Guardian Year One

Not being particularly interested in Wolverine's early days aside from his interaction with James MacDonald Hudson, I was a little unsure as to how much I would enjoy this book.  Now that I've read it, I'm still not certain I do.

The book describes itself as a "contemporary retelling" of Wolverine's formative years, but since much of that period was spent with, and impacted by, the Hudsons, it is nearly inevitable that their history will be affected by any modification or modernization to Logan's.  That includes the sudden revelation of an early model of the Guardian armour.

Such "touch ups" don't have to be a bad thing.  For example, the "Hudson hunting honeymoon" has ceased to be.  The Hudsons don't shoot Wolverine in the wild and nurse him back to health, but rather recover him following his devastating battle against the Wendigo.  The hunting aspect is not specifically important to the scene so its  removal doesn't negatively affect it.  Really, it arguably improves it as the Hudsons have never shown an interest in hunting since, that I can recall.

What does seem out of place is Mac's dialogue throughout much of the book.  Many of his actions that appear to be out of character can be explained as the result of his patriotism being abused by his superiors.  That's historically consistent so not difficult to accept.

But his words towards Logan are often malicious and petty.  A lot of them are spoken after Wolverine has put Heather in harms way, so the anger is understandable at that moment, but it persists well beyond that point and is far worse than the trash-talking type of dialogue in X-Men 109.

The other inconsistency is in Mac's confidence.  Mac's reluctance to wear the battle suit is well documented.  In this story, not only does he do so without a second thought, he takes to it like a fish to water.  During a scrap with Wolverine in which he has the upper hand, he even states "I could do this all day".  He seems more comfortable with the suit in this book than he does in his next chronological appearance (again, X-Men 109).

While a lot of gaps in Wolverine's (and by association, Guardian's) background are filled in, because some of the story is inconsistent with other works, it feels like it's out of continuity.  But based on the pitch as a retelling (not re-imagining), it doesn't seem like that should be the case.

As a stand alone book, both the story and art are quite good.  If you're detail-oriented, those little inconsistencies may get on your nerves.  I found myself trying to consolidate parts of the book with what I know has gone on since that period in Wolverine's life until I realised that it's not my job to do that, it's the writers'.

To be fair, my focus was on Guardian.  Theirs was on Wolverine.  My criticism might be a touch more valid if this book had been "Alpha Flight: Season One" which, regardless of my opinion of this book, I would buy in a heartbeat.

Of Clothes Not Making The Man

I really don't like Wolverine.  This is why I had no idea that Mac (and Heather) are both quite prominent in the recently released "Wolverine: Season One" book until it was reviewed on alphaflight.net.  I sought out the book at Chapters and gave it a quick flip which, combined with the above review, convinced me that it was a worthwhile purchase.  I saved a few bucks by purchasing it online instead of in the store, so it's in the mail and I should have it by Monday.

The part of the review which was particularly attention-grabbing was the mention of a Guardian suit prototype being tested (click on the link above to see a small scan of one panel on which the suit is displayed).  I suppose it makes sense that the path from the original clunky mining suit to the micro-circuitry uniform that we've come to know would be achieved gradually, but it seems like this one came out of nowhere.  We'll see.

In the meantime, seeing another version of the Guardian armour triggered an idea.  Much like the "About Guardian" page was expanded to include information about the character's creation (and not just his fictional history), details about other armours worn by James MacDonald Hudson will be added to the "The Suit" page above.

Most of the alternative suits are completely brutal, true, but they are part of Guardian's muddled history so they should be acknowledged.  I guess.

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.