Appearing in "Yesterday Man"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Master of the World (Main story and flashback)
Locations:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Yesterday Man"
Snowbird, having received a mystic communiqué from Shaman, flies across the Northern Territories, in search of her friends in Alpha Flight. She finds the crashed remains of the Omnijet, and uses her post-cognitive perception powers to replay the events that led to the ship's landing. In the vision, she sees a red laser beam originating from beyond the plains striking the ship and sending it down into the snow. Her friends survived the crash and left the ship, briskly walking northward. Snowbird begins following Sasquatch's footprints towards their destination.
Meanwhile, the rest of Alpha Flight has found an entranceway into the technologically advanced lair of the Master. In the hopes of expediting their search for the missing Alphan, Marrina, they split up into two teams. Vindicator and Sasquatch head off in one direction, while Northstar and Aurora fly down an alternate tunnel.
The teams get cut off from one another, and Aurora begins to grow scared. Northstar and she lock hands, generating a blinding glow of light, which illuminates the entire tunnel. As they explore further, large metal poles protrude from the walls. One of them strikes Northstar, rendering him unconscious. Aurora grows even more scared and slips into her meek Jeanne-Marie personality. Vindicator and Sasquatch manage to smash through several yards of thick wall in order to find them.
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Master of the World has captured Marrina and strapped her to a large torture device. He alludes to the fact that Marrina's heritage is alien in origin and that both of their destinies are intertwined with one another. While Marrina screams in torment, the Master amuses himself by relating his own origin.
Flashback:
- The Master was once a member of a tribe of humans known as the Eshu that thrived in the Northern wastelands over 40,000 years ago. The Eshu maintained a strict code against the taking of human life, and discovered that the Master had in fact violated this stringent law.
- Exiled from the community, he wandered south until he felt an instinctive need to change course and head farther north. An unidentifiable summons drew him closer and closer to the North Pole until he discovered the ruins of an enormous spaceship. Entering the vessel, the Master found himself at the whims of this seemingly living ship. The ship captured him and used his body for excessive experimentation. It slowly stripped away all of his biological matter for study, and then progressively replaced it with renewed tissue. The sheer pain and torture of the experience ultimately drew him insane, and he remained a prisoner of the ship’s controls for years. Eventually, he regained his sanity, and his consciousness evolved to the point, that he was able to wrest control of the ship and free himself.
The Master concludes his story and tells Marrina that the egg that birthed her originated with this ship, and that she belongs to a race of extraterrestrials that came to Earth millennia ago. Before he begins his ultimate takeover of the world, the Master is determined to eliminate all traces of the original alien race.
Suddenly, the Sub-Mariner and the Invisible Girl appear in the doorway of the Master's torture chamber. Neither hero is prepared to allow the Master continue with his mad plans.
Appearing in "Origins of Alpha Flight: Purpose"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Wolverine (Logan)
- Frank Hulme (First appearance)
- Pierre Trudeau
Locations:
Vehicles:
- Air Canada DC-9
Synopsis for "Origins of Alpha Flight: Purpose"
10 years ago
James MacDonald Hudson sits in his apartment in Edmonton. He ruminates over the events that led him to break into the Am-Cam building to steal their cybernetic super-suit. Former Am-Cam secretary, Heather McNeil, stops by the house armed with a fresh supply of groceries. She sees the helmet to the cyber-suit sitting on the coffee table and realizes that Mac is the one who broke into Am-Cam the previous evening. Heather spontaneously declares her love for Mac, but Hudson is reluctant to reciprocate as she is only seventeen-years-old.
Over the following year however, the two do in fact marry one another. James and Heather travel to the Parliament building in Ottawa and consult with an official named Frank Hulme. James tells him everything that he had done at the Am-Cam Corporation and further reveals that he legally owns the helmet that powers the cyber-suit. Hulme consults with the Prime Minister, and they realize that Hudson is just the sort of man they need in the Ministry of Defense. Hulme arranges to retroactively place Hudson on the government payroll, and makes restitution with Am-Cam.
Parliament creates a research and development program under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defense called Department H, and they select Hudson to act as the department's administrator. During this time he meets the Canadian secret agent known as Wolverine.
One day, Hudson reads a newspaper article about a new American super-hero team known as the Fantastic Four. Inspired by the article, he decides to create his own Canadian defensive response team called Alpha Flight.
Appearing in "Guardian First of Alpha Flight!"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for "Guardian First of Alpha Flight!"
Pinup
Solicit Synopsis
Notes
- Sequence 1 Yesterday Man
- The scenes involving the Master of the World and Marrina take place a short period of time later than the rest of the events in this issue. This will not be revealed until Alpha Flight #4.
- This is the first issue where James MacDonald Hudson begins referring to himself as Guardian. Shaman suggested the name to him in Alpha Flight #2.
- The Invisible Woman appeared last in Fantastic Four #260.
- The Sub-Mariner appeared last in Fantastic Four #260.
- Puck and Shaman do not appear in this issue. Both characters are currently at the Fort Albany Hospital as a result of injuries that Puck received at the hands of Marrina in Alpha Flight #2.
- Sequence 2 Purpose
- This story takes place ten years prior to Alpha Flight #1, and concurrently with events first chronicled in Fantastic Four #1.
- This story continues from the second story in Alpha Flight #2.
- Pierre Trudeau appeared last in Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 140 with a corresponding flashback taking place in Alpha Flight (Volume 1) Vol 1 1. This is his final appearance to date.
Trivia[]
- This issue indicates that Marrina is twenty-years-old, whereas Alpha Flight #2 stated that she was hatched only eighteen years ago. The Master of the World states that her egg was first laid over 40,000 years ago.