yeah, if you look close at that caption, it says he's back. Guardian was ionized (right down to smattering of fine carbon dust)when one of the battery pack on his suit failed after a very severe beating by a huge \"brick\". He nearly had it disabled when his wife interrupted him (unaware of the situation) and the system failed.. right in front of her.
There was a whole series where he comes back ...as you see... and it turns out it's actually the bad guy that was trying to kill hi in the first place. HE just wanted to twist the knife as it were. He spun this really elaborate tail of how he didn't ACTUALLY burn up, but a gate was opened where he was mortally wounded in the process and to a distant planet and revived by alien blobbies. (not boobies) Healed and reabuilt, they helped him return. What she \"really saw\" was oxidized air when the gate opened and closed.
As it turns out.. he's really dead. .. and his wife flips out, puts on a spare suit and beats this guy into the ground !...literally.
oh.. the bad guy is a android from the Beta flight. (the \"Almost super heros\") Canada's super washedout, throw-aways. so they were a little ...er disgruntled.
And it wasn't the industries idea or Marvels. It was John Byrnes; the artist and creator of Alpha Flight. They had just resurrected Superman then by a long super stretch not too dissimilar from his own story. As I recall, he was working as main artist on Superman at the time and was just really fed up with the politics and antics within the industry.
Good stuff.
