Alpha Flight was always one of Marvel's quirkier titles, no matter whom the writer. This is, after all, the book that somehow slipped past the higher-ups such events as Sasquatch becoming an unwilling transsexual and another teammate being the product of a supervillain mind-controlling her mother. The one thing it seemed they weren't able to get past the powers-that-be, though, was Northstar being gay. To be fair, it got by them for some time; the John Byrne era of the book was very subtle, but you could tell where it was going. That all changed when Bill Mantlo took over, with constant comments on Northstar liking men in tights and such. When Mantlo gave Northstar a "sickness", eyebrows were certainly raised, and Marvel informed Mantlo that Northstar having AIDS was right out. Mantlo wrote the character out by revealing that he was sick because he was a fairy (I am not making this up), and that was that.
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Alpha Flight is the quintisential Canadian super hero team. Backed by the Canadian government and led by a gay French separtist, Alpha Flight has it all. From a Jewish professor that teaches at MacGill university that turns into a giant Sasquatch to midget called after Canadian icon that happens to be magically enhanced by a genie, Alpha Flight is a super hero team that makes me proud to be Canadian.
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