I am a USAgent fan (though he could sometimes get depicted as too much of a jerk sometimes), but Druid has never interested me. Perhaps a better costume would help, and if he was a little less creepy. Probably the fact he was screwing over Captain Monica, a character I'm very fond of, doesn't help my opinion of him.

As to the appeal of Alpha Flight, I do admit a part of it is that they are Canadian. When John Byrne wrote the title, it really did feel like the team was set in Canada. Most writers had no idea how to do that and it was plainly obvious (at least to this Canuck).

But beyond that, I love the personalities that make up Alpha Flight. They are a team of misfits (the original line-up includes a midget, an alien, a mythical beast, a schizophrenic, a goddess, an aboriginal mystic, and a very hostile gay man...none of which really fit in anywhere) that comes together and that clash of personalities makes for some great story-telling. Nobody really belongs, so everyone does!

Byrne really did his homework when he was working on Alpha Flight...I actually wrote a university paper on Shaman for my Introduction to World Religions course. Byrne really did research the Sarcee tribe and Shaman's powers were a natural extension of their beliefs and culture. That attention to detail is amazing.

The line-up of Alpha Flight really opens itself up to telling many types of stories. With Snowbird, Shaman, and Sasquatch you open up a lot of mystical/mythical stories. Box and (again) Sasquatch are the link to the technological. Aurora alone has tons of potential with her mental problems. Northstar, Talisman, and Shaman open up possibilities for racial/prejudice stories. Puck has links to the east (aka an excuse to bring in ninjas). Guardian has ties to the corporate world. You can tell a lot of stories with this group.

While I do have every issue of Alpha Flight volume 1-3 (plus mini's, one-shots, and Omega Flight), I will admit that nobody has held a candle to Byrne's original run.

~Hat~