Winter Guard

The Winter Guard (Russian: Зимняя Гвардия, romanized: Zimnyaya Gvardiya) is a fictional team of Russian superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

The Winter Guard are noted for being "Russia's answer to the Avengers". Several members of the group formerly belonged to the Soviet Super-Soldiers, the People's Protectorate, and the Supreme Soviets. Unlike those teams, which were often adversarial towards other costumed superheroes, the Winter Guard is much more heroic and representative in nature.

Unlike other superhero teams, the Winter Guard currently has a rotating pool of candidates to fill one of three roles on the team: Darkstar, Crimson Dynamo, and Red Guardian.^{[citation needed]}

The Winter Guard first appeared during the Kurt Busiek run of Iron Man in (vol. 2) #9 (October 1998), where they had several guest appearances. They would later appear in Busiek's stint on the Avengers.

The team made infrequent appearances in the Marvel Universe before being featured in Jeph Loeb's Hulk (vol. 2). The Winter Guard soon appeared in She-Hulk and War Machine: Weapon of S.H.I.E.L.D..

David Gallaher brought the team back in Hulk: Winter Guard which first appeared as a Marvel Digital Comic and was later reprinted as a comic book. Gallaher returned to writing the team with a three-issue limited series called Darkstar and the Winter Guard in 2010.

The Winter Guard were originally known as the Soviet Super Soldiers and appeared in various comics from the mid-1970s. That name lost meaning following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. The Winter Guard made their debut with that name in Iron Man (vol. 3) #9, and fought alongside the Avengers during the "Maximum Security" and "Kang Dynasty" events.

Whilst investigating the murder of the Abomination, Doc Samson, She-Hulk, and Thunderbolt Ross encounter the revitalized Winter Guard, consisting of Ursa Major, Red Guardian, Darkstar, and Crimson Dynamo.