Alpha Flight is a fictional team of Canadian superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters premiered in The Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979), and were created to serve as part of the X-Men member Wolverine's backstory. Marvel published an Alpha Flight comic book series from 1983 to 1994. The team serves as Marvel's premier Canadian superhero team akin to America's Avengers.
Publication history
Created by British-born Canadian-raised writer and artist John Byrne, the team's leader - Weapon Alpha (later renamed to Guardian), first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #109. The full team, which was also created by Byrne, then first appeared in a two-part story in The Uncanny X-Men #120 and 121. Byrne never intended the team to be an ongoing title. He created them "merely to survive a fight with the X-Men" for the purposes of that story. Marvel convinced Byrne to feature them in their own series as a way to capitalize on Byrne's soaring popularity with comics fans at the time, but he never found them to have compelling stories or backgrounds and left the title after writing and pencilling the first 28 issues.
The 1985 X-Men and Alpha Flight limited series was originally to be pencilled by Byrne, but he was unable to fit it into his heavy schedule, so the assignment was given to former X-Men artist Paul Smith, who had never drawn Alpha Flight before. Smith said his approach was to try "to be faithful to the way John did them without drawing them the way John's drawn them." The series was written by Chris Claremont, who collaborated with Byrne on the story which introduced Alpha Flight, and inked by Bob Wiacek, who was the inker on Alpha Flight for most of Byrne's last year on the series.
Alpha Flight's ongoing series continued until 1994, lasting 130 issues as well as annuals and miniseries. There have been three short-lived revivals since then, including an eight-issue limited series in 2011–12, after the resurrection of the team in the one shot comic Chaos War: Alpha Flight during the Chaos War event.
Most team members have distinctly Canadian attributes, such as having Inuit/First Nations or French 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.
Fictional team biography
The Flight
Alpha Flight was preceded by a team called "The Flight". This team first appeared in Alpha Flight Special vol. 2 #1 (1992).
Inspired by the debut of the Fantastic Four, James Hudson refined the purpose of Department H to find and develop Canada's superheroes. New recruit Groundhog joins Snowbird, St. Elmo, Stitch, Wolverine (as Weapon X) and Smart Alec in training. Within a week, the Flight is pressed into their first battle with Egghead's incarnation of the Emissaries of Evil (consisting of Rhino, Solarr, Eel, Porcupine, Power Man and Swordsman). Egghead threatens the United States from Canadian soil with a nuclear missile. Smart Alec disables the missile's guidance system, but Egghead triggers the detonation sequence. Smart Alec panics, leading to St. Elmo transforming the missile and the bomb into light. St. Elmo succeeds, but loses himself in the process. Groundhog and Michael Twoyoungmen scold Hudson for sending the team into battle while so inexperienced, with a near psychotic leader (Weapon X) and someone who folds under pressure. Hudson thus makes plans for a tiered team system, leading to the formation of Alpha, Beta and Gamma Flight.
Pre-regular series
Alpha Flight first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979), in which they are sent to follow up on Vindicator's first mission to retrieve Wolverine from the X-Men (The Uncanny X-Men #109).
The initial makeup of (Alpha Flight) was drawn from all corners of Canada and included:
Guardian: Originally Weapon Alpha, then Vindicator, James MacDonald Hudson is a scientist from London, Ontario who wears a suit of battle-armor, allowing him to fly and manipulate Earth's magnetic field. Guardian is the team's first leader; he wears a stylized Canadian maple leaf flag on his costume.
Northstar: Jean-Paul Beaubier from Montreal, Quebec is a mutant with powers of super-speed and light generation.
Aurora: Jeanne-Marie Beaubier is Northstar's twin sister who has dissociative 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 Vancouver, British Columbia who can transform into a giant fur-covered beast resembling his namesake. 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's powers are actually derived from the mystical monster Tanaraq.
Shaman: Michael Twoyoungmen is a First Nations medicine man from Calgary, Alberta. He is both a skilled doctor and sorcerer.
Snowbird: Also known as Narya, she is an Inuk demi-goddess from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories who can transform into animals of the north.
According to Byrne, Guardian and Snowbird were "fan characters", created before he became professionally involved in comics, and he created all the remaining members while working on X-Men #120, specifically designing them to be balanced with the X-Men in power.
Volume 1
The first (Alpha Flight) comic book series started in 1983 which ran until 1994.
Promoted from Beta Flight despite Department H being closed down by the Canadian government were:
Marrina Smallwood: 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, Saskatchewan with enhanced strength and extraordinary acrobatic abilities.
Heather MacNeil is married to James Hudson. After Guardian's apparent death in Alpha Flight #12, she becomes the leader of the team. Later, she utilizes a replica of his battle suit and costume and takes the codename of Vindicator then Guardian.
Alpha Flight continued for 130 issues, and introduced dozens of characters and villains (the most prominent of which were Talisman, Madison Jeffries, Box, Diamond Lil, Wild Child, Persuasion, and Witchfire).
Limited-Series (1991)
This limited series, published from July to October 1991, reprints Alpha Flight (Volume 1) #97-#100.
Volume 2
In 1997, Marvel relaunched the series with different characters. 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, Quebec with powers of mind-control and teleportation.
Radius: Jared Corbo is a mutant with the ability to create a force field.
General Clarke: The 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 Department H 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 brainwashed 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. Department H also arranged the kidnapping of Diamond Lil, another former Alpha Flight member and Madison Jeffries' wife, when she began to inquire about the location of her husband, with the intent of using her as a test subject for illegal medical experiments.
The series ended with issue #20 with most of the major storylines, such as the identity of the younger version of Guardian, unresolved, until Wolverine vol. 2 #142-143, 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 new team recruited by Sasquatch includes:
Centennial: Rutherford Princeton 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: 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.
"Waxing Poetic", the second six-issue story arc, sees 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.
Omega Flight
Sasquatch, Guardian, Vindicator, Shaman, Major Mapleleaf, and both Pucks are attacked and killed by a new villain, the Collective (inhabiting the body of postal worker Michael Pointer), in New Avengers #16. Pointer continues on to the United States, leaving their bodies in the Yukon Territory.
The Alpha Flight title was relaunched as Omega Flight in April, 2007 as a five-issue mini-series. The new series was written by Michael Avon Oeming and drawn by Scott Kolins. The current roster includes Beta Ray Bill, U.S. Agent, Arachne, Talisman, and Michael Pointer in a suit that looks like Guardian's uniform. Sasquatch appears as the group's recruiter and leader. Since the mini-series, the team disbanded. Beta Ray Bill exited; U.S. Agent joined Hank Pym's new Avengers team; Pointer, now calling himself Omega, joined Norman Osborn's Dark X-Men; and Julia Carpenter became the new Madame Web.
"Chaos War"
In the 2010 storyline Chaos War, the four mainstay surviving members of Alpha Flight (Snowbird, Aurora, Northstar and Sasquatch) are reunited with Guardian, Vindicator, Shaman and Marrina Smallwood returning from the grave after Amatsu-Mikaboshi's victory in the death realms. The group bands together to fight the Great Beasts. Amatsu-Mikaboshi impales the Great Beasts. The resurrected members of Alpha Flight remain among the living after the defeat of Amatsu-Mikaboshi. At the same time, Puck appears in the "Wolverine Goes to Hell" storyline in Wolverine (2010), beginning in issue #2.
Volume 4
In 2011, the team appeared in a series tied to the crossover storyline Fear Itself, with the newly alive team to be joined by Puck. Alpha Flight provides rescue efforts for the victims of a tsunami unleashed by Attuma in the form of Nerkodd: Breaker of Oceans. As Sasquatch, Shaman, and Vindicator help save victims of the water itself, Guardian saves a news crew when their helicopter is shot down by Nerkodd. As Marrina Smallwood and Aurora also arrive to help fight Nerkodd, the female reporter that Guardian saved comments to the television viewers on why Northstar isn't with the team.
After providing rescue efforts for victims of the disaster, Guardian ejects Nerkodd from the country by dumping him off the coast of Cape Race. Once Nerkodd is defeated and repelled, Alpha Flight returns to their headquarters and are betrayed by Gary Cody and his newly elected Unity Party. To make things worse, Vindicator has sided with him. It is shown that six weeks ago, Guardian and Vindicator were unable to regain custody of their child Claire. In the present, Marrina is dehydrated, Sasquatch's gamma energy is drained enough for him to revert to his human form of Walter Langkowski, and Aurora and Snowbird are taken down as well. While bringing Guardian to the Box Units for imprisonment, Vindicator is ambushed by Puck. After knocking out Vindicator, Puck tells Guardian that he had just returned to life after his fight with Ba'al.
At Parliament Hill, Walter is informed by Agent Jeff Brown that the concussions he had when he played football will cause him to act less human when he changes back into Sasquatch. Jeff also tells Walter that he will soon achieve Unity. Meanwhile, Marrina pretends to give in to the Unity treatment so that she can break free. Shaman manages to knock out Jeff and frees Walter, while Guardian frees Snowbird. Northstar and Puck manage to find Marrina, who has knocked out the guards and scientists present. After Alpha Flight escaped, they learned that Gary Cody and his Unity Party are a group of fascists. Northstar abducts a Department H operative and uses aerial torture in order to learn where Department H took Kyle Jinadu.
After reclaiming her daughter Claire from her cousin, Vindicator assembles Alpha Strike (consisting of Persuasion, Ranark, a Wendigo, and a brainwashed Citadel) in order to spread the Unity program and take down Alpha Flight. It is soon discovered that Master of the World is behind the Unity Party, the formation of Alpha Strike and what has happened to Department H as he introduces himself to Kyle Jinadu.
Alpha Flight ends up robbing a treasury to fund a special tactical training from Taskmaster in an isolated Yukon Territory. While overseeing the formation of a revolution against the Unity Party, Guardian, Sasquatch, and Shaman hatch a desperate and dangerous plan that involves the bad personality of Aurora. Aurora's personality begins to cause her to become unstable to herself and Alpha Flight. Meanwhile, the Master of the World explains his history involving the Plodex to Claire. Alpha Flight manages to rescue Kyle Jinadu and encounter Wolverine.
At a beach in Ontario with Claire, Vindicator is visited by Wolverine who states that the people in the United States are becoming concerned about the Unity Party's actions. When Wolverine notices that Vindicator calls the rest of Alpha Flight traitors, Wolverine decides to investigate. Wolverine finds Alpha Flight and learns of their revolution against the Unity Party. He agrees to help them take back Canada just as Alpha Strike attacks. During the ensuing fight, Alpha Flight managed to capture Persuasion as she is a component for a cure that would be used against the Unity Process. Alpha Flight, Wolverine, and Taskmaster are then prepared to take Canada back as Master of the World comes out of hiding.