JOHN BYRNE'S ALPHA FLIGHT COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY...

Canada's coolest super-team (spot the pun)...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

 

Back in the early '80s, John Byrne was a hot property as a writer and artist at Marvel.  In that dual capacity on The Fantastic Four, he had made the FF 'The World's Greatest Comic Magazine!' again and it seemed like there was no stopping him.  When his newest title at the time hit the stands, I leapt aboard, and stayed with the mag for all of Byrne's 28 issues.  In fact, I stayed beyond that when a new creative team took over and The Byrnester jumped ship over to The Hulk for 6 issues, but most of my non-Byrne issues are up in the loft somewhere and it's only his run that I keep relatively handy.

 

I no longer recall for sure, but I may've been living in my current house when the first ish came out, but had probably flitted before the next couple of them went on sale.  The first issue is cover-dated August, which means it would usually go on sale on or around May, and that was the month in which I moved.  It therefore depends at what point in May it was available as to whether I was living in one house or the other; not that it's important to you.  (An added difficulty in determining the precise date is that I  think comics sometimes hit shops in advance of their usual 'on sale' date, so #1 of AF might have been released before May.)

 

Anyway, as regular readers know, I returned this house just over 4 years later, but I've never looked past these comics' covers in the 33 years I've been back, so I'm well-overdue to refresh my memory as to why John Byrne could once seemingly do no wrong for so long and plan on re-reading these mags first chance I get.  In the meantime though, I thought I'd treat you Crivvies to a look at his covers and splash pages from the first 10 issues, with the remainder to follow in two parts in the very near future.  At last you have something to look forward to and your life is once again meaningful.  Am I a great guy or not?

 

Did you buy Alpha Flight back in the day?  What are your memories, and why do you think that John Byrne was so popular at the time, but eventually seemed to fall out of favour with readers and comics publishers alike?  Or is that an unfair assessment that does him an injustice?  Thoughts, theories, and observations are welcome in the comments section.  

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