Real Name: Dr. James MacDonald Hudson
Occupation: Petrochemical engineer, later government agent, later freelance adventurer
Identity: Secret, known to certain Canadian government officials
Other Aliases: Weapon Alpha, Vindicator (I)
Place of Birth: London, Ontario, Canada
Place of Death: New York City
Marital Status: Married
Known Relatives: Heather McNeil Hudson (wife), Ramsey McNeil (father-in-law), Claire McNeil (mother-in-law)
Group Affiliation: Alpha Flight
Base of Operation: Ottawa, Canada
First Appearance: (as Weapon Alpha) X-MEN # 109, (as Vindicator) X-MEN #120, (as Guardian) ALPHA FLIGHT #2
Final Appearance: ALPHA FLIGHT #12

History: In the mid 70’s, James MacDonald Hudson, an engineer for the Am-Can Petro-Chemical Company in Canada, invented an armored suit that would enable the wearer to bore through the earth in exploring for oil or other geological resources. Hudson resigned from Am-Can when he learned that his superior, Jerome "Jerry" Jaxon, intended to turn the exploratory suit over to the American military, which would use it as a weapon. Determined to prevent Jaxon from implementing his plan, Hudson went to an Am-Can complex one night, secretly donned the suit, and then used its power to destroy Am-Can’s plans for its construction. Hudson then used the suit’s flying capability to escape. Hudson abandoned the suit but made off with its cybernetic helmet, which he had designed and build before going to work at Am-Can, and without which the suit was inoperable.

Shocked by what happened to Hudson at Am-Can, Heather McNeil, Jaxon’s young personal secretary, had also resigned from the company. McNeil was strongly attracted to Hudson, who was her elder by many years. The day after Hudson committed the theft, McNeil visited him and learned that he had taken the helmet. She told Hudson she had fallen in love with him the first time she seen him, and told him that she wanted to be his wife. Hudson was taken aback by this confession of love from a girl who was still a month away from turning eighteen, but he acknowledged that he was attracted to her as well. Hudson was deeply depressed about his future, believing he would be sent to prison for stealing the suit. McNeil decided to seek the Canadian government’s aid for Hudson, and she and Hudson spent two days speaking with various government employees. Finally, the Canadian government declared that Hudson had been a government employee "retroactively" for six years, that the helmet was indeed his property, and decided to compensate Am-Can for all damages incurred by Hudson in reclaiming the helmet. Jerome Jaxon, however, lost his position at Am-Can as a result of Hudson’s "theft" of the cybernetic helmet.

Hudson was invited by the Canadian Prime Minister to participate in the creation of Department H, a top-secret research and development agency within the Canadian Ministry of Defense. Within a year Hudson married Heater McNeil.

While visiting Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, James and Heather Hudson were attacked by a "wild man" whom they later learned was named Logan, the superhuman mutant who still later was given the codename Wolverine. Logan had become savage and animalistic and seemingly incapable of speech, apparently due to the shock of having his skeleton laced with metal alloy Adamantium and being given retractable Adamantium claws. James Hudson shot Logan, but the bullet did not stop him, and Logan physically assaulted him. Then Heather fired a shot that felled Logan, rendering him unconscious. The Hudsons brought Logan to their cabin, where James tied him to a bed. Saying he was going to get medical help for the wild man, James Hudson left heather alone in the cabin with Logan. But a blizzard prevented James from returning to the cabin for some time. Logan severed his bonds and might have attacked Heather, but was horrified upon seeing his claws for what he later claimed was the first time he came remember. Believing that someone had implanted the claws in Logan against his will, Heather comforted the despairing Logan until James Hudson finally returned.

Heather Hudson now suspects that James Hudson may have had something to do with the Adamantium in Logan’s body and giving him his claws. She also suspected that Hudson might have known that they find Logan in the national park, and that he may have left her alone with Logan in the cabin in the hope that she could calm his pain-maddened rage. But as yet Heather Hudson has no proof of these suspicions.

The two Hudsons had Logan live with them and nursed him back to health. They also worked Logan day and night until he emerged from his state of shock and regained his human sanity, although Logan was still prey to animalistic rages at time.

It was shortly after his wedding that James Hudson learned of the formation of the team of superhuman champions called the Fantastic Four. Inspired by the news, James Hudson decided to form a team of superhumanly powerful agents to go on missions for the Canadian government. Logan aided James Hudson in the initial phases of the creation of the team, which would be called Alpha Flight, and it was planned that Wolverine would lead the team.

Logan fell in love with Heather Hudson but at this time did not tell her of his true feeling for her. Logan knew that Heather’s attitude towards him was maternal, and he finally realized that she was too deeply in love with her husband ever leave him. Therefore, wanting to put his longing for Heather behind him, Logan quit Department H when he received an offer from Professor Charles Xavier to join the X-Men.

James Hudson continued to develop and improve upon his exploratory armored suit, and it eventually became the costume that he himself wore as a member of Alpha Flight. James Hudson reluctantly became the team’s leader after Wolverine’s resignation.

At first James Hudson’s code name as a costumed agent was "Weapon Alpha." Under this name he attempted to carry out his orders to bring Wolverine back to Department H by force. Hudson failed in this task, but in the course of this mission accidentally nearly killed the X-Men’s ally, Dr. Moira MacTaggert. The guilt-ridden Hudson subsequently took the new code name "Vindicator," believing he now had to vindicate himself. Eventually, the Canadian government accepted Wolverine’s departure from Department H, and the Hudsons resumed their friendly relationship with him.

Alpha Flight had six members - Aurora, Northstar, Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird, and Vindicator - when it and Department H were disbanded by the Canadian government for financial reasons. But, shortly thereafter, when James Hudson, as Vindicator, went to investigate what proved to be the emergence of the mystical Great Beast called Tundra, Heather, without her husband’s knowledge, summoned the other members of Alpha Flight to help him. The six members afterwards decided to continue acting as a team performing altruistic missions, and they were joined by two trainees for eventual membership in Alpha Flight from Department H’s Beta Flight, Marrina and Puck. Having come to terms with his guilt over injuring MacTaggert, James Hudson Took the new code name "Guardian."

Months later, Heather Hudson was taken captive by Delphine Courtney, a humanoid robot serving Jerome Jaxon, who had formed a team of superhuman agents called Omega Flight in order to destroy Alpha Flight and gain vengeance on James Hudson. Jaxon took remote control of the robot Box and used it to battle Guardian during the ensuing clash between Alpha Flight and Omega Flight. Hudson’s battlesuit was severely damaged in the battle, and, in order to defeat Box, he tore circuits out from the battlesuit and fed energy from his battlesuit’s power pack directly into Box. Thus the Box robot was destroyed and the feedback apparently killed Jaxon. But then Hudson had to disconnect his battlesuit’s power pack within seconds or else it would explode. Heather entered the room just in time to witness the explosion that killed her husband.

The members of Alpha Flight subsequently Heather Hudson to become their new leader. Later, Alpha Flight again clashed with Omega Flight, which this time was led by the Courtney robot, which was wearing a reconstructed version of Guardian’s battlesuit. Courtney was destroyed and Omega Flight was defeated, but Alpha Flight salvaged the Courtney robot’s battlesuit. Soon afterwards, the Canadian government again began giving Alpha Flight its official and financial support. Believing she herself needed to become an active combatant in the team with enough power to hold her own along side the other members, Heather Hudson began wearing Courtney’s recreated version of her husband’s battlesuit, with modifications, in action. Heather has taken the code name "Vindicator," which was formerly used by her husband.

Height: 6 ft. 2 in.
Weight: 190 lbs. (without battlesuit)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black

Strength Level: Without the battlesuit James Hudson possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise. When his strength was augmented by the Guardian battlesuit, he could lift (press) approximately 3.5 tons.

Known Superhuman Powers: None

Abilities: James Hudson was a brilliant inventor and engineer and an above average athlete with extensive training in hand-to-hand combat.

Weapons: Guardian’s superhuman abilities stemmed solely from the steel-mesh battlesuit that he wore. The suit contained an array of 1,200 miniature electromagnetic projectors that generates a stress pattern within the local area of the Earth’s electromagnetic field. Through this means Guardian’s battlesuit could tap into high order energies that the suit could utilize for other purposes.

The suit served as an exoskeleton for Guardian that amplified his natural strength The suit utilized a fast, large capacity computer to channel energy through the exoskeleton in lines of force that precisely paralleled Guardian’s musculature, thereby magnifying his strength.

By directing dispersed beams of force towards the ground, Guardian could fly at a maximum speed of up to Mach 1 (the speed of sound, about 770 miles per hour).

The Guardian could also use the battlesuit to form a protective force field at a distance of about three inches from his armor. The force field dampened inertia but did not cancel it; Guardian could be staggered by a sufficient impact. The maximum impact that the field could diffuse was 1,750 foot-pounds per second; above that level residual inertial effects became excessive. The field could also absorb and shunt the energies of most incoming radiations in the electromagnetic spectrum. The force field was controlled by a cybernetic link and was left on during flight to protect against high-speed winds and mid-air collisions.

Guardian could shoot beams of concussive force from his gauntlets with a force equivalent to 250 pounds of TNT. James Hudson originally intended for the suits blasting capability to serve as a digging tool. Using the battlesuit’s blasts, Guardian could move through bedrock at a maximum speed of 15 mile per hour.

Guardian’s battlesuit computer used a high resolution, solid state, laser-interferometry navigation system that could compute every component of Guardian’s movement relative to the Earth. Guardian could trigger the computer to fire a beam of graviton (the subatomic particles that carry the force of gravity) in the exact direction that would cancel the Earth’s rotation relative to himself. This caused a nearly instantaneous acceleration, which, at the equator, where Guardian would reach his maximum speed, meant that Guardian would reach about 1,000 mile per hour. To the unaided human eye Guardian would have seemed to have instantaneously teleported himself from one location to another, Guardian’s force field automatically activated during this rapid acceleration for safety’s sake. The maximum distance that he could "jump" by this means is not yet known.

Guardian controlled all of the functions of his battlesuit through the cybernetic circuitry housed in the cowl of his battlesuit. This circuitry represented an improvement over the cybernetic helmet he had originally used with the exploratory suit he devised an Am-Can Petro-Chemical company.