Thursday, January 22, 2015

Guardian on the Cover of Strange

The following came as both a reminder and a discovery.

I knew about the magazine in question and that several issues featured Alpha Flight but I don't recall seeing the cover below, displaying Guardian rather prominently, in the past. It was posted, with several others, on Dork Review yesterday but no particular reason for doing so is stated. Dork Review, meanwhile, credits alphaflight.net for the original material (though I must admit I can't recall where I got my scan of the cover).


Kind of nice, eh? Although it looks like Namor just happens to be doing laps nearby.

That particular issue reprinted Alpha Flight (original volume, naturally) #4. The team was known as "Division Alpha" in France. It also included Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil and Iron-Man stories. 

Alpha Flight continued to appear regularly in Strange, including getting occasional cover treatment. Those occasions became rather few as the book got further and further from the John Byrne material, not surprisingly.

Guardian kind of, sort of, appears on the cover to book number 208 as well, but that book reprint the 27th issue of Alpha Flight's first volume. Therefore, that Guardian is actually Delphine Courtney's impersonation of our hero, unfortunately.

This page provides great detail about Strange. If your tastes run up and down the the Marvel line, you'll probably enjoy scrolling through the original-yet-inspired covers for the company's other books as well.