I never could get into Alpha Flight no matter who's writing it.
I liked Byrne's Superman stuff and a few other titles he wrote. I could never get into the Next Men series he wrote.
I actually think John Byrne himself would agree with you!
When John Byrne's website was at its peak, he had a "frequently asked questions" section where he talked about his writing on the ALPHA FLIGHT series, and said himself that it was his worst writing effort, that he couldn't identify well with the characters, and was unsatisfied with his own writing on the series and contrived efforts to develop the characters.
I like Byrne's 1975-1985 work at Marvel the best, on just about everything he did in that period, and even in the 1983-1985 period where his art was declining, for the most part I saw his writing as still quite good.
I think Byrne was at his peak in popularity when he left Marvel to do Superman at DC in 1986. And while I like his efforts on SUPERMAN, ACTION and a few other titles, I think it's not quite as good as his prior Marvel work, and for me almost reads as an Elseworlds version of Superman.
I was indifferent to his NEXT MEN series, and only picked up those issues many years after the fact. Again, it was okay, not terrible, but a pale shadow of his previous work.
I think the last work by Byrne that I really liked was his SHE HULK run, that ran roughly the same time as his NEXT MEN work.
