This book was an awesome beginning to the series.  (Which had ups and downs, but we'll discuss that later.)  Can't wait to see the Overlord next issue!

Imagine how thrilled I must be, that two editorial screw-ups (actually, mind-
bogglingly, the same screw up twice!!) have taken from me for all time
the right to say No Book of Mine Has Ever Shipped Late!

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Given all the hands a comic has to pass through, I think a better (fairer?) judge of an artist would be 'I have never turned in any pages late.'

Looking back at a comic like this, and seeing realistic proportions to the characters is such a breath of fresh air.  Heather really looks like someone that could live next door... Jean-Paul dosn't have bulging muscles... Walter looks like a guy that kept in good shape after football... and so on and so on.  I hate picking up a comic where everyone looks like a model out of a magazine.

I wish I could find a copy of the promo poster that my local bookshop had advertising AF #1.  I remember being really excited while waiting the issue to come out.

I loved Alpha Flight.  My first exposure was in black and white in the SECRET WARS weekly and I thought these characters followed the MARVEL concept of Super Heroes in the real world perfectly.  The cast of ALPHA were real people with real problems and inhabited a real world and is comparable to WATCHMEN or SQUADRAN SUPREME.  It was 'decompressed' story-telling done in an exquisite way (issues taking place at the same time, stories about individul members, an over arching 12 issue plus story) and featured some steller character development.  It is, to me anyway, a vastly underated comic book awaiting rediscovery.

I purchased all the US issues in one fell swoop at a Manchester comic mart.  I saved up £30 (A lot of money to me in 1988) and set that budget for purcashing all 28 issues that John did as the UK weekly didn't publish the entire series. 

I have never read any issues of ALPHA since John left and have no intention of doing so.  It is a masterful piece of work that seems to have been largly forgotten by scholars of comic books.

Andy

The problem with that Bill, is that we need to assue that Mac is bright enough to not only design the suit in the first place but also pilot it.

I'd be useless in reviewing -any- of the AF run of Johns as I can't take off the rose-tinted glasses that I see it through. That run formed a backdrop to so much of my adolescence and formative art years that Angels practically play their harps every time I open any of those issues!

Funny how nostalgia grips us and effects our memories.