STORY: "North and South" (23 pages)  Alpha Flight come to New York to kidnap Wolverine, and the X-Men fend them off.

What you need to know:
This issue is a crossover with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9, also written by Steve Seagle.  Somewhat oddly, given that the whole point of the exercise is to boost sales on Alpha Flight, nowhere in this issue is there a note explaining this to the readers.

Another thing that this issue doesn't explain is quite what Alpha Flight are up to, which is a shame since it's necessary to understand the story.  At this point in their own book, Alpha Flight were basically a bunch of confused brainwashed drones working for a highly corrupt incarnation of the Canadian government's Department H.  The gimmick was that every time they got close to working out what was going on, they'd be zapped and taken away for reprogramming, and they'd be back to square one.  A government paranoia story, basically.  In this issue, Alpha Flight have been packed off to retrieve Wolverine, who their employers still view as a renegade Canadian government agent, on the ostensible basis that he murdered former Alpha Flight member Madison Jeffries.  As Wolverine points out, normally Alpha Flight wouldn't have believed that accusation, but just at the moment they don't have any choice.

Wolverine's comment that Mac (Guardian) "smells funny - he's him but he ain't him" is a reference to an ongoing Alpha Flight subplot. At this point, the character was simply a teenage incarnation of the original Guardian whose presence had been explained by a somewhat implausible tale of rejuvenation in a flashback that was obviously not entirely reliable.  The adult Guardian showed up later in the series, and Seagle deliberately avoided explaining which one was genuine.  A subsequent Wolverine storyline finally resolved this plot, confirming that the Guardian seen in this issue is a robot impostor (although he doesn't know it yet).

Much the same applies to Sasquatch, who actually is a sasquatch on this version of the team - hence Wolverine's rather confused reaction to him, since he's expecting a man called Walter who turns into a sasquatch as a superpower.

Alpha Flight start doubting the situation when Wolverine reveals that he doesn't have adamantium claws at this point - Department H had claimed that they were using his adamantium skeleton to track him, so this immediately proves that Department H were lying, even to the befuddled Alpha Flight.  They still carry on trying to arrest him until Cannonball and Flex compare notes and work out that the murder was supposedly carried out during Operation: Zero Tolerance, at which point Wolverine was already imprisoned by Bastion.  By this point, Alpha Flight are getting very suspicious of the whole thing, and they turn around and go home.

Oddly, as the issue begins, Wolverine is trying to take Sauron into the city to hand over to the authorities - by chaining him up inside a sack and getting him to sit on the side of his motorbike.  This doesn't seem to me like a very sensible means of transport for a captive supervillain.

Dr Agee appears in person for the first time, as Rogue meets with him to ask for advice on how to be cured from her mutant powers. She claims she's asking for a friend, but he sees through that. He takes a DNA sample from her, and claims that he successfully "cured" his sister of her mutant powers.  As we'll see in a couple of issues time, either Agee is lying about this, or he's delusional.

Scott is understandably a bit worried that Jean has suddenly decided to parade around in the costume of a copy of her that went on to become a genocidal murderer, and that she's apparently not bothered about using her powers in a way that will draw attention to them.  Frankly, my sympathy is with Scott here.  This triggers an explanation from Jean that she is acting to empower himself and that she's tired of suppressing her abilities because she's afraid that it would upset Scott, which still doesn't really explain why she'd want to wear such a loaded costume.  At the end of the issue, Scott phones the X-Men to express his concerns about all this.

Margaret Stone from the Department of Education phones to say that a woman from their department called Marta Walz is coming to stay at the Mansion.  This never happens, because it's a dropped plot.  Presumably the X-Men bribed them to make them go away, or something along those lines.

Comments:
This is one of the more curious crossovers in X-Men history.  The other half of the story, in theory, is in Alpha Flight vol 2 #9, but in fact that issue just carries Alpha Flight's perspective on the same events.  The story helps drive things along for Alpha Flight, by increasing their suspicions about what they're being told, but quite what it's doing in this issue remains something of a mystery, since it has nothing at all to do with the X-Men.

It's fairly interesting if you're a fan of Seagle's Alpha Flight, since you'll get to see the characters being illustrated in Bachalo's style, and looking fairly good on it.  Otherwise, it's a bit of a wasted issue, and coming after such a lengthy set-up for the Agee storyline, they really could have done without it.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cannonball II and Storm (both concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9; Storm next in X-Men vol 2 #73, then both next in X-Men vol 2 #75-78, then in Uncanny X-Men / Fantastic Four '98)
Rogue (concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9; next in flashback in Gambit #½, then in X-Men vol 2 #73, then in X-Men vol 2 #75, then in Wolverine vol 2 #125-126)
Wolverine (concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9; next in X-Men vol 2 #73-75, then in flashback in the second story in Wolverine vol 2 #175, then in Wolverine vol 2 #123-130, then in X-Men vol 2 #76)

GUEST STARS
Alpha Flight: Guardian III, Vindicator II, Sasquatch II, Puck, Murmur, Radius, Flex and Manbot (all concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Cyclops
Phoenix III (next in Wolverine vol 2 #125)
Maggott, Eeny and Meany (all concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9; all next in X-Men vol 2 #73)

VILLAINS
Sauron (concurrently with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9)
Department H (behind the scenes, concurrent with Alpha Flight vol 2 #9)
Aubrey Agee (last in issue #353)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Nightcrawler (voice only; between X-Men Unlimited #19 and Excalibur #120)

OTHER CHARACTER
Margaret Stone (last in issue #353; no further appearances)

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