Guardian “returns.” But first….
The story starts with Northstar facing charges for terrorism (this is part of his history that’s been revealed in earlier issues). It’s kind of like an Avengers thing—in the 1980s, they had several people up on charges, most notably Yellow Jacket.
And then later in the issue, yes, Guardian returns.
We learn that when his suit exploded in issue #12, he wasn’t killed—he was catapulted through time and space to Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, centuries in the past, where he met an alien race that healed him, fused him with his suit, sent him back to Earth, and then put him on ice with a timer to revive him in his own time.
The aliens, called Quwrlln, are squids with helmets.
Very strange way to bring a dude back. So strange it seems impossible even by comic book standards.
And it is. But we don’t learn that until much later.
The “return of Guardian” story is one of the best comic fakes of the 1980s. This isn’t Guardian. It’s a robot named Delphine Courtney. More on that much later.