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Alpha Flight By Mantlo & Lee Omnibus Jim Lee Cover
Longtime Marvel writer Bill Mantlo teamed with rising star Jim Lee on a storied and never-before-collected run with Alpha Flight, Canada’s premier super-team!
Alpha Flight has a new home: Mansion Alpha! From this technologically advanced base, the team protects its nation from threats like Scramble, Deadly Ernest and the Great Beasts! Heather Hudson suits up as the new Vindicator and seeks out her old friend Wolverine to train her as a super hero! Meanwhile, Attuma pursues former Alphan Marrina, and it will take the combined forces of Alpha Flight and the Avengers to save her — if she even wants to be saved! The persuasive Purple Girl joins Beta Flight, the trickster god Loki makes for a legendary opponent and Bedlam causes carnage for Department H! Even if the team can defeat this powerful foe from James Hudson’s past, it won’t be without a terrible cost — and a dimension-hopping adventure may lead to the end of Alpha Flight as we know it!
COLLECTING: Alpha Flight (1983) 30-70, Alpha Flight Annual (1986) 1-2, Avengers (1963) 272, Marvel Fanfare (1982) 28
Alpha Flight has a new home: Mansion Alpha! From this technologically advanced base, the team protects its nation from threats like Scramble, Deadly Ernest and the Great Beasts! Heather Hudson suits up as the new Vindicator and seeks out her old friend Wolverine to train her as a super hero! Meanwhile, Attuma pursues former Alphan Marrina, and it will take the combined forces of Alpha Flight and the Avengers to save her — if she even wants to be saved! The persuasive Purple Girl joins Beta Flight, the trickster god Loki makes for a legendary opponent and Bedlam causes carnage for Department H! Even if the team can defeat this powerful foe from James Hudson’s past, it won’t be without a terrible cost — and a dimension-hopping adventure may lead to the end of Alpha Flight as we know it!
COLLECTING: Alpha Flight (1983) 30-70, Alpha Flight Annual (1986) 1-2, Avengers (1963) 272, Marvel Fanfare (1982) 28
- GenresMarvel
1192 pages, Hardcover
Published January 6, 2026
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16 people want to read
About the author
Bill Mantlo
1,400 books44 followersWilliam Timothy Mantlo is an American comic book writer, primarily at Marvel Comics.
(source: Wikipedia)
(source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 1, 2026
Despite the misleading title, this is actually Alpha Flight Omnibus Vol. 2. It just happens to have a new creative team. And it is a train wreck.
John Byrne, who created Alpha Flight and wrote (and drew) most of the stories in the previous volume of Alpha Flight, switched places with Bill Mantlo, who was writing the Incredible Hulk thus far. I've read the Hulk portions already: John Byrne massively improved the quality of the Hulk comics. And in a similar manner, the writing of Bill Mantlo feels like a significant downgrade here.
Now why is that? Bill Mantlo writes this like a novel and doesn't work together with the artist. There's many text boxes and endlessly long descriptions and dialogue full of rambling. The excessive word bubbles and text boxes cover up the artwork in the panels.
Then, there's the stories themselves. Roughly the first half of this omnibus feature the villains and storylines from Vol. 1. Everything is recycled! These issues spend 2-3 pages of recap from those previous stories, then add a small new twist and repeat said stories.
There is some redeeming qualities in these stories and that is mostly found in the team dynamics. At some point Bill Mantlo (or his editor?) finally create new members for the team and those are interesting. In addition he shifts around the existing members and plays with death and resurrections a lot. Also, some new storylines are finally presented in the second half. Not all of them are good, but at least it was something new.
There are a lot of rotating artists in here. Marvel wants to cash in on the name of Jim Lee here, but he only pencilled 11 out of 45 issues in this volume. His style wasn't as refined in the late 80s and it didn't look like his drawings stood out from the other artists in this omnibus. Although a few of the artists have a particularly ugly style of drawing. Again, John Byrne's pencil felt much more vibrant and colourful.
As such, my recommendation would be to stick to John Byrne's Alpha Flight and skip this volume. The bad far outweighs the good in here, unfortunately.
John Byrne, who created Alpha Flight and wrote (and drew) most of the stories in the previous volume of Alpha Flight, switched places with Bill Mantlo, who was writing the Incredible Hulk thus far. I've read the Hulk portions already: John Byrne massively improved the quality of the Hulk comics. And in a similar manner, the writing of Bill Mantlo feels like a significant downgrade here.
Now why is that? Bill Mantlo writes this like a novel and doesn't work together with the artist. There's many text boxes and endlessly long descriptions and dialogue full of rambling. The excessive word bubbles and text boxes cover up the artwork in the panels.
Then, there's the stories themselves. Roughly the first half of this omnibus feature the villains and storylines from Vol. 1. Everything is recycled! These issues spend 2-3 pages of recap from those previous stories, then add a small new twist and repeat said stories.
There is some redeeming qualities in these stories and that is mostly found in the team dynamics. At some point Bill Mantlo (or his editor?) finally create new members for the team and those are interesting. In addition he shifts around the existing members and plays with death and resurrections a lot. Also, some new storylines are finally presented in the second half. Not all of them are good, but at least it was something new.
There are a lot of rotating artists in here. Marvel wants to cash in on the name of Jim Lee here, but he only pencilled 11 out of 45 issues in this volume. His style wasn't as refined in the late 80s and it didn't look like his drawings stood out from the other artists in this omnibus. Although a few of the artists have a particularly ugly style of drawing. Again, John Byrne's pencil felt much more vibrant and colourful.
As such, my recommendation would be to stick to John Byrne's Alpha Flight and skip this volume. The bad far outweighs the good in here, unfortunately.
March 2, 2026
Over 43 issues are collected in this hefty tome. While Bill Mantlo wrote nearly every issue herein, Jim Lee's name on the book is pure marketing given he's barely on a quarter of the issues.
Mantlo spends the first half of this series tearing down the Alpha Flight team that came before, and yet the stories in the first half are also stronger and more entertaining. The back half is spent introducing new characters who generally don't have much cultural longevity compared to the O.G.s and the wiring seems less cohesive--so much that I'm a little shocked the series continues another sixty issues beyond the end of this collection.
Artistic highlights: this collects the first thirteen issues of Marvel work penciled by Lee, though the issues by Mignola, Bogdanove, Brigman, Stroman, and Buscema all stand out.
As a product of the eighties, it's surprising how much of this book touches on gender, sexuality, and neurodiversity (though the majority of it is either very messy or very problematic by today's standards, if not both).
This volume ends exactly where I gave up on collecting the series as a teen. I hope there will be a third volume, as it will mostly be new to me.
Mantlo spends the first half of this series tearing down the Alpha Flight team that came before, and yet the stories in the first half are also stronger and more entertaining. The back half is spent introducing new characters who generally don't have much cultural longevity compared to the O.G.s and the wiring seems less cohesive--so much that I'm a little shocked the series continues another sixty issues beyond the end of this collection.
Artistic highlights: this collects the first thirteen issues of Marvel work penciled by Lee, though the issues by Mignola, Bogdanove, Brigman, Stroman, and Buscema all stand out.
As a product of the eighties, it's surprising how much of this book touches on gender, sexuality, and neurodiversity (though the majority of it is either very messy or very problematic by today's standards, if not both).
This volume ends exactly where I gave up on collecting the series as a teen. I hope there will be a third volume, as it will mostly be new to me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews