Category: Alpha Flight

Marvel Team-Up Annual 7 (1984)

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Did Louise Simonson get paid by the word? Ten pages into this issue and I was already ready for a nap. It’s the most boring comic book I can remember reading–Spidey and Marrina (from Alpha Flight) get kidnapped by an alien collecting lifeforms, including some Superman might want in his zoo, and Alpha Flight shows up to help them.

Actually, Alpha Flight shows up to bicker. According to John Byrne, Northstar was always supposed to be gay but Byrne isn’t writing this issue so one has to wonder if another possibility was he was supposed to have the hots for his sister, Aurora.

Most of the issue is spent with Northstar acting like a perv in regards to her.

If I never read another Alpha Flight comic again, it’ll be way too soon. What a miserable time.

Amusingly, Simonson seems to get it–Spidey comments on their lame behavior.

CREDITS

The Collected Spider-Man; writer, Louise Simonson; penciller, Paul Neary; inker, Sam de la Rosa; colorist, Joe Rosen; letterer, Christie Scheele; editor, Danny Fingeroth; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Alpha Flight (1983) #28

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You know, Alpha Flight? Not bad. I’m always somewhat loathe to compliment John Byrne (he draws Guardian’s wife like a whore, by the way, there’s something about redheaded white Canadians in boots and glasses, makes them look like whores), but he manages a team book pretty well. I had some trouble keeping up (did Marvel market Alpha Flight to U.S. readers or was it just their Canadian book?), but managed.

The ending’s dumb (the Hulk shows up from another dimension), but until then, it’s decent.

The opening, featuring the defeat of the Omega Flight (they’re the bad guys) by some guy from Gamma Flight, is solid too. Byrne’s art’s not, but his writing’s okay here. It’s a long scene with some good fighting and some good banter between the bad guys and the good guy (from Gamma Flight) out to stop them.

Goofy Beyonder cameo, but Byrne draws him well.