That's right, we're talking about issue 28 of ALPHA FLIGHT, which was the SECRET WARS II tie - in issue of the series. And when I say tie - in issue I mean that the Beyonder appears in two pages and then is absent for the rest of the book. Now I don't know if John Byrne was told by the higher ups at Marvel Comics to put the Beyonder into the issue or if he thought what the heck, it's my last issue anyway and decided to include him to give the next creative team a sales boost but I loved it. As any longtime followers of the blog know SECRET WARS II is one of my favourite inter - company crossovers of all times so having this issue of ALPHA FLIGHT connected to it was an added bonus for me. Especially if it meant that this issue was included in the SECRET WARS II omnibus. And not just the two pages in which the Beyonder appears - like they probably would have done nowadays - but they included the full issue in the omnibus.
Which is out of print now but I used to have it and it was one of the few omnibus books in my collection for which I paid full cover price. And it was worth every penny. Which makes it hurt even worse that I had to sell the omnibus before coming to Spain because I will probably never get a second chance at owning it. But we will come back to the issue later on.
So in my last two posts I talked a bit about my first issues of ALPHA FLIGHT and the creation of the team and Wolverine's involvement in the team. Which means that Today we are going to talk about a specific member of the team - Jeanne Marie Beaubier a.k.a. Aurora - and her history. She is the twin sister of another Alpha Flight team member - Jean Paul Beaubier a.k.a. Northstar - and John Byrne is one of the few artists who managed to pull this off believably. In a lot of comicbooks you have male and female characters who are supposed to be twins but they don't look the part. With John Byrne on the other hand there really is a distinctive likeness so that you can believe they really are twins.
And not only twins but twins separated at birth. John Byrne really pulled out all of the soap opera cliches for this series but unlike many other comicbook series he really made them work. Which is one reason why this was such an unusual series, why it has so many die hard fans which makes it even sadder that John Byrne is not too fond of the comicbook.
Another is that it was inclusive without making a big deal out of it like they would do in this day and age. Take Aurora's brother Jean - Paul Beaubier for instance, Northstar was a gay character back in an age where that was very uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that John Byrne could not openly say it in the book but he managed to put all the obvious clues in the series so that everybody knew he was gay. Today they would have put that all over the cover and made him the leader.
Who had a very interesting dynamic with his sister. And I am not implying any weird stuff like with Pietro Maximoff a.k.a. Quicksilver who always said that he was looking for a nice girl like his sister Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch. Which was really taken to the extreme in the ultimate books. And I am talking about the original ultimate books since I don't read the current Disney books and have no idea what happened in the recent ultimate reboot which already seems to be cancelled. Alas, poor cheap sales gimmick new ultimate universe, we hardly knew you.
But no, nothing like that. The reason why Northstar had a complicated relationship with his sister is that Aurora was one of the first persons in comicbooks with what was called a split personality back then and which would be classified as a multiple personality disorder Today. When they were separated Jeanne - Marie Beaubier ended in a catholic school but when her mutant power of flight manifested and she told the nuns that they must be a gift from god she was severely and inhumanly disciplined for blasphemy by the nuns who lead the school. And let me tell you as somebody who grew up in an ultra catholic environment you better pray you never get on the bad side of a nun because they will use any excuse to whip your ass seven ways to Sunday with a ruler, belt, baseball bat or whatever else deadly weapon comes in handy. In any case, after that enlightening experience Jeanne - Marie developed a second personality called Aurora and whereas Jeanne - Marie was a prim and proper but sexually repressed woman Aurora was an uninhibited sexually aggressive extrovert. To make things more complicated one personality could not remember what the other one had done and while one was dominant the other one lay dormant. It was in her Aurora personality that Wolverine met her as some never do wells tried to mug Jeanne - Marie and Aurora took control to defend herself. After witnessing her mutant powers Wolverine put her in contact with James Hudson who was starting to build Alpha Flight back then and who contacted her brother Jean Paul - who was a famous gold medal winning skiier - thus reuniting the twins.
Now the obvious reason why Jean - Paul won those gold medals was that he was using his mutant powers of speed and flight ( powers which he shared with his sister as well as being able to emit a blinding flash of light when they touched hands ) which was something Jeanne - Marie did not approve of which is why he preferred his sister to be the free and easy Aurora and did his best to make that side of her emerge. Who also preferred Jeanne - Marie's to be Aurora was fellow Alpha Flight team member Walter Langkowski a.k.a. Sasquatch because he was not only the resident team psychiatrist but also banging Aurora's brains out on a daily basis which probably was very unethical or at least problematic.
Because on one side Northstar wanted her to be Aurora but when she was Aurora she wanted to spend time with Walter and Jean Paul didn't want her to be with Walter - and there is a reason for that besides being an overprotective brother that would be revealed later on. And on the other side he was very protective of his sister when she was Jeanne - Marie but he really wanted to spend more time with fun loving Aurora.
As for Walter Langkowski he was always a very interesting character.
Much like Doctor Leonard Samson in the Hulk comicbooks he exposed himself to gamma radiation to get super powers - or so it seemed at that time but we will get to that later ( or previously because all of that is revealed in the famous issue 24 which I already posted ) - but did not get as strong which is why they both have a slight inferiority complex.
He is trapped between a rock and a hard place ( no pun intended ) because on one side he really wants to help Jeanne - Marie but on the other side he just can't help himself from slambanging Aurora which totally goes against everything that is acceptable in a doctor / patient relationship. He even goes as far as tampering with her mutant powers to separate from her brother which leads to her getting a new costume which I already wrote more about in our previous ALPHA FLIGHT posts.
As for the other members of Alpha Flight, at the beginning of the first issue the team has officially disbanded - after their failure of bringing back Wolverine - and there are various tier levels of membership. There is the first level Patreon membership level which is Alpha Flight and which are all the team members that we have already seen in the three UNCANNY X - MEN issues like Vindicator, Northstar, Aurora, Sasquatch, Snowbird and Shaman. Then there is the second tier regular membership level Beta Flight which are still in training like Puck and Marrina - who will join the team shortly - Box and Flashback ( who both appear in issue 28 ). And on the bottom tier membership level you have raw recruits like Wild Child ( who also does appear in the AGE OF APOCALYPSE storyline ).
Speaking of ALPHA FLIGHT 28, I don't know how much of the issue I can spoil because on one side we are talking about a 40 year old comicbook ( man, I am really dating myself here because I read this as a young man when the issue came out ) on the other side the series has never been that popular with the mainstream audience and there are many whose first experience with the little super team that could from the great white north is the omnibus which I snatched up when it was reprinted.
But what the heck, those who have read my previous ALPHA FLIGHT posts know that at the end of issue 24 Walter Langkowski's body was destroyed while his essence or soul - for lack of a better word - was trapped in the aptly named automaton Box. And while that saved his consciousness it isn't ideal for any hanky panky with Aurora. Now issue 28 opens with the aftermath of a battle I may go into further in an upcoming ALPHA FLIGHT post but let it suffice to say that during the battle Shaman's daughter Elizabeth Twoyoungmen a.k.a. Talisman was lost in his magic pouch and subsequently rescued by the Beyonder. After that traumatic experience Elizabeth clocked her father and teleported the rest of the team back to Alpha Flight headquarters where they are just now licking their wounds.
guess who is coming to dinner
