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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!
Episode 9 starts off with some fun speculation as the team ponders the possibility of an Alpha Flight movie making its way into Phase 4 or 5 of the MCU. Which actors would land a role? And should they (or the creative team) be Canadian? A spirited discussion ensues before the team shifts focus to Alpha Flight #20 and 21.
An Aurora and Sasquatch-focused story plays out across both issues in one of the strangest, most horror-influenced arcs we’ve seen from Byrne so far in this series. All three hosts are in agreement: these issues rule. There’s tragedy, intrigue, and some wild plot twists, all bolstered by some of the strongest and most consistent art the book has to offer up to this point.
PLUS: Puck and Shaman’s heart-to-heart! Aurora like we’ve never seen her before! And just how do these issues further tie the Flight to the Fantastic Four? Find out in this episode of The Flight Stuff!
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please drop us a line at [email protected].
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1 Comment
E Gubbins
Re: “Puck and Shaman’s heart-to-heart,” it’s weird how many times characters in Alpha Flight, when speaking to Puck, address him as “friend Judd.” Nevermind that Judd is actually his LAST name (his “friends” apparently don’t call him Eugene, or Gene — or “E”). Why the constant qualifier? It seems a little patronizing. Try spending an episode of the podcast referring to one another as “Friend Tilley” and “Friend Gober” and see if that sounds natural. It’s worst when Shaman does it, because it implies awkward things about the way “Friend Byrne” thinks Native American physicians in the 1980s spoke.
I have mixed feelings about the cover of Issue 21. On one hand, as you guys pointed out on the show, it’s good to see an action shot with our heroes battling a bad guy, since we’ve gone four issues without that at this point. But what I don’t like about this cover is that the bad guy, Diablo, doesn’t seem like much of a threat. He looks kind of scrawny, his costume’s kind of lame, the foreground suggests that he’s focused a lot on making pottery, and he’s outnumbered two to one. The only threat he poses, that the cover communicates, is the ability to shoot some kind of beam from his hands that Sasquatch easily bats away with one palm like it’s coming from a squirt gun. Meanwhile, Sasquatch — who we’ve already seen can tear mountains apart with his bare hands — is about to swing at the guy with a giant hunk of metal that seems sure to take Diablo’s head clean off. Honestly, I think the fact that the villain is inadvertently portrayed as being so outmatched in this image is the reason they felt the need (probably as an afterthought) to add the captions: “Bet on Diablo — he’s been doing this for centuries!” It’s like they’re trying to convince us that he’s more dangerous than he looks here. Which is weird. Imagine if that iconic comic book cover with Captain America punching out Hitler had the caption, “Bet on Hitler — he’s had a pretty good track record up to this point.”