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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!
Welcome, Alphans, to another installment of The Flight Stuff!
What better way to kick of an episode of The Flight Stuff than with ALPHA FLIGHT NEWS?! That’s right! There’s something rumbling in the Great White North. Last week, Marvel announced Alpha Flight: True North #1, a oneshot with three new Alpha Flight tales, in celebration of Marvel’s 80th anniversary. Liam, Doug and Adrianna discuss this exciting development and speculate on what this means for new Alpha Flight material into the future.
Then, it’s onto the Alpha Flight of yore, as we tackle issues #27 and 28 of Alpha Flight. It’s a major milestone for the show, as this marks the completion of Byrne’s run on the series. The team talks cover art confusion, Shaman’s complicated family drama, and we fawn over Jeffries and gripe about The Beyonder, before taking turns reflecting on Byrne’s departure from the series. It’s a fun episode, but also bittersweet.
As always, thanks for listening!
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please drop us a line at [email protected].
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1 Comment
E Gubbins
Another great discussion, as always.
There’s something else weird about issue #27 that you guys didn’t mention. It’s about the search for a new body for Walter. In a previous episode, you guys have correctly pointed out that Bochs suggested, not subtly, that the reason he’s looking for a new body for Walter is so Walter and Aurora can resume their *physical relationship.*
But instead of looking for a human body on Earth, Bochs goes looking for an *alien* body in another dimension. Why? Because, he says, that’s where Sasquatch’s body originally came from. And in fact, when Bochs finds a MONSTER in space (spoiler: the Hulk), he’s confident that this is exactly what they’re looking for. So clearly they’re looking for a replacement NOT for WALTER’S body but for SASQUATCH’S. And it’s extra weird, given that the reason they’re looking is basically to satisfy Aurora’s needs. So apparently Aurora had a physical relationship with Sasquatch that was even more important to her than her physical relationship with Walter? It makes you wonder if Byrne is the secret progenitor of the Bigfoot subgenre of self-published erotica that would take root in Amazon.com’s dark corners decades later.
My reading of this is only further confirmed on page 7 of issue #27, when Aurora — seeing only a silhouette of this alien, which could have tentacles for eyes as far as she knows (she even refers to it as “this creature!!”) — gives a gleeful thumbs up to becoming its new girlfriend, whatever it is, like she just hit the jackpot on some inter-dimensional Match.com.
So weird! Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I love your podcast. It’s great.