Issue(s): Alpha Flight #6
Cover Date: Jan 84
Title: "Snowblind"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
John Byrne - Inker

Review/plot:
This is an Assistant Editors' Month issue. Continuing with the non-team trend of featuring solo stories of all the members, this is a Snowbird issue, and the Assistant Editors' Month gimmick is that she fights a snow monster in a blizzard, so we get about five pages of blank panels with words only.

In the lettercol for issue #11, it's said of this blank panel approach:

It was almost done, on a smaller scale, in What If #34... John first started thinking about doing something like this back when Frank Miller was still drawing and writing DAREDEVIL. Frank commented once to John that he'd like to do an issue entirely from Daredevil's point of view (i.e. with totally black panels throughout). Well, Frank never got around to doing that, but the idea lodged in John's furry little cranium, and when Assistant Editors' Month rolled around... you get the picture. Or more precisely, you DIDN'T get the picture!

What If #34 was an all-joke issue. In that issue, there's a single white panel: "What if the Silver Surfer, White Tiger, Night Rider, Iceman and Moon Knight fought Wendigo in a snowstorm?" Below it, an all black panel: "What if the Black Panther fought the Shroud, Master of Darkness, in a coal mine?"

The snow monster is Kolomoq, one of the Great Beasts that are the ancient enemies of Snowbird's pantheon.

To be very clear, whatever you think of the Assistant Editors' Month gimmick (i think it's cool), there's plenty of great art from Byrne in the rest of the issue...

..and the story is quite good. It's a serious and well plotted issue, not typical AEM zaniness.

Brief interlude with Guardian, who receives a letter from Roxxon.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - notorious "white panel issue". Shaman's origin. Insight into the Great Beasts.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The back-up from this issue is covered in a separate entry.

References:

• Alpha Flight defeated the Great Beast Tundra in Alpha Flight #1

Crossover: Assistant Editors' Month

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Some previews of this issue described Snowbird being held captive and the rest of the team fighting in the blizzard.