The Guardian (Jim Harper) is a DC Comics costumed hero. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in Star Spangled Comics #7 (1942).

Jim Harper was a police officer in Metropolis' Suicide Slum who became a vigilante to catch crooks that the law couldn't prosecute. He was aided by a group of boys known as The Newsboy Legion, to whom he was, literally, a guardian.

According to a later retcon, Jim Harper was the uncle of Roy Harper, who became Green Arrow's sidekick under the name of "Speedy".

In Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970), Jack Kirby reintroduced the, now grown-up, boys of the Newsboy Legion as supporting characters connected with the DNA Project (later Project Cadmus ), a genetics research laboratory. One of the Project's experiments was a clone of the late Jim Harper, who took up his predecessor's role, and became the Project's Head of Security as the Golden Guardian.

Shortly aftwerwards in Teen Titans #34 (August 1971), the previously uncostumed Titan Mal Duncan took the name of the Guardian, wearing the original's outfit and an exoskeleton with strength augumenting abilities. The two Guardians finally met in Superman Family #s 191-193 (Sept 78-Feb 79), when Mal helped rescue the Harper clone from the Project's villainous counterpart, the Evil Factory.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths removed Duncan's career as the Guardian, but Harper's history remained largely unchanged, and he remained Cadmus' Head of Security even after the former Newsboys had left. Eventually, he too was killed, although another clone was created and rapidly aged to adulthood, retaining all his predecessor's memories. This Guardian disapeared along with the rest of Cadmus following an altercation with Amanda Waller and President Luthor, and his whereabouts are unknown.

In 2005, Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers miniseries introduced a new Guardian. It seems that the government sold the Guardian trademark to a tabloid newspaper, the Manhattan Guardian. To fill the role, the editor hired a disgraced ex-cop named Jake Jordan. The paper boasts, "We don't just report crime. We fight it."

External links

• Guardian profile at The Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe