The Crossover is (still) full of possibilities...
Page 157 in Sean Howe's book MARVEL COMICS, THE UNTOLD STORY sheds more light on the disparity that happens when new creators/creative teams take over than anything else I've seen: "* 'Whatever anybody else did was meaningless', Mantlo told Comics Feature. 'Your job was to come on to a book, and create it out of whole cloth. Marvel history meant nothing, but not because of Marvel history --- just that you were so intent on being better than the past writer, or showing how stupid the past writer was, that you went to great lengths to negate everything he said...Whoever took over was starting all over.' "
The Crossover is full of possibilities, and I think that both Byrne and Mantlo knew it. For whatever reason, though, it didn't work out the way it was planned [from the interviews in Amazing Heroes# 76 and Comics Feature # 42]. Alpha Flight didn't become super-popular on the newstand, and Byrne left the Hulk after his brief stint.
There are some good things that came out of the Crossover: (1) The original Smart Alec was also in the void, which was utilized during the Mantlo era; (2) Snowbird gave the speech that galvanized the team in # 29, and; (3) Incredible Hulk # 313 states the likelihood (I would say the inevitability, but that's up to MARVEL) that people who enter into the nexus are bound to be drawn back to it.
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