Following on from a back-up story, Vanguard began his series fighting Supreme, Supreme had encountered Vanguard's race while in his exile in space. The fight resulted in Earth's first contact with Vanguard, and ended in Chicago with Supreme the victor and Vanguard was left outside the Savage Dragon's police department, arrested and taken to a maximum security prison, which he was swiftly broken out of by his robot aid Wally using their teleporter and one of their shape-shifter robot drones, Lurch, unfortunately the teleportation went wrong and sent Vanguard to a science lab, and Lurch had a glitch that made him rebellious, Lurch, posing as Vanguard escaped and fought The Dragon, while Vanguard escaped the space station and accidentally caused the overweight female scientist there to become a super-villain 'Modem' who could control robotics/electronics.