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Welcome to The Flight Stuff: a podcast about Canada’s premiere superhero team!
In 1983, comic book writer and artist John Byrne lifted his original team, Alpha Flight, from the pages of Uncanny X-Men and dropped them into their own, eponymous series. Over the course of 11 years, the Canadian super team — Guardian, Sasquatch, Puck, Snowbird, Shaman, Aurora, Northstar, and others along the way — battled foes large and small, with adventures steeped in social commentary and uniquely Canadian issues and themes.
Join comic book enthusiasts Liam, Adrianna and Doug as they make their way through the original series issue by issue, character by character, Byrnism by Byrnism, with occasional detours through Canadian cultural history. So sit back, listen up and get right with the Flight!
We’ve got an action-packed episode today as the team pages through THREE issues of Alpha Flight: #22, 23 and the double-sized, perilous issue #24!
We discover more about Northstar’s mysterious past, Sasquatch isn’t all what he seems, and the Flight take a journey to the center of the Realm of the Great Beasts! We had our work cut out for us this time around, with a lot to tackle, from plot twists to surprising character development, and as usual, fabulously detailed art. Two out of three hosts (boo, Liam!) agree: the arc that plays out across issues #23-24 is one of the best of the series so far. Join us and find out why in this episode of The Flight Stuff!
As always, thank you for listening!
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please drop us a line at [email protected].
Follow us on Twitter: @flightstuffpod
1 Comment
E Gubbins
Some disconnected thoughts on this episode…
Issue 22
I think the story would be better if the person Heather sees in the crowd on page 7, and thinks is her dead husband, is just some random guy and NOT the villain she encounters again in a subsequent issue. If it were just a random guy, it would underscore how desperate Heather is to believe that her husband’s not dead and thus how susceptible she is to being tricked into thinking that he’s alive in a later issue, by the aforementioned villain.
Issue 23
I liked this issue a lot, as you all did. But I’m surprised you weren’t as bummed as I was (or just didn’t mention it) about the fact that this issue means the death of Sasquatch, who is my second favorite character, behind Puck. IMO, Sasquatch is a much more appealing character than Box and fits the Canadian premise better than Box. Sure, his death isn’t permanent, but we don’t know that when we finish this issue. And because the first two years of the series didn’t include enough issues with Alpha working together as a team, getting rid of Sasquatch is disappointingly premature.
Issue 24: Teach Me to be a Woman
Interesting to hear the split opinions you had of this issue. The art’s great, yes — except for the cover, on which everything seems far away, for some reason, minimizing the drama. And I don’t think Puck contributes anything on this adventure, so why even drag him along? (A Puck vs. Tundra battle could go on for 12 pages before Tundra knew it was happening.) I just want to point out that the team was shocked to discover that they had been lied to by someone they refer to as “The Artificer;” artifice is IN HIS NAME.