Every week, we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer while still acknowledging that the abandoned story DID still happen. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today we look at Mal Duncan's extremely short-lived tenure as the new Guardian.

(I did this as a Comic Book Legend awhile back, but I think it works well here)

In 1976, after a multi-year hiatus, the Teen Titans returned in their own title.

As you can see from the cover of the first issue....



one of the things the issue meant to do was to give Mal Duncan, the non-superhero member of the Titans, an actual superhero identity....









However, while Joe Orlando was the editor on the first issue of the reboot, Julie Schwartz took over with the second issue and he hated Mal as the Guardian, so the VERY NEXT ISSUE, the identity was dropped...



and Mal got a new superpower, the use of the powerful "Gabriel's Horn". Check out how he won the weapon...







And here it is in action...



It took awhile for Mal to get an actual superhero name, though, so he still went by "Mal" for awhile.