The Global Guardians are an international team of heroes created during the Cold War. Many of its members were also active on their own, or moved to the Justice League later on.
History
The group more popularly known as the Global Guardians grew from a post-war organization called the Dome. The Dome was founded in 1957 by non-US/USSR nations as an international police organization. Originally, it oversaw the operations of superheroes of member nations. These heroes were inspired by the Justice Society and included the immortal Dr. Mist; the Knight and Squire, Percival and Cyril Sheldrake of England; Gaucho of Argentina; the Legionary of Italy; the Musketeer of France; and the Wingman from Sweden.[1]
As the original representatives retired, Dr. Mist formed the Global Guardians to serve as a task force for the Dome. The membership of the Guardians spanned the entire world, but it was some time before the group had any contact with other American heroes.
The first recorded meeting was between a group of four Guardians (Green Flame, Icemaiden, Rising Sun, Tasmanian Devil) and the team Infinity, Inc. The Guardians met Infinity when both groups were assigned to protect the same Canadian trade conference.[2] In Calgary, the two teams worked through their initial rivalry in time to battle and defeat the Wizard's new Injustice Unlimited.[1][3][4]
Soon after this, the United Nations decided to fund the new Justice League International. As a result, the Dome lost its funding and the members of the Guardians were left without work. Two enterprising members—Green Flame and the second Icemaiden—set their sights on the JLI instead.[5][6]
Several Guardians disappeared after the breakup, including their leader, Dr. Mist, administrator Belphegor, Seraph, and Fleur-de-Lis.
Other members of the Guardians accepted an offer by the so-called Queen Bee of Bialya. Unknown to some of these Guardians, however, the Queen Bee employed mind control tactics. As their first act under her control, former Guardian members Wild Huntsman, Rising Sun and Tuatara attacked Justice League Europe.[7] Two members remained free of the mind-control and were in cahoots with the Queen Bee: the lovers, Jack O'Lantern (Daniel Cormac) and Owlwoman. (The Tasmanian Devil also remained free of the Queen Bee's control and eventually joined the Justice League.[8])
Jack O'Lantern destroyed the Dome's former Paris headquarters and framed the JLE for it. The Justice League was cleared and soon realized the connection between Bialya and the Guardians.[9] The JLE eventually confronted the Queen Bee. Rather than fight however, they brokered a truce with the Queen Bee under very specific conditions: To prevent a possible international incident, the JLE agreed to keep silent about the true nature of Bialya's power structure, and in return, the Queen Bee would cease her attacks against the Justice League.
Later, as a seemingly magnanimous gesture the Queen Bee rebuilt the Dome in Bialya, and brainwashed some of the remaining Global Guardian into forming a new team. She even staged a battle where the two teams fought side-by-side, in order to make the Guardians look credible. To round out her control, she created an android Dr. Mist, and replaced the original Jack O'Lantern with a new lackey. (The original Jack was left to die in the Bialyan underground).[10]
The Queen Bee's power grew quickly. She allied with Bialyan leader Sumaan Harjavti and ordered the capture of Captain Atom.[11]
Harjavti and Jack orchestrated an assassination attempt on the JLI's administrator, Maxwell Lord, and replaced him with their operative, Rolf Heimlich. Their power also grew quickly and they planned to overthrow the Queen Bee.[8] Several Leaguers went undercover to Bialya and revealed Heimlich as a spy. In the resulting battle, Little Mermaid was accidentally killed by Jack O'Lantern.[12] Harjavti detonated a bomb which revealed the Queen Bee's secret complex, and killed Jack. The Guardians regained their free wills and Owl Woman escaped.[13]
After gaining their freedom, the Global Guardians regrouped in Bialya under Harjavti's leadership. He sets them against the Hero Group of Lower Pluxa.[14] Like his predecessor, Sumaan Harjavti plotted to control the Global Guardians; he imprisoned Olympian. But Dr. Mist obviously sensed that his former comrades in Bialya needed his help. He found Owl Woman and the original Jack O' Lantern and together they escaped from Bialya.[15] Mist then recruited Rising Sun, Tasmanian Devil and Seraph to help liberate their friends.[16] After all the Guardians were freed from Harjavti, Dr. Mist reformed the Global Guardians, and built a new headquarters in the Pacific.[17] It seems their psychic defenses were down again when the team was controlled by Sonar.[18]
For some unexplained reason, however, Dr. Mist was nowhere to be found during the Guardians' most tragic hour. Also at this time, the Jack O'Lantern died of natural causes and succeeded by his cousin Liam McHugh.[19] Fain Y'onia, an old foe of Dr. Mist, attacked and killed Bushmaster and Thunderlord. Godiva, Impala and Tuatara were also critically injured. Y'onia was defeated only by the sacrifice of the Wild Huntsman, who disappeared alongside the villain. Owl Woman, Rising Sun, Seraph, Impala and Olympian emerge from the ashes to reform the Global Guardians with four new members: Centrix, Tundra, Chrysalis and Cascade.[19]
The Guardians later again reformed led by Jet appeared in the aftermath of the Crisis wrought by Alexander Luthor. The new Global Guardians joined a trend of non-American metahuman coalitions like the Great Ten and Rocket Red Brigade. These groups proposed to mobilize themselves against foreign (mostly American) metahuman aggression. But like the Queen Bee before, these new Guardians were pawns once again and came under the mind control of Klaramarans led by the Faceless Hunter to capture a cash bounty on Green Lantern Hal Jordan; however, the plan was thwarted by the Rocket Red Brigade.[20][21] Eventually, the bounty was put to the end by the Justice League of America and the Guardians were then broken of their mind control from the help of the Martian Manhunter.[22]
Members of the Guardians were unfortunately fell under target by Prometheus, who killed Tasmanian Devil, Freedom Beast, Gloss, and Sandstorm.[23] Tasmanian Devil was restored to life by the gorilla Malavar using a Lazarus Pit.[24]
Notes
- In pre-Crisis continuity, the original Dome operatives of the 1950s were inspired by the Earth-Two Batman, not the JSA, and had no connection with the Global Guardians, who existed on Earth-One.
- The pre-Crisis Global Guardians had a different history. They began as co-stars in Super Friends (Volume 1) #7–9. After that, they appeared in DC Comics Presents #46. In that story, Dr. Mist assembled only five other heroes. The DCCP story resembles that of Super Friends #7. It is uncertain whether the latter story remains valid in post-Crisis continuity. Their first actual post-Crisis appearance was an overview page in History of the DC Universe #2.
See Also
- 53 Appearances of Global Guardians (New Earth)
- 6 Images that include Global Guardians (New Earth)
- Team Gallery: Global Guardians (New Earth)
Links and References
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Infinity Inc. #34
- ↑ Infinity Inc. #32
- ↑ Infinity Inc. #35
- ↑ Infinity Inc. #36
- ↑ Justice League International #12
- ↑ Justice League International #14
- ↑ Justice League Europe #2
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Justice League America #54
- ↑ Justice League Europe #3
- ↑ Justice League Europe Annual #1
- ↑ Justice League Europe #29
- ↑ Justice League Europe #30
- ↑ Justice League America #55
- ↑ Justice League Quarterly #5
- ↑ Justice League Quarterly #6
- ↑ Justice League Quarterly #7
- ↑ Justice League Quarterly #8
- ↑ Justice League Europe #50
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Justice League Quarterly #17
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #14
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #15
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #17
- ↑ Justice League: Cry for Justice #1
- ↑ Starman/Congorilla #1