Cerebra's Files

Vindicator II


Real Name: Heather McNeil Hudson
Affiliation: Alpha Flight
Status: Married
Relatives: James McDonald Hudson (Guardian, husband), Daughter (unnamed)
Aliases: Guardian II
Alternate-X Versions: Sasquatch (Exiles)
Powers: None (human). In fact, for much of her early tenure with Alpha Flight, Heather was simply an administrator. She worked closely with her husband to establish Alpha Flight, going all the way back to when they found Wolverine running wild in the woods following his escape from the original Weapon X compound. Heather played a major role in re-civilizing Wolverine, and they share a close bond to this day.

Following Guardian's apparent death early in Alpha Flight's history, Heather used her force of personality to keep the team together, even accompanying them on missions, though she was most definitely a non-combatant. She also became close with teammate Puck, who has had a crush on her for years. However, when Heather was affected by Loki's Firefountain and turned into a super-being whose power seemed to be leadership (plus some healthy energy blasts), she realized that she could join Alpha Flight proper and soon began to wear the Guardian suit. Calling herself Guardian and then Vindicator (as her husband did), she led Alpha Flight for a long time, up until Mac's return.

Mac came back as a cyborg, and relations were tense for a while. At one point Heather was even separated from her husband, and then he "died" again, only to subsequently be resurrected. During Mac's latest incarnation Heather and he seemed to have patched things up. They worked together to find Wolverine after his adamantium was removed by Magneto and ran tests on him looking for answers.

Eventually, though, Alpha Flight was disbanded again and Heather and Mac seemed to have separated. Heather worked in a flower shop and nearly started to date Puck, though that relationship never materialized. It was while chatting with Puck that Heather (and Puck) were captured by the new Department H and forced into rejoining a new Alpha Flight full of raw recruits. Heather was supposed to serve as mentor and assistant field leader, along with Guardian III, a younger Mac (later revealed to be a clone). Heather served as Vindicator again, but this time Department H gave her a new battle suit with geothermal control capabilities, such as directing lava, creating landslides and causing tremors. After some trial and error, Heather learned to control these new functions well, but she disliked the direction in which Department H was steering the team. When another, correctly-aged Guardian reappeared with the remainder of the original Alphans, Heather and the real Mac reconciled fairly quickly. She then stepped down from the team, allowing the cloned Mac to take the name Vindicator. Her reason for stepping down was simple: she was pregnant.

Towards the end of her pregnancy Heather was horrified to learn that a colleague who had a crush on her had attacked her husband and left him for dead. She immediately notified Alpha Flight, but the psycho wanted to kill her baby too, since it belonged to Mac. Mac pulled himself together long enough to stop the madman and nearly died (he was saved by Archangel's healing blood). Meanwhile, Heather went into labor and Shaman delivered a healthy baby girl. Heather has been on maternity leave ever since.
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