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Lee Cowan was just an average 16 year old before he was shot dead by a high school classmate and left for the worms in a Minneapolis municipal dump..
Now his life is really about to get complicated.
After the shooting Lee’s soul is intercepted on its way to "the other side" by a supranormal being Thomas, who informs Lee it is not the boy’s time to die and that Lee must return to earth.
"Oh? Okay."
But Thomas has a mission for Lee. A mission Thomas will not explain to Lee until a later date. To assist Lee in this future secret mission, Thomas has some lovely parting gifts for Lee…
…who awakes on earth on Christmas Eve almost two months after the shooting. Lee feels, "I don’t know," different. Then Lee notices he is wearing strange clothes and a cape, like a superhero, only more menacing. And he is kneeling in front of a tombstone.
His tombstone.
And its grave is not empty. Someone named LEE COWAN is buried in it.
(See? Life really is getting complicated for Lee.)
In this series Lee Cowan becomes the superhero Vanguard. Thanks to Thomas, Lee has been resurrected with the powers of the vampire (e.g., supernatural strength, flight, metamorph into meaner animals, control immediate weather, command the dead) without the curse
(e.g. bloodlust, bad B.O.), although Lee isn’t so sure about that curse part. His Vanguard powers seem to have a will – if not a mind and personality – all their own; and, at some most inconvenient moments, Lee finds himself fighting his powers more than he does villains.Lee’s parents, Chuck and Mary Pat, are overjoyed that their only child is alive, but they also feel guilty. How could they have mistaken the body buried in Lee’s grave for their boy’s? Well, the living Lee and the dead Lee do look alike; and, when the corpse is exhumed, DNA tests prove the living Lee and the dead Lee are the same boy. How can that be? That will remain a mystery for awhile because, the night after its exhumation, the corpse disappears from the police morgue.
Weird, but a more important mystery is Thomas’ secret mission for Lee, who suspects this mission will not be a benevolent one. Lee is afraid Thomas has something unpleasant planned for the earth. Something Thomas expects Lee to participate in without question or protest, not matter how awful.
But, if Lee’s suspicion is correct, what can he do? Even with his Vanguard powers, he is no match for Thomas.
Lee is begging to think that he and the whole world would have been better off if he had been left for dead.
