GUARDIAN
Real Name: James MacDonald Hudson
Other Aliases: Weapon Alpha, Vindicator, Antiguard
Group Affiliation: Alpha Flight. Former associate of the Master.
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #109
Creator: John Byrne
James MacDonald Hudson,
(known alternately as James, Jimmy or Mac to his friends) was a
scientist employed by the Am-Can Petroleum Corporation when he developed a
suit of armor to be used in
exploratory work. The suit used a helmet Hudson had invented in his
student days as a control mechanism. Hudson's supervisor, one
Jerry Jaxon, arranged
a deal with the American military to sell them the suit, presumably for use as
a weapon. Hudson quit in protest.
As Hudson was leaving he was
stopped by Heather McNeil, Jaxon's personal
secretary. McNeil informed Hudson that she had been forbidden to warn him of
Jaxon's plans for the suit, but that she had given her notice when she
learned what they planned to do to him. James was caught completely off
guard by this expression of support from a woman he barely knew.
Later that night, intent on
preventing the American military from abusing his invention, Hudson went back
to the plant and donned the armor. He then used the suit's capabilities to
break into the company safe and destroy the only blueprints for his creation.
Blasting out of the sub-basement, he flew away, and left the suit standing on a
hillside. Hudson took the control helmet with him when he left. Since the
helmet had been created prior to his employment Hudson believed Am-Can had no
claim on it.
The next day Jimmy was in a
rather poor mood, realizing that he would soon be a suspect in the previous
night's events. At that point his doorbell rang. Outside was
Heather McNeil, carrying a box of groceries. After inviting
herself in, Heather began putting the food away, chatting all the time how
Hudson might have quit prematurely, since the suit plans had been destroyed
and the control helmet was missing. Realizing that Hudson already knew all
about it somehow, Heather then found the control helmet sitting on a coffee
table.
Heather McNeil then
managed to completely shock James Hudson for the second time in two days:
when James bitterly said that he didn't want Heather trying to shield him,
Heather agreed... but quickly brought up the idea that a wife
can't be made to testify against her husband. After making a lot of noise
about Heather's youth, James confessed that he had felt an immediate
connection the day before when they talked. He then added that he saw no way
out of his current situation. Fortunately for him, Heather did.
At Heather's suggestion Hudson
met with numerous officials in the
Federal Government at Ottawa. Realizing what a potential asset a man of
Hudson's genius would be, the feds used some legal technicalities to declare
that he had been "retroactively" working for them for six years.
The government set up
Department H, named after Hudson, and set him
to work doing research for the Ministry of Defence. Shortly
thereafter, he and Heather were married in a civil ceremony. Despite planning
a church service to be held at a later date, the Hudsons went on a honeymoon
when Department H offered to pick up the tab. The honeymoon was a camping
trip, to scout some wilderness land for the department. While on the
trip the Hudsons came across a beastial "wild-man" and brought him back to
civilization with them. The man, Logan by name, joined Department H as an
agent and eventually became known as Wolverine.
After returning to work
following the disasterous "honeymoon" James felt that something was missing,
that things weren't quite "clicking." Then one day Heather showed him a
newspaper wth a story on the Fantastic Four,
the first super-heroes since the time shortly after World War II. After
reading the article James was inspired to form a team of super-heroes to
protect Canada.
Before the ball really got
going on this effort James and Heather finally had the church ceremony that
Heather wanted. Logan acted as James' best man. James and Logan
almost never made the ceremony; the two were almost killed battling the ugly
results of a botched defence project. Once again it was Heather who saved
Mac's skin, this time literally. She formed the final link in a human chain
that stopped Hudson from being pulled through a space warp.
The first full adventure of
Hudson's super-hero program was chronicled in a special called
First Flight. At this point James had turned the
armor he designed over to a drafted police detective named Sean Bernard.
During the battle
Smart Alec froze under pressure. Bernard quit the team
immediately after the mission. Each event had an effect. Firstly, Smart Alec's
failure inspired Hudson to create a multi-tiered system of teams: one team of
active operatives and the other teams for various stages of training. This led
to the formation of
Alpha, Beta &
Gamma Flights. Secondly, James decided not to draft
anyone else to use his armor and that he would use it himself.
At this point James still
intended to have Logan eventually lead Alpha Flight, the
first tier team. That plan died when Charles Xavier recruited Wolverine
for his team of mutants called the X-Men. After Wolverine's resignation
[The higher-ups called it a defection. :) -C] Hudson felt forced to take
the leadership of Alpha Flight permanently.
James eventually refined the
suit down from a bulky armor to a highly sophisticated and flexible suit of
mail. After months of set-up he was sent to Westchester, New York to bring
Wolverine back home. The mission was unsuccessful, and James returned home
bearing the guilt of injuring a civilian. [Moira MacTaggert - C] When he had
entered the States he was calling himself Weapon Alpha. After that mission
he adopted the code-name Vindicator, feeling he had to vindicate himself.
Hudson led Alpha Flight in an
unsuccessful second attempt to capture
Wolverine, and remained leader until Department H and the team were disbanded
due to budget cuts. To his surprise and pleasure Alpha Flight elected to
regroup as free agents after facing Tundra.
On the advice of Shaman James then
adopted the code-name Guardian. [Michael thought the name more appropriate
to James' role as "Canada's Captain America" -C]
Although Alpha Flight was
reformed, Hudson was still unemployed. He then
received an unexpected offer of employment from Roxxon Oil in New York.
James accepted, but the entire thing was a set-up by his old boss, Jerry
Jaxon. Jaxon had created Omega Flight from Department
H's training teams, and Jaxon himself fought Hudson alongside them using the
stolen Box robot.
Hudson managed to even the odds
by summoning Alpha Flight, but Jaxon isolated Mac from his team-mates and
managed to severely damage Hudson's battlesuit. The suit's powerpack overloaded
when James was distracted from his repair efforts by Heather walking into
the room. The powerpack exploded, and James was seemingly reduced to ash.
What actually happened was
that Hudson managed to channel the blast to create
a spatial rift. The rift took him to Ganymede, the largest of
Jupiter's moons. There he was found by an outpost of the alien race
called the Qu'wrlln. The aliens managed to save his life, but as they had
never seen a human being before they didn't realize that his armor was not
a natural part of his body. So they made a working synthesis of
technological and organic systems, making James into a cyborg.
When James had recovered
sufficiently from his trauma he expressed a desire to return home, and the
Qu'wrlln agreed to help. Using their technology the aliens scanned Earth to
prepare for the trip. Hudson then received a nasty shock: the rift had gone
through time as well as space, and he was 10,000 years in the past.
The Qu'wrlln put James in suspended animation to await the
proper time to go home.
The Qu'wrlln, while friendly to
Hudson, had a nearly pathological fear of Galactus. While
awaiting the proper time to send Hudson home the Qu'wrlln observed the defeat
of Galactus by the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. The aliens were
completely amazed that a world had managed to defeat the World-Eater.
They decided to take Hudson, who was still comatose, and turn him into their
agent in Earth's super-hero community. If Galactus ever troubled them they
would use James to get super-human help. To this end they made modifications to
the computer part of Hudson's cyborg mind.
At the appropriate time Hudson
was loaded into a Qu'wrlln probe ship and sent back to Earth. The ship
crash-landed in the ocean, but James did not awaken from suspended animation
as planned. The ship was found by the crew of a Roxxon Oil
drilling platform and shipped to a Roxxon research facility. There Roxxon
scientists were able to tap into Jimmy's computer systems enough to get most of
the above history from his mind. The Roxxon-built robot called
Delphine Courtney then used
the information to impersonate James and lead Omega Flight on another
battle against Alpha Flight. Hudson was placed in a
holding area and monitored... until it became obvious that his computer
systems were infiltrating and taking over Roxxon's systems through the
medical monitors.
Roxxon used its influence with
the Canadian military to get help from Alpha Flight member
Madison Jeffries in battling Hudson's
subconscious computer takeover. Roxxon kept Jeffries in the dark as to the
exact cause of their difficulties. As Jeffries battled for control of the
Roxxon computers he realized that there was a living mind behind the problem.
At that moment a Roxxon executive decided to turn off Hudson's life-support.
This had disasterous consequences... for Roxxon, that is.
The act of "pulling the plug,"
activated defenses that Hudson's subconscious mind had set up. The defenses
blew up the facility. Jeffries survived and managed to reach Hudson's mind,
pulling James back to consciousness. Hudson then returned to Alpha Flight.
While he had been gone Heather had taken the name Guardian, so James returned
to the name Vindicator, reversing the color scheme of his original costume to
create a new look.
James had
numerous emotional problems after his return. The
tampering that the Qu'wrlln had done to insure he would act as their agent
had rendered the computer part of his cyborg brain slightly dominant over
the organic part. The result was that he was an extremely logical, unemotional
being who would've "out-Vulcan'ed" Mr. Spock on most occasions. This placed
a great amount of stress on his relationship with Heather, but the two
managed to work through it for the most part.
While James, Alpha Flight,
and the Avengers were dealing with an attack by an alien Consortium on
Toronto, in deep space the Qu'wrlln homeworld was monitoring the approach of
Nova, then-Herald of Galactus. The aliens activated the first of
their defenses and shifted their planet into a pocket dimension. Nova was
caught up in the transition effect, however, and Galactus travelled across
the dimensional barrier to find her.
The Qu'wrlln then played
their final ace: They activated the programming they had subjected Hudson to
years before. James immediately teleported the strongest super-humans of both
teams dealing with the Consortium problem to the dimension containing the
Qu'wrlln homeworld.
Although troubled by the fact
that they had been shanghaied, the assembled heroes came to the conclusion
that they had to do something, or else all the Qu'wrlln would die. They
attacked Galactus, and to the surprise of everyone, they started to win. The
pocket dimension the Qu'wrlln had placed their world in was interfering with
Galactus' lifeforce, preventing him from using his full power.
After toppling Galactus,
the heroes began negotiating for the safety of the Qu'wrlln. A bargain was
struck: Galactus would use his technology to create a rift in space. The rift
would return the heroes and himself to the regular universe, and it would also
bring the Consortium mother-ship to Galactus. [Consortium mother-ships are
powered by planets suitable to Galactus' appetites. -C]
The problem was that Galactus
was too weak to generate the necessary energy to power the device to create the
rift. James and Heather could do it, but Galactus warned that they would most
likely be killed in the process. Both heroes accepted this, but James decided
to make the sacrifice by himself. Knocking out Heather, he forced her through
the rift back to Earth. And so James Hudson seemed to die for the second
time.
The fates, however, weren't
done with James. This time around Mac became trapped in a dimension of null
space after the rift closed. It was there that he was somehow found by the
Master of the World. The
Master retrieved him and patched him up, claimed to have improved Hudson's
intellect in many ways, and seemingly brought Hudson around to his way
of thinking. Called the Antiguard, Hudson battled Alpha Flight alongside
the Master and the new
Omega Flight until Heather managed to break
through the Master's conditioning. Hudson returned with his wife and his team
only to find out that the Federal gov't had suspended them while an
investigation was carried out regarding the Master's recent political
machinations.
For a time James and Heather
were once more a happy couple. The Master's tampering had apparently undone the
Qu'wrlln tampering; hence James' emotions were back to normal. The Hudsons
worked as a husband & wife research team and had a few adventures alongside
Wolverine. During one such adventure James was named executor of his old
friend's will.
The happiness was not to last.
After the suspension ended and Alpha Flight was officially disbanded for the
third time James and Heather came to realize that both of them had changed more
than they cared to admit. Tensions in the relationship grew and eventually the
Hudsons separated.
James returned to Department H
as it was setting up for the fourth time. Using advanced technology provided
by H, he found some way of removing the Qu'wrlln technology from his body,
leaving himself fully human once more.
The new administration in
charge of Department H had sinister goals and used methods that were, to put it
mildly, dubious in nature. Hudson voiced his concern about these matters,
and ended up being forcibly confined.
Department H scientists
transfered James' memories to a
synthoid duplicate. James' mind was wiped in the process. Feeling that the
original Hudson was no longer needed, technicians programmed his battlesuit to
launch into deep space.
[Compiler's notes: this little
detail is one of the only things that truly bugs me about Seagle's run on Alpha
Flight v2. Using a valuable piece of equipment like the Guardian battlesuit to
dispose of a body seems unbelievably wasteful. However, I've come up with
a possible explanation: Dr. Huxley, the head scientist for all of H's shady
projects, came across as the type of moron who might pull this stunt just to
see if the battlesuit was capable of getting into orbit.]
Instead of heading into space,
the battleshit ended up crash-landing in the Antartic. The suit kept Hudson
alive until he was found by his old team-mate Sasquatch
. Sasquatch brought Hudson to Shaman, who used
his magic to restore James' mind.
Upon learning, from James,
what Department H was up to the three original Alphans decided to act. The
first step was rescuing Aurora from Department H.
Events snowballed from there until the original Alpha Flight, minus Snowbird,
faced off against the modern version of the team. That conflict ended happily,
and James Hudson rejoined Department H.
Although James was reunited
with Heather on a professional level, a personal reunion took more time.
The Hudsons did eventually reconcile, and James & Heather celebrated the birth of
their first child, a daughter. After a brief stay on the Plodex homeworld both
James and Heather were seemingly killed in battle with
the Collective.
Guardian wore a suit of highly
advanced armor of his own design that enabled him to utilize electro-magnetic
energy for various effects.
The Guardian armor acted as an
electro-magnetic exo-skeleton, providing the wearer with super-human strength.
In his first appearance Guardian was shown lifting a large tree with no
difficulty.
The suit enabled Guardian to
fly at speeds of up to Mach 1. It was also capable of faster travel by
rendering
the user "at rest" relative to the rotation of the Earth. This creates a
nearly instantaneous acceleration to extremely high speed in a westward
direction. To the casual observer it looked like Guardian had teleported when
he used this ability.
Guardian's armor created an
electromagnetic force-field for defensive purposes. The field was capable of
shielding him from a great deal of harm. Activation of the "at rest" capability
automatically turned on the force-field.
The suit was capable of firing
electromagnetic blasts for offensive moves. The blasts could exert a force
ranging from a decent punch to a destructive power equivalent
to 250 pounds of TNT, at the user's discretion. Using the blasts the wearer
could tunnel through bedrock [The original purpose of the armor. -C] at up to
25 miles per hour.
Finally, the suit could
create and manipulate plasma, forming it into simple shapes such as funnels.
Plasma is a super-heated form of matter.
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