S is for Shaman

While I'm a huge fan of Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen, this post is about the team he was a part of.

Alpha Flight.  It was the second comic book I collected.  I picked up issue #1 on our way home from vacation from a gas station's convenient store and was super happy to see that it was only on issue #4 and Comic Book World had all of the issues still.

It might be hard to believe, but #1's weren't always easy to come by in the comics industry, back in the day first issues didn't sell.  I hadn't yet learned that John Byrne was a keep part of the duo that rocketed the X-Men to the heights of comicdom (and made Wolverine cool), but I knew I loved his art.  I still due, though I wish he would apologize to Terry Austin (an incredible inker), so that his artwork looked that good once again.

Even though Alpha Flight was Canada's premier (and only) super hero group, the book hooked me and blew my mind in #12, when John killed the book's leader and star, Guardian.

I grew to like most of the team, Heather Hudson/Vindicator, Puck, Sasquatch, Marina, Snowbird, Shaman and eventually Talisman.

And never quite grew to like Aurora and Northstar.

Eventually, Byrne would leave the book and Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy) would take over art chores, but while I love Mike's work it didn't grab me at the time.  Even Jim Lee left a mark on the book, early in his career, but none compared to John.