BIOGRAPHY
Michael Pointer was a postal worker living in North Pole, Alaska. He had a normal life there; a girlfriend named Lindsey, his buddy Jon and an extended family. However, Michael was also a mutant whose abilities never had the opportunity to activate. He absorbed power from other nearby mutants, and so the remote nature of his life meant he simply never crossed paths with someone who would trigger his powers. The Decimation came and went without Michael noticing a difference or realizing what was soon to come.
When millions of X-Genes suddenly deactivated, the exotic genetic power signatures of those 
mutants did not simply vanish. These mutant energies congregated in space as a single gestalt energy form, governed by the consciousness of the lost mutant Xorn. This Collective needed a host to operate, and Xorn guided it down to North Pole, Alaska, merging with Michael and killing hundreds of people in his town from the backwash. Michael had no idea what was happened, and his own conscious mind was suppressed beneath the overriding urge of the Collective to travel south. As he contained the energies and powers of nearly every mutant born on Earth, Michael’s travel was chaotic but determined, carrying him across Alaska on foot and into Canada.
S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service tracked the destruction of North Pole and moved to intervene. A flight of S.H.I.E.L.D. jets were swatted out of the sky merely by getting close to the Collective, and so Canada sent out Alpha Flight to intercept Michael. Guardian, Vindicator, Shaman, Sasquatch, Major Maple Leaf and Puck I & II stood in Michael’s path, but he 
could not communicate and would not be stopped. An unpredictable wave of mutant power signatures struck Canada’s heroes, subjecting them to unknown energies, transmutation, and waves of pure force. They fell horribly before the Collective in a matter of minutes, leaving no further resistance and corpses in his wake. With the Collective once again approaching the United States’ border, the President ordered Maria Hill to summon the Avengers.
Iron Man made first contact with Michael on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio. While evacuations were underway, Stark made no hostile moves and tried to engage Michael again. Michael Pointer fought through the Collective’s haze and attempted to identify himself, but the arriving Ms. Marvel interpreted his gestures as hostile and piledrived him into the upper atmosphere. Mere contact with the Collective made her absorb enough energy to trigger her Binary state. Michael was no longer interested in talking and grew to giant size before forcibly disassembling Stark’s armor. Even in her enhanced state, Ms. Marvel was overwhelmed by the sheer number of mutant powers directed at her at once, giving the Avengers their first glimpse at what was actually behind the Collective.
The next wave came when the Sentry grappled the Collective and carried Michael up into orbit. Undeterred, the Collective and the Sentry fought in vacuum until the Collective displaced his foe long enough to begin returning to Earth. By this point, Iron Man identified the power signatures of 
the mutants who lost their powers in the Decimation and devised a Zero Point energy defense to start deconstructing those bio-energy fields. The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. deduced how the Collective must have found Michael, and that he was acting on pure instinct, unable to consciously sift through the hundreds of power sets in the Collective. New stimulus was only causing him to call upon new powers, making the battle a lesson in futility. A S.H.I.E.L.D. analyst finally suggested just getting out of his way and seeing where the Collective was trying to go.
Iron Man and the Sentry disengaged, and the Collective brought Michael back to Earth on the ravaged island of Genosha. Xorn sought the powerless Magneto as the new host for the Collective, still focused on his version of Magneto’s dream. Magneto had no interest in being savior or puppet for Xorn and fought the Collective’s presence. Meanwhile, Michael Pointer was discarded by the Collective and came to his senses, naked and confused. The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. separated the Collective from Magneto and were prepared to contain it this time. Iron Man cast a temporary energy field around the Collective, allowing the Sentry to carry it into the sun for disposal. In the aftermath, a horrified Michael Pointer started to come to grips with what his body was forced to do against his will. In addition to the guilt, he also retained some residual energies from the Collective, leaving Michael with the potential for a vast array of powers. [New Avengers (1st series) #16-20]
Not long thereafter, the Superhuman Registration Act in America split the American super-heroes into two factions. It also had the side effect of driving super-villains from America over the border into Canada, just as Canada’s heroes had fallen in battle. America and Canada agreed that a joint task force was appropriate to deal with the rise in super-crime in Canada, with registered 
American heroes like U.S.Agent and Arachne joining surviving Alphans like Sasquatch and Talisman in a new Omega Flight. Michael’s involvement was a sore spot, however. CSIS worked with Reed Richards to create a suit to regulate Pointer’s energies for safe use, but they also chose to put him in the colors of Guardian, the Canadian premier hero who Michael was indirectly responsible for killing. Sasquatch, the Flight’s new field leader and sole survivor of the Collective’s massacre, was very reluctant to either fight alongside Michael or exploit his unknown powers in this way. [Civil War: The Initiative #1]
Despite his contrition, CSIS was taking no chances with Michael. He was kept in Hannibal Lector-level restraints until they were confident he could be controlled. Even with these safeguards, Talisman refused to remain with Omega Flight if it meant working with the man who killed her father. When the Wrecking Crew captured Sasquatch and attacked the Royal Ontario Museum, 
Omega was deployed without Michael Pointer. Even with the aid of Beta Ray Bill, Omega Flight could not overcome the Wrecking Crew empowered by the Great Beasts. Arachne’s daughter Rachel knew her mom was in trouble and released Michael to go as Guardian and redeem himself for Canada. His efforts fighting the Great Beasts and willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of Canada went a long way towards Michael earning the respect of Sasquatch and Talisman. [Omega Flight #1-5]
The new Guardian’s power levels proved to be erratic and faded with time, however. CSIS’ analysis showed the excess residual energy of the Collective would eventually deplete itself altogether. Although this meant Michael had a chance at a normal life, it also meant CSIS’ “Weapon Omega” would not be the powerhouse they wanted. They decided Michael’s comfort was secondary (and distantly so) to his effectiveness as an operative. His fate was decided between the conflicting visions of Omega Flight’s liaison, Agent Brown, and Michael’s manipulative on-base psychiatrist, Dr. Benning.
Michael needed the proximity of other mutants to keep his power levels up, and so the Guardian suit became a remote battery feeding him energy. Because mutants were in short supply after M-Day, CSIS got creative. As Omega Flight continued to capture super-criminals on the run from America, they stopped returning these super-powered U.S. citizens to S.H.I.E.L.D. for 
prosecution. Instead, they were laced with MGH to give their powers the right “taste” and held in wired cells that could drain their energies for the suit and into Michael. Furthermore, a psychological and physiological treatment program was designed with the Guardian suit to encourage dependency, making Michael addicted to the energy it provided him. All of this was kept from him, as Michael was told they merely had trouble regulating the Collective energies that remained within him, which lead to his power fluctuations.
At first, Michael was oblivious as Dr. Benning subtly stoked his guilt and encouraged his dependency on the Guardian suit. However, Pointer started to show greater insight into himself and the Collective once a telepathic “donor” named Susan Catrini died while feeding the Guardian suit. He looked inwards and started to commune with the residual consciousnesses of the Collective and donors, accessing their powers and memories to evaluate his circumstances. 
U.S.Agent and Arachne did their own investigations on CSIS and started to uncover the missing prisoners, which prompted Benning to arrange an “accident” during training. She fed excess energy into Weapon Omega’s suit during a sparring match with the Agent, causing him to manifest powers out of his control and seriously wounding U.S.Agent.
Dr. Benning was over-confident enough to be honest with Michael, revealing they had encouraged enough dependency between him and the suit that the withdrawal would kill him if he tried to go without it. She shut down the flow of power to his suit and left him on the verge of death just to prove that point. However, by this time, Pointer was clued in to the fact that he was being manipulated. He had already used a combination of telepathic and technopathic abilities to gather 
information about the Weapon Omega program, and covertly manifested healing powers to speed U.S.Agent’s recovery from Benning’s medically induced coma. After gathering enough digital evidence and allies, Michael forced Benning to restore his power through the Guardian suit. With a bit of telepathy, Michael then gave Dr. Benning her fondest wish and exposed her mind directly to the Collective, leaving her fried and vegetative. [Marvel Comics Presents (2nd series) #1-12]