Just over a year ago, the NHL and Stan Lee’s POW! entertainment group announced that they had teamed up to create the Guardian Project: an ambitious multi-media franchise that would span comic books, social networks, videogames, maybe even a TV series and a feature film, in hopes of drawing more younger fans to the game. For those of you not in the know – and I’d be shocked if any hockey fan wasn’t even vaguely aware of it considering the build up of hype towards the 2011 All Star Game – they basically created a league of thirty superheroes, each one representing and based on an NHL team, with elements being borrowed from the teams identities, histories and their home cities to develop both the character designs and their superpowers; for example, the Colorado Avalanche has the ability to manipulate rock and ice, while the New York Ranger is a futuristic crime fighter who never sleeps. We previously gave our initial thoughts (click here to see), but now it’s time to take a look at the current state of the Guardian Project.
Starting from January 1st, the Guardians were unveiled one by one, day by day, through a series of rigged poll matchups on Facebook. The team with the most votes won and got their Guardian revealed, while the loser would face another losing team later on. With each reveal we got a piece of artwork for the character and a 30 second video giving us a better look at them. As each one got revealed the Guardians received mixed reactions from the fans: some loved the character designs while others were embarrassed or outright offended. The Anaheim Duck was a notorious example: as a fan of the team, I personally enjoyed him for feeling like a throwback to the Mighty Ducks cartoon with an additional tie-in to So Cal’s surfing culture (not actually being from So Cal myself, I still liked this addition anyway), it was his description of “Rebel with a Trust Fund” that received a near-universal “WHAT THE F***?!?” However there were some who pointed out that this made him very much like Batman or Iron Man – probably more like Iron Man with his high IQ and weapons development for the rest of the Guardians.
Then at last, during the second intermission at the NHL All Star Game the Guardian Project finally got its big reveal as fans both in the arena and at home were treated to a short animation which features all of the Guardians arriving at the RBC Center to save the fans who are being held hostage by the main villain, the imaginatively named Devin Dark: however they all get captured except for the Carolina Hurricane who saves the day. The Guardian Project website was also updated, with a short seven page comic available for each character as well as a bio, and also the Guardian Vault, which brings us to where the whole thing stands now…
The Guardian Vault is basically a Flash application that allows us to look at the unlocked Guardians in more detail – or more specifically, their superpowers – and also provides downloadable wallpapers and posters for each character. By default the only Guardian available to view was the Carolina Hurricane, but then he was followed by the Los Angeles King a week later, and then the Boston Bruin, and then we saw nothing new for a little while. We eventually got to see the Calgary Flame, Washington Capital, San Jose Shark and Tampa Bay Lightning after some lengthy hiatuses between each one, and to this day we’ve not seen anything new for quite some time. The people behind the Guardian Project went silent. And nobody knows why.
Maybe it’s to do with various teams rebranding this past offseason, and of course one team relocating? Maybe they want to quietly develop the stuff they’re developing behind the scenes and reveal a nice big surprise later on? Whatever the reasons may be, the questions from fans on Facebook have kept on coming, but without official answers. There was so much hype built up for this Project and now there was nothing. Fans have become increasingly impatient, and more and more questions have been posted to this day, with most of the recent ones being “Where is the Winnipeg Jet?” Some have gone under the assumption that the Guardian Project is dead; however, considering the fact that the NHL and GME (Guardian Media Entertainment) have kept both the Guardian Project’s website and its Facebook pages alive, and considering the length of time they spent developing this franchise as a whole that seems highly unlikely (and with that sentence alone I may have crushed the hopes of those who despise this thing. You’ll live). The videogame industry is very similar in this sense, as some games will get a teaser trailer, and then we’ll hear absolutely nothing for a few months until another teaser trailer gets released later on.
What we did get however were a couple of very similar articles from news sites, however the articles in question didn’t have much to do with when we were going to see any announcements, but they were more to do with how the animations were being developed. They certainly made for interesting reads, but didn’t really provide the answers that fans were looking for. Also during the times of Guardian Vault hiatus I happened to stumble across a Facebook page for the main protagonist of the series, Mike Mason. Something seemed odd as the page only ever had 10 or 11 followers, but I’ll get back to this account shortly.
A big piece of news relating to the Guardian Project eventually came in June: with the NHL and the NBC having already signed a new TV broadcasting deal lasting 10 years, it was now announced that NBC Universal entered into a venture with GME, which is mainly to do with NBC Universal putting a multi-million dollar stake into the Guardian Project. Hilariously, the guy behind the Mike Mason Facebook page (which by this stage was quite obviously a dupe account) had no idea of this news and then posted something very similar to the following sentence on his wall:
“Devin Dark has won, and most of the activated Guardians have been captured or killed. Thank you for your interest, but the Guardian Project is over.”
“Ouch. Better not tell NBC,” I commented on the wall post.
“Why is that, Steven?” replied the dupe Mike Mason.
Then I posted a link to one of the news articles as a not-so-subtle way of saying “DUH! They just spent millions on it!” I never got a response, and eventually the account got deleted. In hindsight, I really wish I’d taken a screencap of the wall post, but alas the guy got owned and his trolling attempt was foiled by my own. Lololololol.
Going back to the various articles all mentioning NBC’s multi-million dollar deal, another key piece of information was revealed which seems to have been largely ignored or forgotten about:
“The Guardian Project brand will be extended through social and mobile gaming platforms in the first quarter of 2012.”
So there we have it folks, there’s your answer. Or at least, what I’m guessing could be the answer to the endless questions we’ve all wanted to ask GME anyway. Yeah, we have been waiting a while for more new stuff to come out and were all hoping for a launch coinciding with the start of the 2011-12 NHL regular season, but it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer. This in itself should be seen as good news, as a product like this being delayed usually means that it will not be horribly rushed and will be better than expected when it’s officially launched (again, see the videogame industry. Unless the game’s name happens to be Duke Nukem Forever). And yes, by that I mean it wasn’t really officially launched at the All Star Game. That short animation and the comics? The Guardian Vault? Those are just teasers for what’s to come.
I could be completely misinterpreting the above quote from those articles, maybe they’ll release something a bit earlier, maybe the official launch date has since changed, but who knows. Either way, I look forward to seeing how GME handles the product when we finally get to see it for real.
I’m Wildwing64, and this has been another One Timer At PowerPlayGoal.com.
