His Finest Hour

On November 20th, I wrote about what I thought was one of the most putrid Guardian appearances in the character's rather colourful history. It made me stop to consider which might be my favourite.  It didn't take me long to settle on the book below.

The two-part story came out in 1998, but in terms of continuity it takes place after the fourth issue of the first Alpha flight book.  Most of the team's adventures to this point had revolved around conflict with the X-Men as a result of attempting to bring Wolverine back to Canada.

The first issue is rather X-Men heavy, though the premise revolves around Guardian's back story.  The terrorist organization known as Hydra has swindled hundreds of suits of Guardian's original armour prototype from Department-H and uses them to apprehend the mutant team. Professor-X calls upon Guardian, and therefore Alpha Flight, to rescue his team.

Admittedly, there's an undertone that Alpha Flight is not on the same level as the X-Men.  Guardian is said to have the same leadership "potential" as Cyclops.  Guardian admits that without freeing the X-Men, getting out of the facility that they're about to infiltrate is near impossible.  And in battle, Alpha Flight is becoming overwhelmed right at the point that the now-freed X-Men join the battle and basically save the day.

Setting biases aside however, it is true that the X-Men were a far more experienced bunch at that point.  And ultimately, Alpha Flight is given some much-needed (and rare) respect.  Additionally, the team's relationship with the X-Men (and Wolverine specifically) is solidified.

There are a couple of odd moments. Strucker uses Guardian's suit-based ability to not be affected by the rotation of the Earth to "teleport" away.  I'm not convinced that making use of such a tool would be particularly wise indoors.  There are also a few pages in the beginning of Alpha Flight taking time to train in the X-Men's danger room.  Sure, what's the rush, with six members of the X-Men kidnapped by a terrorist group?  Just send out for pizza too while you're at it.

But those are relatively minor complaints in an otherwise entertaining story.  The books were written by Ben Raab and John Cassaday, the latter also handling art duties.  Steve Oliff did the colours on the 2nd issue (Jason Wright did the first).

The Alpha Flight Collector (Guardian tag)

Just a brief update today to draw attention to a link that has been added on the right side of the page.

I tend to keep my blog posts and Appearances page entries (see above) specific to what I consider to be significant involvements in books.  For example, I did not include Mac's attendance at Northstar's wedding among the appearances because he's really just crowd shot filler.

The Alpha Flight Collector blog, for those who may have not come across it, is pretty much the exact opposite.  It records cameos and rarities involving the various Alpha Flight cast members.  I have added it as part of the blog roll, but using the Guardian tag specifically (and therefore directing folks only to posts involving our man of the hour).

Credit where it's due, the panel scan of a devastated Alpha Flight in the previous post was actually from the Collector blog (though located through Google search and not lifted directly).

Hulk-Buster Guardian

Over the past few months I've been working on acquiring the Guardian appearances that are missing from my collection.

The difficult part is knowing when an appearance is actually worthwhile.  I don't want to buy a book if Guardian and/or Alpha Flight only appears in the background in one panel.  Or as corpses.

So confession time: On occasion I obtain "free" version of digital books to see if they're worth adding to the pile.

Now I was fully prepared to get the "Rules of Engagement" and "The Draco" storylines from the X-Men books in 2003 and 2004 respectively.  From what I could gather from reviews, Alpha Flight was prominent enough in them that they would be worth the expense.

I could also gather that the books, written by Chuck Austen, sucked.  It seemed like a near consensus among X-Men fans that this was a terrible period in that team's history.  Whatever.  It was just a couple of issues anyway and it's not as though all of the Alpha Flight books are gold, either.

Even approaching these books with that mentality however, it's difficult to conclude that these books are anything but crap.

Let's start with the atrocity at right.  You'd be excused if you didn't recognize him, but that is our Guardian in his appearance in X-Men #432 (2004).

We are meant to believe that, fully expecting to encounter Juggernaut, the team (Guardian, Heather as Vindicator and Sasquatch...where was everyone else??) wore specially-designed armour for the occasion.

The only thing dumber than Sasquatch wearing armour is Guardian wearing (traditional) armour, since his usual suit allows him to create a force field anyway.  So what is the point?

Well, there may have been one (does Marvel still award no-prizes for fixing their mistakes?).  In the team's earlier appearance (#422) Northstar completely punks Guardian.  He (Northstar) uses his familiarity with his former teammate to disable and strip Guardian's standard armour.

Let's give the benefit of the doubt, assume that Guardian reacted accordingly (which even if true, wouldn't explain why Sasquatch would wear armour too) and replaced his usual attire with an outfit that Northstar knows nothing about.  How did that work out?

Not so great then. In the previous page, Guardian gets a few solid shots in, but then a suit of armour supposedly designed to combat Hulk-type characters actually makes it easier for Juggernaut to whoop on Guardian.  "Convenient hand-grip" indeed.

Ah well.  I got to read this book for free and I got my money's worth.  Maybe I'll patiently wait to find it in a dollar bin one day.

Incoming! The Guardian Eaglemoss figurine!

But more importantly, the magazine that comes with it.

I didn't know much about the Eaglemoss figurine series until I gave the Snowbird one a try earlier this year.  I stumbled into that one while looking for information about the Alpha Flight action figures that came out in the late 90's.  I knew that there was a Guardian figurine as well one (among other members of Alpha Flight) but it took starting this page to get me to take the plunge and purchase it.

To be entirely honest, I really paid for the 20-page magazine.  The figure is almost an extra.  The Snowbird book either clarified, or tied together, a few parts of her history that I couldn't quite piece together (because I was unaware of some of her appearances in non-Alpha Flight books).  As...let's call it "unique"...as Guardian's background is, I could probably use the quick reference guide for him too.

Not that the figurine itself is so awful.  It's still quite cool to even have the option to buy it!  But I was disappointed in the paint job on my snowbird version.  It was a little sloppy.  I've seen other pictures of the Guardian edition and the same seems to apply to him.

I'm going to start working on a page of collectible soon that will display the various toys, cards, etc, related to this character. But before I do, I'd like to acquire a few of them so that I can comment on them from experience.  I doubt that the wife will buy that as a reason, but I'll do my best to make it sound logical. ;-)