men Science Team), with individual panels for each current member, one panel showing Beast recruiting them, and a posed team image in a larger panel. A younger version of Jeffries is shown (before his temples grew in grey), working on his Box armor – a great choice made by writer Si Spurrier to show Madison’s super-heroic origins.

Note the “A” (for Alpha) on his jacket indicating again the image is from a time when he was still in Alpha Flight. Compare this to the erroneous Lambda symbol we saw on a similar or same jacket in X-Men Legacy Annual #1, now corrected very nicely by Phil Noto.

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A current (older) version of Jeffries is also shown, now with his signature greyed out temples, flannel shirt and absentminded floating bits of metal – another great canonical image!

Overall, a good showing for Jeffries for this type of book, but Alpha Flight Collector would have preferred Jeffries have his own page rather than share it with two other members.

Red tentacled amoeboid crawls onto Guardian; fans excited and confused

Avengers #4
Oct 2010

Sold as a convention exclusive at the Fan Expo Canada 2010 in Toronto, this variant cover by penciler Phil Jiminez and colorist Frank G. D’Armata is one of the greatest Alpha Flight team shots ever published. Advertised as a low print run of 1,000 copies on the Fan Expo website, it originally sold for $10 in Canadian dollars at the show, which is like, what, $3.99 in US dollars? 1.583 Euros? Something like that. Alpha Flight only appears on the cover, not inside, leaving Alpha Flight Collector to happily tape shut this book forever, never having to read a single word from its much hated writer Brian Michael Bendis (who I hate and who is a stupid jerk for killing off Alpha Flight in New Avengers #16), whose accursed name is thankfully left off the cover, allowing fans to enjoy an unblemished blast of pure awesome.

The choice of classic characters (including Snowbird in arctic owl form) hints to honor Canadian creator John Byrne, as only Byrne-era characters and costumes are shown. Note also that Heather is shown out of the E-M suit, just as Byrne left her. The only flaw on the image is the oddly shaped maple leaf element on Guardian’s costume, which Jiminez actually attempted to copy from a Byrne image. The soft snow effects were added later by Frank G. D’Armata and is an excellent example (as particularly emphasized by Jiminez) of the impact a colorist can have on a piece.

A very large full-sized version of the artwork without the title block and letters can be found here (LGT comicbookresources.com)