"The End" Week: Alpha Flight #20!

The previous Alpha Flight #20 from '85 wasn't one of John Byrne's best; but it's probably way better known than this particular issue: from 1999, Alpha Flight #20, "Alpha: Omega, part 3" Script and plot by Steven T. Seagle, pencils and plot by Duncan Rouleau, inks by Jaime Mendoza, Harry Candelario, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Rich Perrotta.

I know we've looked at a couple issues of this relaunch of the Canadian super-team book, largely on the strength of the guest-stars.. The Alphans weren't quite doing it, despite there being a metric ton of them: classic members Puck and Vindicator, a younger version of Guardian, maybe Northstar? And new members Faith, Fast Forward, Nudge, and Fever; that nobody recalls at all; possibly because those weren't Alpha Flight's new members, those were Doom Patrol members from John Arcudi and John Byrne's separate runs. The real new Alphans were Scion, Neutron, Dexam, and Quark. Except they weren't, those were all post-original series Micronauts; the really real new Alphans were Manbot, Flex, Radius, and Murmur. Manbot maybe gets it this issue--it's not super-clear, but he appeared to be enough of an 'it' that no one feels bad or brings it up? The rest I don't think have appeared anywhere else since. (The three mutants apparently lost their powers in Scarlet Witch's "No More Mutants," but Radius has actually got his powers back and appeared at a Hellfire Gala! Presumably in a Canadian Tuxedo.)

Anyway, this issue also features a more classic Alpha Flight, with an older Guardian, Shaman, Aurora, and Sasquatch. The team we had been following for the last 20 issues also had a Sasquatch, that may have actually been a Sasquatch: I feel like it had been an actual Bigfoot that got press-ganged into that thing somehow, but I think it was killed. The teams are fighting over Weapon X...not that one. Or that one. Look, whatever Weapon X you're thinking of, it's not that one. This one's someone in armor infected with some kind of virus. He wants to kill himself in such a way the virus will be destroyed, while Alpha Flight's government-issued mad scientist Huxley thinks he can use that to take control of the virus and then the world. The teams eventually work together to try to save Weapon X, who still ends up sacrificing himself. Huxley is seen taking his talents where he thinks they'll be appreciated, namely S.H.I.E.L.D. Alpha Flight is left with a lot of members, including two Guardians, one young and one older; which I'm not sure was ever brought up again, either. And after years of Puck pining over Heather, she finally goes out with him. Which also doesn't seem to get brought up again! Maybe the spark wasn't there like he had thought.

Let's see, this issue was March 1999; I couldn't swear to it, but was Alpha Flight's next appearance in 2003, in Chuck Austen's Uncanny X-Men #421? That's not good. That's like a building gettting knocked down, then the rubble catches fire...not like a helpful, clearing-things-out fire either, a makes-everything-kinda-toxic one.