Spécial Strange #23
Spécial Strange #23 brought French-speaking readers their first encounter with the full Alpha Flight roster — Aurora, Northstar, Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird, and Vindicator — through the landmark X-Men #120–121 two-parter, the very issues that introduced Canada's premier super-team to the world. The same album also delivered Marvel Team-Up #65, the story that transplanted Captain Britain from UK-only continuity into the shared Marvel Universe and simultaneously unveiled the assassin-for-hire Arcade alongside his accomplice Miss Locke. For the francophone audience of 1981, this single oversized album thus served as the gateway for three distinct character debuts that would each go on to anchor major Marvel storylines across the following decade.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Editions Lug of Lyon was Marvel's primary French-language licensing partner throughout the 1970s and 1980s, packaging American Bronze Age material into the digest-format Spécial Strange anthology series that launched in 1975. Issue #23, dated March 1981 per its legal deposit, was assembled from scripts and art by the dominant creative team of the era — Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Bill Mantlo — whose collaborative output on X-Men and companion titles defined the late Bronze Age. Lug's editorial practice of bundling thematically linked stories (here, X-Men, team-up, and Fantastic Four adjacency material) meant that a single French purchase delivered content spread across three distinct American series from 1978–1979.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Reprints X-Men #120 (April 1979, 'Wanted: Wolverine! Dead or Alive!') — the first cameo appearance of Alpha Flight, created by John Byrne and Chris Claremont.
- Reprints X-Men #121 (May 1979, 'Shoot-Out at the Stampede!') — the first full appearance of Alpha Flight including Aurora, Northstar, Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird, and Vindicator.
- Reprints Marvel Team-Up #65 (January 1978, 'Introducing, Captain Britain') — the first appearance of Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) in a U.S.-published comic; he had previously appeared only in UK-market magazines.
- Marvel Team-Up #65 also contains the first appearance of Arcade and his associate Miss Locke, the assassin duo who would become recurring X-Men antagonists.
- Reprints Marvel Two-in-One #47 (January 1979, 'Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!') — written by Bill Mantlo with art by Chic Stone; features the Fantastic Four and the first appearance of Machinesmith.
- Creative team across the collected stories: scripts by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Bill Mantlo; art by John Byrne and Chic Stone; colors by Glynis Oliver and Bob Sharen.
- Published March 1, 1981 by Editions Lug (Lyon, France) as part of the long-running Spécial Strange anthology series (1975–1989); 68 pages, French language.
- LUG used its own French-language character names throughout — most notably 'Serval' for Wolverine and 'Division Alpha' for Alpha Flight — giving these debuts a distinct Francophone identity for an entire generation of French readers.
Cast · 40 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Brian Braddock arrives in the U.S. as an exchange student and finds he has drawn Peter Parker as his roommate. Inevitably, Spidey and Cap Britain have the obligatory superhero fight and make nice just in time to be captured by the sinister Arcade.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).