Save the date again.

Looks like Guardian will have at least a minor appearance at a wedding again this coming April.  Marvel has been releasing images of puzzle pieces displaying wedding attendees and Alpha Flight is among the guests.

It's a little surprising to see Mac's estranged wife in the shot. At the end of the fourth volume of Alpha Flight, Heather Hudson left the group with the couple's daughter and with clear intentions of not being found.  There was never any follow up to that storyline.  The next time we saw Alpha Flight was in Hulk numbers 53 to 57 and there was no mention of that incident.

Guardian and Alpha Flight do enjoy their weddings, mind you.  In the summer of 2012, they attended Northstar's nuptials to Kyle...something or other.  I forget his name now and couldn't care any less. 

Guardian didn't do much at that wedding, mind you.  He appears on the cover...

...and here and there in group shots inside the issue...

Way to dress for the occasion, Flight...

But the best among his very brief moments is his arm-wrestling match with Rogue.

Being that Alpha is the Marvel version of WWE jobbers, there's no way he won that even though he appears to have the better technique.

I have no idea who's getting married in April, and I suspect that Alpha Flight will have about the same amount of involvement in whatever book it turns out to be as they did in Astonishing X-Men 51 (if they have any at all), but it's nice to see that they're still on someone's radar, at least.

Mystery solved some more!

A couple of months back, I asked about an action figure of the half-man / half-machine Guardian character that appeared in issues 88 to 100 or so of the original Alpha Flight series.  Shortly thereafter, a reader named Sam Noir identified the collectible as a variant of a Toyfare mail-away offer for a Guardian action figure.

The only thing that seemed inconsistent with what I'd seen was the packaging.  I kept reading that it came shipped in a plain white box, while the one I'd seen about 15 years looked far more professional (like a display item).

While making an e-bay purchase (more on that later...specifically when I actually get the item in the mail) I was directed to an auction for the variant version.  Unfortunately, they only ship within the United States.  Here it is below.

I'm almost positive that THAT is what I saw in a comic book shop in the West Edmonton Mall years ago.  Being that the package is signed by then-Alpha-Flight artist Steven Seagle, they went a little fancier with the display than a plain white box.

The Alpha Flight / Fantastic Four connection

In the previous post (assuming you're reading this chronologically), I mentioned that Guardian has something of a habit of being starstruck, and that there was another example of it coming.

In reading the material again, starstruck may not be the right term.  It may be more accurate to say that he's a little quick to defer to those with more experience.  Or at least he was in his early days.  The partial page below is from Marvel Two-In-One #84.

Man alive.  When I read that, I wished that the next panel was of Guardian kicking The Thing right in the pebbles.  But no. Of course not.  Four panels later, Guardian is preparing to call the rest of the available members of Alpha Flight to help.  'Cause that's what he does.

But as was often the case back then, it ultimately leads to Alpha Flight being given the "rub".  Sort of. At the end of the book, Thing tells the team "Say, now that it's all over, I gotta say you guy really have it together...for a bunch of amateurs".

High praise indeed.  Weird way to sell one of your properties, Marvel.  But at least the possibilities of Guardian's suit are displayed a fair bit, including its ability to interrupt the effect of earth's gravity on the wearer.

Here's where we get another opportunity to flesh out Guardians' background somewhat.  Around the time that the second volume of Alpha Flight was coming out, Marvel Comics had a "Flashback" event by which they released "-1" issues of their books.  Alpha Flight received such treatment with a story specific to the events leading up to Mac and Heather's wedding.

Not surprisingly, Wolverine also had such an issue, and Mac and Heather appeared in that (briefly) as well.  But don't take my word for it, let Stan Lee describe it.

Good of ya, Mac!  Who's flying this experimental plane of which you speak?

Ha!  That's neat!

There actually was a small window of time in which Wolverine was found and the Richards family became the Fantastic Four.  Good job of working that in by writer Larry Hama.  I guess turning into a rock monster also turned Ben Grimm into a prejudiced prick, but who knows what kind of effect gamma rays can have?

Back to Marvel 2-in-1 #84, Alpha Flight's Shaman also has a bit of a fanboy moment when he speculates that maybe one day, his team might meet the Fantastic Four.  Before long, Sue Richards does pop up in Alpha Flight (first volume) #4 as does Namor, the SubMariner.  Of course, polite Canadian that he is, Guardian makes sure to refer to Namor as "your highness", bless 'im.  :-)

The two teams do meet much later during Alpha Flight's first run, in issues 93 and 94, while Guardian (using the Vindicator name again, if I recall correctly) is in the middle of his short-lived android phase.

I doubt that "era" is thought of fondly by Alpha Flight fans, but from a Guardian-specific perspective, there are at least some interesting tidbits within that two-issue storyline.

The story's villain, Headlok, has psionic abilities.  Guardian is half man half machine and Headlok can sense this. As such, Headlok provides some insight while scanning Guardian's mind.

"What do you have to show me, James Mcdonald Hudson?  Clean.  Precise.  Logical.  Like the rubber man's mind, but even MORE structured.  You see EVERYTHING in absolutes, James?  How limiting.  Even I pity you, your rigid, mathematical method of seeing life!"

"Peeking into your mind is like looking under the hood of a car, James.  You know what's going to be there, but you never know what's going to be wrong."

Not a bad way to work in a little character building in your stories by writer Fabian Nicieza. Why he chose to do away with Guardian again just half a year later, after seemingly putting in a certain amount of effort into explaining his personality, remains a mystery to me.  If anyone has any info or suggestions in regards to that, I'm all ears.

Alpha Flight in Marvel Adventures

While writing about the recently-released Guardian Heroclix from the Invincible Iron Man set, I questioned how Alpha Flight came to be considered among Iron Man's allies.  No doubt they've met but they've never had any significant ongoing interaction.

I was reminded of an Alpha Flight appearance in an issue of Marvel Adventures Iron Man (#11, published in March of 2008), however.  It's not in continuity; Marvel Adventures was geared towards a younger crowd.  But Alpha Flight and Iron Man do meet briefly in a story that takes place during a training session in Nunavut.

Writer: Fred Van lente

The Living Laser is back, and having merged with the aurora borealis, he's laying waste to the Great White North. Iron Man had better call in the cavalry! Wait, no--the Mounties! No, better yet--Canada's greatest super heroes, ALPHA FLIGHT!

Here's a page that features Guardian in particular.  You can read the first few page of the book here.

Alpha shows up later in the book as well to provide an assist to Iron Man in defeating the Living Laser (and continue to bicker).  And Guardian didn't die, so that's always a plus.

I've said before that I'm not usually into alternate versions of the character but that one is kind of fun and pretty consistent with the original.  Guardian has a history of being a little starstruck around some of the bigger names in the Marvel universe.  We saw it earlier in a brief appearance in a Fantastic Four book when he unexpectedly met Reed Richards and the next post, up in a day or two, will display another such occurrence.

New Guardian Heroclix

The "And One Shall Surely Die!" t-shirt from the previous post was not the only item solicited this past August to include Guardian. The other was the Invincible Iron Man Heroclix set.

Get armored up for action this autumn! Build-up your HeroClix collection with the latest Marvel set to focus on the armored Avenger, his allies, and some of his most dangerous adversaries!

Iron's Man's allies include Alpha Flight, apparently. I won't try to reason that out, I'll just appreciate that there's a second Guardian Heroclix (even though I don't even play the game) to add to the collection.

And it looks like a significant improvement over the first. I love that the piece includes Guardian's force field, in a pose reminiscent of when he burst out of the ground in his first comic book appearance. I also enjoyed the "If I can just bridge this circuit" name for one of his abilities, a reference to the countdown to Guardian's death in issue #12 of Alpha Flight (first series).

A digital image of the figurine had been released a while back but I wanted to wait for an actual picture of the piece before posting about it. I lifted the one above from this site and will add it to the Collectibles page shortly.