It took me some months to seek out an affordable copy of this out-of-print collection of the first 8 Alpha Flight comics and I have to say I was just a tiny bit disappointed when I finally read it.

Although the story collection as a whole takes an interesting and original viewpoint by focusing on the lives of the members of a recently disbanded super hero team, individually there are some clunking plot lines and some pretty hammy dialogue. Pucks's story seems to have been added as filler and Marina's story with The Master took my suspension of disbelief and froze it in ice for 40,000 years before subjecting it to too much pain.

Contrasting with those, however, the story of the background of Aurora/Jeanne-Marie is convincingly dramatic and well handled, and when the team reunite early on to battle Tundra - my favourite part of the collection - everything is spectacular. What never falters is John Byrne's classically influenced and extremely strong drawings, and the excellent colour palette used throughout by the various colourists. Indeed at times it is the artwork that holds the stories together (and not just in the dialogue-free sections)!

Although some of the impact of these tales has lessened since I first read them almost 30 years ago, it was still well worth finding this omnibus edition, and I feel that collected volume no.2 holds better - so I'd better find one..! ( )