(Was it written by Roy Thomas?)

You do realize that saying that Heather was the most level headed member of Alpha Flight during that time period is kind of like saying that Riddler is the most level headed member of Batman's rogue's gallery?

I think that Alpha Flight 12-50-ish is an even more disfunctional team (as in out of their minds team members, not an inability to work together) than any incarnation of Doom Patrol.

Theno

- Candy as leader of the Defenders was nonsense, but Heather at Alpha Flight made some sense. She WAS the most level-headed of them, she was good with people, she was the only one that wasn't hated/distrusted by at least half the other members.

- It is pretty interesting how Captain America is seen by many as the supreme leader in the Marvel Universe now. Except for the "Kooky Quartet", he wasn't really a take-charge kind of character in the 1960s and 1970s. Iron Man and Thor were the ones that usually appeared to be leaders. I think it was Jim Shooter in the early 1980s that started depicting Captain America like that. Particularly in the story that Iron Man and Thor revealed their secret identities to him. Yep, that is right, Cap didn't even know that Tony was Iron Man until the early 80s.

I liked the Shooter issues when Iron Man was chairman and Captain America took a swing at him for not taking the job seriously (that's actually a scene from the cover for Iron Man's position, above).

I guess I'm saying I like the leaders that cause strife within the group. Makes for some fun reads.

It's also incorrect that Jan was considered a partial member. She was a full member with voting rights. This is a plot point in issue #16 (which I read last night - when Hawkeye and the other former villains show up), since her voting rights mean that she, Iron Man, and Giant-Man had the required majority for voting in new members despite Thor disappearing and Cap wandering around the Amazon for awhile. In the issues talking about making Rick Jones a member, I believe someone specifically says "Why not make him a full member with a costume, like Jan?"

So while Stan does pull some misogynist bloopers with Jan here and there, it's nowhere near as bad as, say, anything going in contemporary DC books. He also gets better about writing her as the series goes along, with less of her dialogue devoting to pointing out who the most attractive man in a given panel happens to be.

I mean, Dick / Wally / Donna will be the top three, but (a) in what order, and (b) if you count Young Justice, can any of the "third generation" (Tim / Cassie / Superb... okay, Tim and Cassie) beat out any of the old-timers or even the Wolfman / Perez Titans?

And, hey, we'll get to make more jokes about the new Titans series! If that hasn't been beaten down enough yet, that is....

Bernard the Poet said:

"That non-powered Heather became the leader of Alpha Flight and non-powered Candy Southern became leader of the Defenders seemed a bizarre story-telling decision to me. Doubly baffling because they became leaders at roughly the same time – who copied who?"

Maybe the writers were living together at the time and it was all just a big coincidence.

Tell that to my younger self who practically died of shock when he saw the cover of Avengers 300 (with new members Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman).

Cyclops leading the Avengers would be interesting, actually. Get him out of the dead end that his X-Men characterisation has been since Morrison left.

And I also understood why Captain Marvel wasn't on there... heck, Luke Cage is catching up to her fairly quickly in terms of "issues spent as Avengers chair", isn't he?

Stan Lee originally established that the role of chairman rotated on a regular basis and all the founders (minus Hulk and plus Cap) pretty much all of them had a turn. At that that time though it was pretty much just an administrative role, and basically they just read off the minutes at meetings. Wasp was the odd exception, I can't recall her ever being Chairperson during Lee's run. In fact I'm pretty sure she was considered a secondary member, as I recall Iron Man once suggested that Cap let Rick Jones be given some sort of partial memership "like Wasp" (Cap said no way). Poor Jan, her chance to shine wouldn't come until much later.

I don't think you really saw anyone truly leading the team as far as giving orders up until the founders left and Cap was in charge of Clint, Pietro and Wanda.

Really I feel that Jan was probably one of the best team leaders in the history of the team. She handled both the leading in the field and administration of the team very well for the most part. When I first read the Roger Stern run of the team it was the first time I really got the character. I was fairly pleased when Bendis had Ms. Marvel acknowledge that Jan could lead the Mighty Avengers.