About Guardian

Guardian is a Marvel Comics character created by John Byrne.

Real Name
James MacDonald Hudson

First Appearance
X-Men #109 (1978)

Origin
Alpha Flight (1983) #2, #3

Place of Birth
London, Ontario, Canada

Height / Weight
6' 02" / 190

Aliases
Weapon Alpha, Vindicator

In terms of the "real life" origin of Guardian, the following is an excerpt from Modern Masters Volume Seven.  John B. Cooke interviews John Byrne about the origin of Alpha Flight.

JBC: Did it feel good to be doing a canadian super team?

Byrne:  ...It was actually Dave's (Cockrum's) idea...He figured that the Canadian government spent all this money developing Wolverine, and they probably weren't too thrilled that he'd gone off and joined this ostensibly international but essentially American group. So they'd probably send someone after him. And that was where the first Guardian -- or Vindicator called him.  I went around saying "Vindicator? Because Canada has to vindicate what?"...

...One of the first jobs I didn't get was that Captain America was going to visit Canada and Steve Englehart, who was writing Captain America at the time, thought it would be a good idea to get a Canadian artist to illustrate it...I drew some really bad samples and what Steve said was "We've decided not to do that story" which I thought was a nice way to crush me. But it was going to be Captain America fighting a Canadian superhero so I drew Guardian...I had come up with (Guardian) when I was going to have my own comic book company that I had worked out since I was 22.

This next bit is lifted from the FAQ on John Byrne's forum, although it is said to be a portion of a interview from 2008. The Eaglemoss magazine includes the text word for word and claims that it is from a chat between Byrne and one Mike Conroy. Being a retelling of the previous anecdote, it is naturally quite similar but includes an additional few details.

Byrne:  Several members of what became Alpha Flight date back to my fan days. Guardian is chief among them, being created when I was in my early 20s as the figurehead of a whole line of "Canadian comics" I was hoping to produce....

When I was assigned the gig of penciling UNCANNY X-MEN, Chris Claremont mentioned that Dave Cockrum had an idea that the Canadian government probably would not be too thrilled to see their multi-million dollar investment -- Wolverine -- head south as had so many other Canadian resources. Surely, he suggested, Ottawa would send somebody, perhaps even a team, to get him back. 

This sounded like a great idea, to me, and, of course, I had just the characters to do it. We decided to start with just one, though, the leader of the group. Since Marvel at that time was publishing GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY the Powers that Were nixed the name Guardian, and since my backup, the Canadian Shield, was equally problematic in the Marvel Universe, he was without a name for a while. Chris took to calling him "Major Mapleleaf", and Roger Stern said we'd better come up with a name before that one stuck. Chris then tacked on "Vindicator", which absolutely did not work for me. What does Canada need to "vindicate"? I began pushing for the restoration of Guardian, and eventually pushed that thru.

Byrne mentions earlier in the interview that The Sentinel was the character's original name.