Guardian sticks it to Tamaraq

The final part of the World War Wendigo storyline, guest-starring Alpha Flight, was released yesterday and while Guardian's panel-count is small, his contribution is quite significant and spectacular.

The book starts with a hybrid X-Men/Alpha Flight team confronting the Great Beast Tamaraq. And our man stands tall. Briefly.

Yikes. Whatever plan Mac may have worked out in his head, I'm fairly certain that wasn't it.

So Guardian appears to die, and of course, no one really reacts beyond Firestar's exclamation above. In fairness though, when you've died so many times, people might get a little jaded.

But as we know, it takes a whole lot to kill this guy off. And the manner of his demise makes the manner of his eventual return rather obvious. So we bear through idiotic dialogue from Iceman and Rockslide, as well as the Wendigoverine bit, for our money shot several pages later:

That's got to hurt.

So Mac ultimately drops the killing blow on Tamaraq, and the X-Men are understandably impressed. It was almost worth slogging through all five issues of their book for that one glorious moment alone.

We later find out that Heather "turned up' (oh, OK...) when the Wendigo curse was eliminated, that Mac has been by her side since her reappearance (yet the panel which states this displays Mac as bed-ridden with Heather by HIS side) and, according to Wolverine, that they haven't looked happier in quite some time. They'll probably be even happier when (if?) they remember they have a daughter together.

So that's that.  As much as I found this story sloppy and irritating overall, viewed from the perspective of a Guardian fan specifically, I can at least be pleased with his part in it.  Looking forward to seeing what the future brings for him.