Quote Originally Posted by kozzi24
To put it as politely as possible...Liefeld's memory seems hazy.

He started with New Mutants #87, didn't he?

Alpha was not cancelled at that time. Publication month of March, 1990 saw AF #82 and NM #87.
#87 was intro of Cable issue. Liefeld joined NM with #86 (although the 1989 annual, #5, was probably his first NM issue chronologically) but that doesn't negate your point which was triggered by something that left me scratching my head too.

He might've been thinking that Alpha Flight had gone direct-sales-only but it had done that long before that time frame as I recall.