Alpha Flight, Volume Two, Issue Two, Variant Cover

I've just added the trading card at right to the Collectibles page.  As stated there, it is from a Wolverine card set entitled "From Then 'Til Now" from 1992.

The art is Art Adams and I believe Terry Austin.  It served as the cover to Classic X-Men #16, a reprint of Uncanny X-Men 109 which featured the first appearance of Guardian, then known as Weapon Alpha.

The Classic X-Men series not only reprinted the early adventures of the new version of the team after its popularity had begun to soar, but also included a few pages of new material as well.  The point was to, in theory, flesh out the stories a little more and/or add depth to certain characters.  The additional pages from that issue, that involve Guardian, are displayed in this post.

While looking for information about that book/cover, I came across another variant cover that I'd totally forgotten about.  It was for the second issue of Alpha Flight second series.

I forgot about it for the simple reason that I don't have it and probably have not seen it since the book came out in 1997.  Also, it is unusual for a book to have a variant cover for its second issue only.  The primary cover for this particular issue is at right and features frequent Alpha Flight villain The Master.

The second Alpha Flight book was a hit and miss affair for me.  I personally found the art to be difficult to follow most of the time, particularly in the later issues when Duncan Rouleau took over those duties.

When the series started again, with Guardian prominent on the cover, I was excited to pick it up.  But it's quickly revealed that James MacDonald Hudson was "de-evolved" by Department H since his last in-comic appearance and is now a 19-year old.

That would take some getting used to on its own, but he's entirely, frustratingly incompetent as a leader.  He has no respect or authority from his teammates.

The adult Hudson returns later in the book but behind such an idiotic storyline that it's difficult to take it seriously.  In fairness to the writers (Steven Seagle, and I believe Rouleau was assisting in that function as well by then), it seemed as though they got the news of the series' cancellation with rather short notice and wanted to tie up all their loose ends.  Perhaps given the time they could have made Guardian "senior"'s return a touch more palatable.

The young Guardian is killed off in a "now let's never speak of this again" fashion in Wolverine #143.  And that I know of, it was never spoken of again.  Thank you writer Erik Larsen for removing that unnecessary burden from a team and character that already have rather complicated timelines.

Edit Sept 26th: As requested in a comment below, here's the back of the card that I began this post about before rambling off.  It's simple but I quite like it.  I should have thought to include it myself.

The Possible Mystery of the "Reverse" Guardian Action Figure

There have been a few quiet additions to the Collectibles page over the past few days.  None is particularly newsworthy on its own, since most items date back more than a decade, but a couple of them reminded me of a small mystery from a number of years ago.

The two items in question are a Toy Biz mail-in exclusive action figure and a card from the Overpower game.  Both were issued in the mid to late 90's.

The "negative" version of Guardian displayed on the card (at right) isn't in use for merchandise a great deal since it lasted only about a year within comics.  It was the results of Guardian's first of several returns from the dead and was the result of the Building Block storyline that ran from issues 87 to 90 of the first volume.  So the combination of that uniform and a rare action figure reminded me that I once saw an action figure of "negative Guardian" years ago yet have heard or seen nothing of it since.

If I recall correctly, I was at a comics store on the upper floor of the West Edmonton Mall.  I don't believe that the action figure was a custom piece because it seemed to be expertly packaged.  This would have been in the summer of 1998.  It was fairly pricey, which is why I chose against buying it at the time (now regretfully).

Does any of this ring a bell with anyone?  Is anyone aware of some such "exclusive" or rare piece?  If so, feel free to drop be a line at jf4nier@gmail.com and tell me what you know.  I'm not necessarily interested in buying it now (but not uninterested either ;-) ).  Either way, I'm certainly curious.