John, did you have a model for Delphine Courtney?  There’s a couple of panels where I can only see Diana Rigg talking to Heather. 

This issue unnerved me a bit as a 11-year-old kid, the image of Mac's flaming skull in the pile of ash on the final page most of all.

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SER: A few years ago, I watched STAR WARS with a friend of mine and she commented that when she first saw the film when she was a kid, she'd never noticed the "remains" of Luke's aunt and uncle. It was as if her child's mind told her it "wasn't there."

I remember being so bummed after reading this issue.  Guardian was my favorite character in Alpha Flight.  I pretty much lost interest in Alpha Flight after this issue. 

Absolutely stunning issue, and perhaps the best of the entire run.

I believe I was first exposed to Alpha Flight when I read Guardian's entry in one of the "deceased" volumes of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

The bio--and the description of his death--greatly intrigued me. I found AF # 12 among the back issues at the local comic shop, and was blown away (no pun intended). I'm not entirely sure, but I think this may have been my first issue of the series.

I quickly became an Alpha Flight nut, and sought out JB's entire run.

But # 12 is still one of my all-time favorites. And it's also absolutely devastating.

There's a tiny hint that even if Heather hadn't opened the door at that moment, Mac probably still would have died. Of course, that's something that only the readers know, not Heather herself.

And I still can't figure out what panel 4 on page 37 is supposed to be. A close-up of Mac's burning face? A medium shot? A full-body shot? It just looks like a distorted blob of flamey stuff to me.

Any thoughts on that?

Something else I've wondered about...even though Bochs was in the room when Jaxon got fried, in later issues, he seems to think that Jaxon is still alive. An error (which I find to be highly unlikely), or something else?

There's a tiny hint that even if Heather hadn't opened the door at that moment, Mac probably still would have died. Of course, that's something that only the readers know, not Heather herself.

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She heads down that path later...