Time once again to take a preventive antibiotic suppository
and slither into the increasingly toxic Bargain Basement of Dooooom. This week,
we’re heading west from our underground Scottish lair, but maintaining our
latitude, on a visit to Canada’s finest: ALPHA FLIGHT (vol.1). Admittedly, this
doesn’t quite fit this column’s penny-pinching remit, given that a couple of
the early issues (especially #11 and #12) are fairly desirable. But still, most
of them can be bought for beans. Canadian beans.
Our first sighting of Alpha Flight came in Uncanny X-Men #109, way back in
1978, when Guardian (then known as Weapon Alpha, later Vindicator), the team
leader, interrupted a picnic to forcibly return Wolverine to Canada. Nobody
likes a ruined picnic, particularly not the X-Men, and Guardian was
unceremoniously sent back oop north alone. A year or so later, in #120, the
X-Men are stranded in Montreal and we finally meet Alpha Flight for the first
time, as they try once again to retrieve their unwitting former comrade.
Both of these issues were pencilled by comics titan and
legendarily difficult human being John Byrne. As an aside, he is the man who is
largely responsible for Wolverine’s ubiquity. Early in the life cycle of the
post-Giant-Size X-Men #1 team, Wolverine was not popular with readers or
creators, and was in line to be killed off. For Byrne, a child of the north, it
was a deal-breaker that the team included a Canadian. He then went on to almost
single-handedly turn Wolverine into the star of the book (especially with #133
– but that’s a story for a more profligate column).
In 1983, Alpha Flight got their own title. Byrne, at that time busy with his
own massively successful Fantastic Four title, somewhat reluctantly
(surprising, given his forthright attitude towards representing his country)
took on the title as writer and artist, and remained on board for the first 28
issues – not coincidentally, the only issues of Alpha Flight you really need.
The initial lineup comprised Vindicator/Guardian in his maple leaf-adorned
electro-magnetic battlesuit, magician Shaman, demi-god Snowbird, speedster
twins Northstar and Aurora and man-monster Sasquatch. As first issues go, Alpha
Flight #1 starts in a remarkably downbeat manner. The team’s funding and
government backing has been withdrawn, and the opening splash features a
redundant Guardian (James Macdonald Hudson) standing, despondent, in the shell
of the headquarters he must now vacate. The team is in tatters, scattered
across the country and facing an uncertain future, before a heedless John
Lennon-looking imbecile summons a colossal (seriously, kaiju-scale) monster
called Tundra, and everyone is called in to help, including some new recruits
who never got the chance to be activated: amphibian Marrina and diminutive
acrobat Puck.
From here on in, it’s a wild, strange ride. In only the
second issue, Marrina rips open Puck’s guts, which leads to a confrontation
with former Neanderthal/would-be conqueror The Master and a guest appearance
from Namor and the Invisible Woman. Bizarrely, Byrne chooses to completely
derail the team’s story at a very early stage, with issues #5–10 being solo
tales for some of the key members. When they reconvene in #11 and #12, it’s for
a deadly showdown with their arch-enemies Omega Flight, the ending of which was
shocking then and still pretty traumatic even now.
What’s interesting about the weird, fractured structure of
these first 12 issues is that it’s essentially a post-mortem. Alpha Flight,
Canada’s premier super-team, have had their day. They’re past their prime,
defunct, unnecessary. But, outside of three old X-Men issues, their supposedly
illustrious history is never shown, barely even alluded to – Byrne doesn’t
bother to build them up before he knocks them down. We begin with the team’s
desolation, enjoy a brief revitalisation, then everyone goes their separate
ways, only to reconvene for some punch-in-the-guts tragedy. It should feel
hollow, but it works. It’s the diffuse, cobbled-together nature of the book
that gives it its unique atmosphere. The characters subsequently began to
cohere a little more as a team, but they would remain a fairly loose assembly
until after Byrne left the book.
Alpha Flight is not so much a super-team book as a character
study of a group of people, some of whom intensely dislike each other or are at
best indifferent, who are perpetually down on their luck and plagued by myriad
personal problems. Aurora suffers from a split personality; Northstar is an
arrogant bastard, Olympic-level sports cheat and protective of his sister to a
fault; Puck’s lovable rogue persona masks his constant pain and unrequited love
for Guardian’s wife Heather; Sasquatch is losing control of the monstrous side
of his being; Snowbird is rootless, caught between the worlds of men and gods;
Marrina disembowels her team-mates without warning, without knowing why;
Shaman, seemingly one of the few well-adjusted members, has a daughter who
hates him, and for whose horrifying fate he would ultimately be responsible. As
for James Hudson – a scientist rather than a leader or warrior – he’s the poor
sap charged with bringing together this band of misfits. As the series goes on,
his wife Heather takes an increasingly central role, and ultimately ends up
with the heaviest burdens to shoulder.
For all the dubious attitudes that have become apparent in
Byrne’s later years, there are two interesting socio-political aspects of early
Alpha Flight: First, the development of Heather Hudson from an appealing but
everyday supporting character to an extremely strong and competent (if powerless)
leader of a bunch of metahumans, echoing the role played by Storm over in X-Men
at the time. There’s an argument to be made for the at least feminist-lite
leanings of young Byrne. No, really. His run as X-Men penciller, in which he
was said to contribute heavily to storylines, was full of strong female characters
(although, admittedly, this is something Claremont always excelled at too). In
FF, Byrne took the underpowered, devalued and patronisingly named Invisible
Girl and made her into the Invisible Woman – the most powerful member of the
team (even if the traumatic means by which he did so were questionable at best).
He also introduced She-Hulk to the team and established her as a strong, multi-layered,
fan-favourite character (even if, both in FF and her solo series, he was very
quick to use her sex appeal as a crutch – or even a flimsy plot point). However,
although I’d argue that Byrne made a significant contribution to improving the
representation of women in comics, he also inflicted his share of damage, all
too quick to resort to objectification and sexualised violence.
Secondly, and less equivocally, the subtle, sensitive treatment of Northstar’s
sexuality. Due to the twin conservative twattery of the Comics Code Authority
and Jim Shooter’s editorial mandates, Northstar was not allowed to come out as
openly gay until #106 (1992). However, reading between the lines, Byrne makes
his orientation entirely clear as early as #7 (1984), in which it’s strongly
implied that Northstar’s old friend Raymonde Belmonde was a very dear friend
indeed. Despite not being allowed to depict homosexuality, Byrne did so anyway,
under the radar, presenting a mature relationship characterised by affection,
respect and tenderness in way that’s in no way sensationalist or prurient or
judgemental.
All of Byrne’s run is worth a look, but those first 12
issues are one of the great comic runs as far as I’m concerned, not only for
their curiously disjointed narrative arc, but for the strength of storytelling and
characterisation. And not least, for the art. For a good few years, Byrne was
perhaps the biggest comic-art superstar since Jack Kirby. His run on X-Men
revealed him to be a major talent, his pencils extremely physical and robust,
yet capable of great subtlety and powerful character moments. For me, his work
on Alpha Flight, as much as he is said to be not fond of the series, is some of
his best. The scene in #1 where Sasquatch attacks Tundra with the ferocity of a
feral beast, but the effectiveness of a dormouse attacking a rhino, is one of
the great underplayed fight scenes.
In fact, any time Sasquatch is on panel is a delight, as
Byrne really conveys both his bestial power and his genius-level intelligence.
Plus, he’s basically naked apart from the fact that he has a built-in hairy
loincloth. One stiff breeze and the Comics
Code Authority stamp would go up in flames. Byrne’s designs for the clothed
members of the team are really well thought-out, too – each of the original
lineup has his or her own individual costume, but on closer inspection all
share complementary maple-leaf-inspired design elements. Byrne was also pretty
damn audacious (or possibly contemptuous) – pressed for time with
Fantastic Four duties, he set the sixth issue’s fight scene between Snowbird
and Arctic beast Kolomaq in a blizzard, resulting in five pages that are
entirely white except for sound effects and dialogue.
Following Byrne’s departure, Alpha Flight ran until #130, amazingly, with
precious little to recommend in that time. Three more volumes came and went, to
very little fanfare. Characters left and joined and lived and died and were
resurrected, but that curious, dysfunctional Byrne magic was never again
recaptured.
(a shorter version of this article was originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)
