Cool Moment In Comic's History

The less known about the resolution to this story the better because the explanation is pretty stupid. Let's just say that for 12 issues, as Gaurdian, James Hudson McDonald led a team of Canadian superheroes called Alpha Flight. They finally were in their own series and the whole thing was drawn and later written by Canada's own John Byrne. 

 

 

After a series of adventures, James found his suit was significantly damaged in battle. With the power to control the forces of the Earth. He was a very powerful human in a power suit. In many ways he resembled Iron Man. I loved the way that Guardian could align himself with the spinning of the Earth and reach Earth Spin Velocity. Great for escaping from a fight he can't win. Suddenly he is 1000 miles from where he once was.

 

Formerly, Guardian used a skintight technological "battle-suit" composed of steel mesh and which served as an exoskeleton; it allowed him to fly, fire energy blasts and had a personal force field for defense. The suit design stems from a geological/oil-exploration exo-suit designed by Hudson during his early career. The original suit was clunky, over-large and awkward, though it did have an energy beam "weapon" system, ostensibly used for drilling/tunneling. The skin-tight suit is considered to be a later, possibly 2nd or 3rd generation, evolution of the original design.

The battle-suit is cybernetically controlled and contains a high resolution navigation system. The battle-suit permits flight by directing beams of force towards the ground, propelling the wearer forward at up to Mach 1
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Guardian could cause the battle-suit computers to trigger and release gravitons, canceling the Earth's rotation relative to himself, propelling himself forwards at up to about 1000 miles per hour (at the equator). This effect will suspend his positioning relative to the Earth's electromagnetic field while the planet rotated, allowing him to travel West at high speed depending on his latitude positioning.

 

He first appeared in X-Men # 109 when he is brought to the US to drag Wolverine back to Canada, After all, he was Canadian property. He was our killer and we can't very well have him running around on his own, making trouble with the rest of Xavier's 'students'.

 

In this issue we finally learn a little more about fan favorite Wolverine. He once worked for Alpha Flight as a mutant operative and that agency may or may not have given him his unbreakable claws and skeleton in the first place. James and his wife Heather were the first to nurse Wolverine back to health when they found him in the Canadian wild in winter. This was shortly after escaped his Weapon X tormentors.  Eventually Logan joined Alpha Flight until Xavier convinced Wolverine to join the X-Men. The rest is history.

 

So in issue #12 he had to self destruct himself to prevent a larger explosion. It would have been a great moment for a cool Canadian hero but that was denied when they brought him back from the future and messed up Alpha Flight for good - something the comic has never since lived up too.