Painted Red Guardian

Here is Red Guardian, the last (for now) member of the Winter Guard in Marvel Crisis Protocol. Red Guardian plays rather like a budget Captain America too; he can do most of the cool stuff that Steve Rogers does but with a bit less panache, he gets dazed much more easily, and he can’t Bodyguard. What he does have is the Comrade’s Keeper card which does allow him to take a hit for a friendly character and then possibly throw the attacker away; unusually there is no size cap on the throw so he could hurl Dormammu or a Sentinel into the distance if needed.

Red Guardian’s red and white suit should have been painful to paint but actually it turned out to be a joy and I got him painted up very quickly and easily. I loved that the sculpt went all in on the old-school appearance with the enormous white boots and gloves. The contrast between the red and white turned out to really make both colours pop so that is something for me to remember in the future.

Red Guardian is meant to be a cheap and cheerful version of Captain America and his appearance in the Black Widow film toys with this idea a bit, although much of that is played for laughs anyway. Because of some oddities in the comic books, this particular person wearing the suit isn’t the same as the one portrayed in the film. Apparently in the Winter Guard there are just suits/jobs and they find suitable heroes to play that role; therefore there have been numerous Red Guardians etc as they retire or whatever. I guess that this maybe makes sense for suit-based heroes like Crimson Dynamo (after all, there could be anyone in there) but I do love the idea that there are a load of bear-people waiting to take over the role of Ursa Major when the current one decides to hand in his notice.

Next on the painting table: Captain America.