Captain America vs. Vindicator/Guardian (Marvel tryout page: Sample Two)

I didn’t actually expect to ever find another page from Byrne’s college days sample art for his Canadian character’s battle with the star-spangled Avenger. So, I was on the shocked side to link up this page 2 with page 3 of Byrne’s Vindicator versus Captain America unpublished debut. AIso, I was half expecting it to be hand colored like Sample Three was—even if those colors were of a… limited palette. Then, so starts the hunt for the Sample One page, and to find out if there’s a Sample Four page!

Here’s Byrne’s short quote about their creation, "Vindicator goes back to my college days, when he was called the Sentinel, and then the Guardian... I created him in 1970 or 1971... In fact, somewhere Duffy Vohland, I think, has a badly colored page that has Vindicator battling Captain America that dates from those early days."

On this page, it looks like Vindicator previously evaded a Cap slung shield attack that sent his shield flying out the window, but Cap still pressed the attack and landed a WHAM! across the Canadian’s jaw. While, it looks like James MacDonald Hudson was secretly manipulating Cap’s shield, as a speeding indestructible projectile. Unaware of the imminent danger, the shield-slinger takes a moment to confront Vindicator in what I imagine as a perfect Roger Stern moment, when KRANG! the veteran of a thousand battles is felled by the newcomer…

Now, for the colored page 3, I added my own dialogue just for fun. This time I leave the script to you or Roger Stern!

Art c. 1970/71 - 11x17.