VINDICATOR II
Real Name: Heather McNeil Hudson
Former Aliases: Guardian II
Group Affiliation: Alpha Flight
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #139
Creator: John Byrne

        Born into a rather large family, Heather McNeil grew up next door to Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen, his wife Kathryn and their daughter Elizabeth. After Kathryn Twoyoungmen's death Elizabeth lived with the McNeils, and Heather and Liz grew up much like sisters.

        At a rather young age (17) Heather found herself working as a secretary for Jerome "Jerry" Jaxon at the Am-Can Petrochemical Corporation. [Note: Due to this information I've come to the interesting conclusion that Heather never completed high school. - Compiler] It was there that she first met James MacDonald Hudson. For Heather, it was love at first sight.

        When Heather learned that her boss was planning to sell Hudson's experimental armor to the American military, she put in her three weeks notice as a protest. She stopped James as he was leaving a meeting with Jaxon and surprised him by mentioning her support. Heather also invited James over for some homemade lasagna, but he refused, citing other plans.

        At work the next day Heather learned through unofficial channels that someone had used the armor to break into the company vault and destroy the only plans. The unknown intruder also stole the control helmet that operated the suit.

        After work, having decided to make a second attempt at spending some time with James Hudson, she took a box of groceries to his apartment. While chatting with James about the break-in she quickly realized that he already knew all about it. Heather then spotted the control helmet sitting on James' coffee table.

        James, who was wallowing a bit in self-pity, told Heather that he didn't want her trying to shield him. Heather agreed... but rapidly added that a wife can't be forced to testify against her husband. James was rather shocked by this impromptu marriage proposal, but eventually admitted that he felt a connection as well. What he didn't see was a way out of his current situation. Heather, beginning a long tradition of saving James' butt, had an idea.

        At Heather's suggestion "Mac" Hudson (Mac being her favorite nickname for him) contacted the Federal government. This led to a "smoothing over" of things with Am-Can and Hudson receiving employment with the Ministry of Defence.

        Mac and Heather relocated to Ottawa, where they were married in a civil ceremony. Heather's parents were not happy with this development, feeling that Mac was not treating their daughter properly. This led to their being estranged from Heather for a number of years. Heather found work as an executive secretary for a petroleum firm based in Ottawa and the Hudsons settled down into the double-income, no kids lifestyle.

        Mac promised Heather a church ceremony, but work kept interfering. The two went on a camping-trip honeymoon at Department H's expense when Mac was asked to scout some property in Alberta for them.

        During the trip Mac and Heather came across a wild man named Logan. The two Hudsons helped nurse Logan back to something close to sanity, with Heather coming to regard him almost like a son. Logan joined Department H as an operative and eventually became known as Wolverine.

        Heather saved Mac Hudson for the second time on the day of their church wedding. James was battling the results of a botched defense experiment, and Heather formed the last link in a human chain that kept Mac from being sucked into a space rift. The ceremony went ahead regardless, with Logan acting as best man.

        Wolverine left Department H while Mac was gathering the group of people who would become known as Alpha Flight. With Wolverine gone, Heather was forced to accept that Mac would be the team's leader on a permanent basis. Life continued, punctuated by such events as a visit from Wolverine with his friend Nightcrawler, until Department H, and Alpha Flight, were disbanded for the first time by the federal government.

        On the same day that Department H shut down, Mac flew to the Northwest Territories to investigate some strange phenomena. Heather decided not to take any chances and summoned the rest of Alpha Flight to help him. After the success of that mission the team decided to stay together as independant agents, making Heather responsible for the survival of Alpha.

        With Department H shut down, Mac was unemployed, and the Hudsons reduced to living off of Heather's salary. Then Roxxon Oil, an American-based petroleum company, offered Mac an engineering position in New York City. Mac and Heather decided to accept the offer, with Mac going on ahead while Heather closed up their Ottawa apartment.

        The job offer was the bait for a trap set by the Hudsons' old boss Jerry Jaxon. Heather was kidnapped by Jaxon's operative Delphine Courtney upon her arrival in New York. With the trap exposed, Heather went searching for Mac. She found him just in time to watch him seemingly get blown to ashes.

        Although it took time, and she suffered from painful nightmares, Heather Hudson bounced back from her tragedy. She eventually assumed leadership of Alpha Flight, as a non-costumed operative. Shortly after taking the reins she experienced what it was like to be a super-human in an adventure with the X-Men. Then she suffered through a cruel plot by Delphine Courtney and Omega Flight to impersonate Mac and destroy Alpha.

        Encounters with Scramble and Deadly Ernest convinced Heather, rightly or wrongly, that she was ineffective as a non-powered leader. Roger Bochs and Madison Jeffries reverse-engineered the Guardian armor from the remains of the Courtney robot, and Heather adopted the suit for her own use.

        During her tenure as leader of Alpha Flight Heather had to deal with James' return, seeming death, and second return. Through it all she remained a very capable leader of Alpha Flight, guiding the team to victory against a wide variety of foes.

        For a time after Mac's second "resurrection" he and Heather lived and worked happily together. After a while though, the two were forced to confront the fact that both had changed a great deal. Heather and Mac separated, and Heather retired from the super-hero life. Rather than going back to secretarial work she took a job in a flower shop. What was done with her battlesuit is unknown.

        A few months later Heather was contacted by her former team-mate Eugene Milton Judd at the flower shop. While sitting at a local coffee shop the two were abducted by Epsilon Flight troupers from the new Department H. When Heather refused to join the new Alpha Flight she was brainwashed into believing that she had actually agreed, and forced to forget her abduction. She was then given a new battlesuit and assigned the code-name Vindicator.

        Heather's second stint with Alpha Flight was notably stressful. The team was continually manipulated by a Machiavellian Department H, which employed brainwashing and other repugnant methods multiple times against its own team. Heather had begun to figure out what was being done to her and the others, and was about to escape from Department H when a new regime was brought in to clean up the Department.

        Towards the end of Alpha Flight v2 Heather had decided to try to move on from her relationship with Mac, accepting a date with Eugene Judd. A relationship failed to jell, and the two remained friends. Heather then retired from active duty, becoming Alpha Flight's liason with Department H.

        The retirement did not last, and neither did her seperation from Mac Hudson. The two even became parents before Alpha Flight undertook a repopulation mission to the Plodex homeworld. After their return Heather, along with most of the rest of the team, was apparently killed in battle against the Collective.

        Heather Hudson used a battlesuit of unknown origins and largely unquantified abilities. The suit enabled her to fly, and allowed her to "tap geothermal energies." Using the suit she had produced steam blasts, lava blasts, and cool water. Heather had also used the suit to create a small volcano. Hudson was still in the process of learning her battlesuit's capabilities when Alpha Flight v2 was cancelled, and the issue was never properly explored in the time before her death.