Sasquatch! Yukon Jack! Centennial! Nemesis! Puck! Major Mapleleaf! Now and forever, they are the All-New, All-Different Alpha Flight! When a former foe convinced them to travel back in time to prevent his death, Canada’s premiere super hero team embarked on a trip to the past - unaware of the profound effect it would have on their present!
At Alpha Flight’s headquarters in the Arctic Circle, the young Plodex known as Mar, at this delicate age is neither male or female. It has yet to be genetically imprinted with a gender. Hanging upside down from the ceiling and watching the proceedings outside, Mar believes it has everything figured out. And like most children its age…it couldn’t be any wronger! In Mar’s defense, none of this particular timeline existed until a moment ago…. err…a moment and about five years ago!
‘This is crazy!’ declares Zuzha “Puck” Yu as she bounces from one Box robot to another. The ruggedly handsome Yukotujakzurjimozoata states, as he rips off the head to a Box robot that his wife speaks the truth. As the aged and aptly named “Centennial” a.k.a. Rutherford Princeton battles the robots too, the mysterious Nemesis slices her way through them with her sword and calls to Alpha Flight’s leader, Walter “Sasquatch” Langkowski who stands in the middle of the battlefield and tells him to snap out of whatever mathematical equation that he is dong and focus!
Zuzha begins to say that she hates to agree with Nemesis, when suddenly she is knocked over by one of the Box robots. ’Wife! Art though well?’ asks Yukon Jack as he rushes over to his fallen teammate. ’I art well. But I artn’t your wife, Yuke,’ Zuzha mumbles in reply. Suddenly, Yukon Jack’s teammates turn to him in shock as the bone carvings that are on his body come off, and begin to fly around the area - shredding their way through all the Box robots. ‘By the ebon goddess of purgatory!’ ‘What in Sam hill?’ ‘Eh?’ ‘Ha! I knew it!’
The All-New All-Different Alpha Flight haven’t been together very long. There was that battle with the Plodex ship, then the wax figures come dangerously to life. Conflict fraught with danger, to be certain, but nothing has gotten the Turpalurpalurpa’todian known as Yukotujakzurjimozoata as emotionally engaged, as seeing his newly beloved betrothed in mortal danger! The end result of hic cutting loose with all his power is a sight to behold!
As the crow flies… sometime later back inside their headquarters, the five Alphans sit around a table, where the bodies of Major Mapleleaf and Flashback lay covered on the table. The handsome Walter Langkowski informs his team that he has surfed the television channels, and has compiled recordings on what has happened since they sent Mapleleaf back in time to stop Hudson from going to New York.
(On view screen / Flashback of what happened when the Time Stream diverged before Alpha Flight (first series) #12)
“On tonight’s episode: Boxed In: The Fate of Canada!” “Apparently, the hatred that burned within the breast of America’s Roxxon Corporation’s Jerry Jaxon for Dr. James MacDonald Hudson was enough to alter the destiny of his entire Canadian homeland!” “The two men were once close, Dr. Hudson was a scientist, while Jaxon was the bureaucrat who kept the doctor in government grants. But at some point Hudson resigned his position with the government and ultimately dedicated himself to teaching - severing all ties with Jaxon and an otherwise clandestine operation known as Department H”
“After a tragic accident left him crippled (rumors persist to this day that his injuries somehow involved Hudson), Jaxon came to the States. Jaxon once publicly admitted that the entire reason he even took the job as Roxxon C.E.O. was so he’d be able to exact revenge against Hudson’s slight. But the scientist thwarted the business man, and Hudson turned down a job offer from Roxxon. The doctor never set foot on American soil”.
“Unable to exact his long-desired vengeance, Jaxon didn’t have much else to do with his time. So he turned his attention to his greatest patent - the Box! (Though it is rumored he stole the design from a Canadian known as Roger Bochs)”.
“Ironically, the first public act performed by the Boxes was defending America from a threat of an invading Canadians known as Omega Flight - Diamond Lil, Flashback, Smart Alec and Wildchild! (“An invading threat of Canadians” is more dangerous than it sounds!) He dealt with them harshly, and in the case of the man known as Flashback, permanently”.
“What no one suspected at the time…was that each and every Box was controlled by the thoughts of one man - an already unstable man driven insane by the enormity of the task he had set for himself. Unfortunately for all of Earth, though Jaxon’s mind eventually shut down…his creations did not”.
“Imagine the most powerful, inexhaustible, indestructible army in the world, completely focused on the revenge of one mad man. It wasn’t a fair fight. Wolverine…Captain America…Scarlet Witch…Dr. Strange…. Once America fell, it took about a week before all of Canada was laid waste - “
(Present)
Sasquatch turns the recording off, as the unimpressed Alphans listen as he declares ‘now that we know the result of the outcome variables as they pertain to the functionary base reliants established across the Gruenwaldian laws of time travel…it is clear we need to convince Mac to go to America after all, but just to take the initiative in his battle against Omega Flight…particularly in light of the revelation that Box was Jaxon’.
‘This is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard in my whole life!’ exclaims Rutherford as he slaps his forehead, adding that he has led a pretty long life. Sasquatch begins to tell Rutherford that there is no need for him to volunteer, but Centennial cuts in, declaring that there is, as, motioning towards Zuzha, he exclaims that she isn’t going anywhere shaking like that. ‘I’m not shaking…much!’ mumbles Zuzha before Rutherford motions to Yukon Jack and declares that “Mr. Holier Than Thou” would stick out like a sore thumb, which leaves him.
He begins to say that there is no way he is being stabbed with Nemesis’ sword, when Nemesis comes up behind him and exclaims ‘Were there another way…’ As the sword cuts into the aged Alphans back, Walt tells Nemesis that she has to stop doing that. Nemesis reminds her teammates that her blade needs to sup upon the life’s blood of whosoever she is magically dispatching across time and space, but that the successful resolution of the endeavor, no matter how ill-advised, will negate any deaths which have occurred.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, eh…we got it already! Doesn’t mean we have to like it, eh?’ mutters Zuzha. ‘Not at all, child, not at all’ whispers Nemesis as she holds onto Centennial’s body, and counts as he passes away….
At that moment…in the weigh station between “here and there” and “life and death”. Centennial, dressed in a white suit stands in the middle of a 1920’s downtown area, where everyone seems to know him, and greets him kindly. Suddenly he appears much younger, and turning around he sees his home. He is greeted by Chaimes, his butler. Rutherford exclaims that it is nice to be home, and as he enters his home, Chaimes informs him that she will be waiting. Rutherford asks if it is his mother, Agnes, and exclaims that he wasn’t expecting her home for another week.
Suddenly, Rutherford stops as a beautiful young woman turns around and says ‘Hello, Rudy’. ‘Amelia?’ gasps Rutherford, when suddenly the beautiful woman is replaced by Nemesis. Centennial tells his teammate that she doesn’t understand, and asks her how she could have known that Amelia is the only thing he has ever truly loved in his life. ‘My biggest loss, my gravest mistake’. Nemesis replies that there is only one way she could have known, and removes her mask - where beneath is the face of the beautiful young woman…Amelia. Rutherford returns to his true aged form, and they kiss.
Rutherford tells Amelia that after she left that night, her body was never found. Nemesis reminds him that he had a burial for her anyway, and on her tombstone he had written “Love, like vengeance, is eternal”. Rutherford begins to tell Amelia he is so sorry for…but then he stops, as he figures out that Nemesis is only revealing herself to him now, because he wont remember any of this once he gets back to life. Nemesis averts her eyes, Rutherford asks her to remind him, ‘remind me, Amelia, please!’ but Nemesis says ‘No, my love. That can never be. Never’.
Meanwhile…in the past… ‘Math is hard’ mutters the handsome Lou Sadler a.k.a. the new Major Mapleleaf when Centennial comes up behind him and tells him that he doesn’t know the half of it. Lou smiles and tells his elderly teammate that he is happy to see him, asking if he came all this way to the past to bring him back to the future. ‘Not hardly son, not hardly!’ declares Rutherford as he turns Lou around and tells him to listen up, as he explains what has happened since they changed the past.
The two Alphans go into the office of James MacDonald Hudson, who rattles off a long winded speech about understanding why he has to go to New York this time, but what not to do. ‘Yes sir, you got it!’ ‘Sounds good to me!’ Mac thanks Lou and Rutherford and asks them to say ‘thankyou’ to Walter when they see him. As Mapleleaf and Centennial walk outside of Parliament Hill, Lou declares that this doesn’t feel right, and asks if they should be gone by now. ‘Like I know?’ replies Rutherford.
Whenever: Walt stands inside Alpha’s base, drawing an equation on the board, while exclaiming that it is interesting how the battle rages on outside, and that even allowing for temporal drag, Centennial should be back. ‘Excuse us, eh? We could use a hand out here! A big furry orange hand!’ Yukon Jack tells his beloved that she is wasting her time, to which Nemesis says ‘Your husband is right’ before stabbing her sword through one of the Box robots. Zuzha begins to say that she is afraid for both of them if they call Yukon Jack her husband one more time - suddenly it begins to rain.
‘We did it eh?’ asks Zuzha as the Boxes turn into rain. But as the rain burns holes in the snow, everyone runs towards the base, ‘Too bad for us, its acid rain!’ Walt asks Nemesis if she is okay, to which the Anti-Christ asks him why he asks, as some of her mask is burnt away. Zuzha and Yukon Jack slam the door closed behind them. Walt informs his teammates that it appears that what has transpired in the recent past, might have made things worse instead of better! ‘You think, eh?’ asks Zuzha as the acid rain continues to poor down.
Next Issue: Ya think robots turning into rain is crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet! Next issue promises even more time travel, stabbings and mayhem! It all happens thirty days in the future, so don’t miss a single minute of it!
