Puck Part 44: Alpha Flight #45 (April, 1987)

Puck suffers a great loss, faces a harsh truth and is reacquainted with an old friend.

I have this issue.

The bodies of Snowbird (in Sasquatch’s form), her husband Doug Thompson and their infant son are laid to rest and Heather reaches out in her grief…to Madison Jefferies. They both console Kara who’s dealing with death for the first time. Judd is devastated by this, and stands alone while Shaman - speaking as Talisman - decides to leave Alpha. As Michael departs, a boat arrive on Tamarind Island carrying Lionel Jefferies and a cured Roger Bochs. Seeing the wheelchair bound Bochs now standing taller than him causes Judd to consider asking Lionel for his services. He decides to sleep on it, but is woken up later that night as Box battles a fresh-from-the-grave Sasquatch. Heather’s caught in the middle, and Judd leaps in and carries her to safety but gets slashed in the process. Judd learns that Heather was searching for Smart Alec, who escaped from Shaman’s pouch, when Sasquatch charged through the wall and attacked her. It turns out that Pestilence is in Sasquatch’s body, while the Box armor isn’t inhabited by Bochs but by Walter Langkowski. There’s a blinding flash of light, and somehow Langkowski transfers his consciousness back into Sasquatch's now empty body. Judd is then flabbergasted as Walter shifts back to human form…a female human form.

Notes of Interest:

1) Judd was once attacked by a Bengal Tiger.

WTF? Moment: This is June Brigman’s first issue as artist on Alpha Flight, and I like her work. She captures Judd’s feelings of isolation very well.

WTF? Moment #2: Judd leaps into the middle of a fight between Sasquatch and Box to save Heather and what does she do? She reprimands him for saving her when she wasn’t in immediate danger. W…T…F…? True, she wasn’t being attacked; the two heavyweights were focused on each other. But she was in the freaking way! All one of them had to do was fall on her and she’d be crushed.

WTF? Moment #3: How fitting is it that the dwarf finds, and holds, the miniaturized body of Smart Alec? Another nice image by Brigman.