Quote Originally Posted by Northcott

You know, a lot of people refer back to Byrne as their favourite Alpha writer -- and I did love those first 12 issues -- but he wrote an ongoing series like a mini-series. Characters that were perfectly designed to be iconic, powerful (in terms of symbolism and practical power both), and enduring were chopped up to make for a great 12 issue run instead of building them for the long haul. That's a damned big mistake.

The more I think about it, the more that Claremont stands out as my favourite Alpha writer. Sure, he only handled them in a very limited fashion, but it was in the X-Men that we saw Mac scrap it out with some of the X-Men's powerhouses alone. We saw Snowbird, Shaman, and Mac team up with Wolvie and Nightcrawler to take on the bloody Wendigo, of all creatures! We got to see Alpha actually act like a team in spite of their bickering; strong and competent, taking on the X-Men at the height of their power and fighting it out to a draw.
Byrne referred to his approach on Alpha to being linked limited series. He did also have plans that he never followed thru on, including a larger story of Aurora's MPD & yellow costume.

Claremont's handling of Alpha was also great on the 1st X-Men/AF limited series. Highlights for me remain as Alpha's vulnerability to telepathic attack and the interplay between Aurora, Sasquatch and Northstar and the subsequent interplay between Rogue and Northstar.

How does everyone else measure Claremont's Alpha work against Byrnes?