NOTES AT THE END OF THE LONGEST YEAR...
I never really expected Alpha FLight to get their own title.
When I created them, some six or seven years ago now, the
only thing I had in mind was creating a bunch of super-
folk who could survive going toe to toe with the X-Men.

And even after fan response hit the ceiling, and it
seemed inevitable that my fellow Canadians could not be far
from their own title, I didn't give much consideration to how
long the book might last. I thought twelve issues would
probably be enough to do all the Alpha Flight stories I had
floating in the back of my mind. One year to say my piece,
establish once and for all who these people are, and then
look for something else to do.

But, funny enough, each story seemed to suggest an
aspect of the characters I'd overlooked, something that
could become the springboard for another story. And
another. And another.

So the original twelve issues became fifteen, then eighteen,
then twenty four. Then twenty eight.

Twenty eight issues and I've finally told all the Alpha
Flight stories I have to tell. So I leave, at lest, the land
north ofthe forty ninth parallel, and head south, to the
great deset of the American southwest, and a certain gamma-spawned
behemoth for whom I've always had a soft spot in my head
and my heart.

Next issue Alpa Flight welcomes aboard Bill Mantlo
and Mike Mignola as creative team, under the ever alert eye
of editor Carl Potts. And Bill has created a humdinger of a
plot for that issue.

Almost wish I was drawing it myself...

John Byrne