Snowbird (comics)
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Snowbird is a fictional character who appeared in Marvel Comics' series Alpha Flight. She first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120, and was created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
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[edit] Fictional character history
The Inuit goddess Nelvanna appeared before a man named Richard Easton, insisting upon mating with him in order to produce a child who would grow to battle the evil, mystical "Great Beasts" of Canada. Easton reluctantly agreed and Nelvanna became pregnant.
Michael Twoyoungmen, also known as Shaman, was chosen to serve as midwife to Nelvanna when she gave birth. Shaman named the child Narya, used a spell to bind her to the earthly realm, and agreed to raise her in his cabin in the Canadian wilderness.
Narya grew at a rapid rate, and it was discovered that she possessed supernatural abilities. Most notably, she can transform into any animal native to Canada, gaining the attributes of that creature while in its guise. In addition, she possesses the ability to fly, to sense mystic and magical power, limited precognition and postcognition, and a limited degree of super-strength. However, she is unable to leave Canada's borders without instantly falling ill; it is possible that being outside Canada's borders for too long could prove fatal.
When Twoyoungmen's friends, James and Heather Hudson (also known as Guardian and Vindicator respectively), learned of Narya's powers and origin, they asked both of them to join the Canadian super team, Alpha Flight. They agreed, and Narya adopted the codename Snowbird on the battlefield and the ordinary identity of Anne McKenzie in public.
Snowbird was a longtime member of Alpha Flight, and she fell in love and married her workmate at the Canadian ranger forces, Douglas Thompson, with whom she had a child. In Alpha Flight #44, she was possessed by the villain Pestilence, who tried to drain the life of her teammates after he had killed her family. In order to defeat Pestilence, Guardian (Heather Hudson) killed Snowbird. The mind of her teammate Walter Langkowski (Sasquatch), who was at that point trapped in another body, was transferred into Snowbird's body, and the body was eventually altered to resemble Walter's own body. Snowbird's spirit passed into the realm of the Inuit gods, but she refused to enter paradise until the gods would also admit her husband and child, which they eventually did.
Years later, Snowbird would return from the dead, rising bodily from her grave. Given that her original body was still in use by Sasquatch, it seems that she created a new body. She is again an active member of Alpha Flight, and is no longer physically limited to Canada's borders, as shown when she left, with the rest of the original Alpha Flight (bar Sasquatch, who remained to lead a new team) to return a clutch of Plodex eggs to their home planet.
Recently, a time-displaced alternate Snowbird from relatively early in her Alpha Flight career was brought to the present-day with her teammates (apart from Sasquatch). At last report, while most of this group were continuing to act as Alpha Flight in the present day, the temporal copy of Snowbird had married Yukon Jack and become queen of his tribe.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Snowbird is able to change into an albino version of any creature native to the arctic. She can also transform into a female human being; her true face is not human. When she transforms, she gains all the strength and abilities of what she transforms into. She can draw additional mass from an unidentified and presumably mystical source when she takes the form of an animal whose mass and volume are greater than her base form. When she takes the form of an animal whose mass and volume are less than those of a human being, she became a human-sized version of that animal. Such things she has transformed into were a swarm of mosquitos, a sperm whale, Tanaraq (the true form of Sasquatch), the monster Wendigo, etc. She even transformed into a wolverine and beat Wendigo by ripping him to shreds.
However, Snowbird's personality is overlaid with the character traits and instinctual patterns of whatever animal's form she was using at the time. Furthermore, the greater amount of time she spends as a certain animal, the stronger the impression of that animal's psyche on her personality as long as she remained in that form. If she remained in one form for an extended period of time, she risked having her personality fixed as that of the animal, and therefore of never transforming back. Also transforming from one animal to another without first changing into her base form caused her strain. However, both of these limitations have been reduced or removed following her resurrection: she has since been shown to talk in animal form, and she transformed into a mountain lion to Wendigo with no strain at all.
In her base form she has superhuman strength. However, when she transforms into an animal she can take the strength and abilities of whatever she transforms into. So she can take all the strength of Wendigo or even the Great Beast Tanaraq, varying her strength. She also has the ability to fly, but her base form's speed was never stated, and she often assumes the form of a snow owl when she wants to fly. She would also gain the speed of any creature that she transformed into. Snowbird has the mental ability to compel others to aid her in her struggle against the Great Beasts, and once mentally controlled Northstar to aid Alpha Flight against them.
After a battle with the Great Beast Kolomaq, Snowbird was badly wounded when suddenly a "healing glow" came over her and all her wounds were instantly healed. This occurs in her base form, but if she can instantly heal in her other forms is not known. Many years after her death, Alpha Flight found Snowbird in a cylinder in the A.I.M. headquarters. They rescued her and determined that she has an advanced form of cellular rejuvenation. Once she was buried and began to decay, this regeneration process was initiated and carried to fruition over a considerable length of time. This contradicts the fact that currently Sasquatch possesses Snowbird's body after his was destroyed and that body became male. (Walter's body is really Snowbird's original body.) This continuity error has never been addressed.
She has all the knowledge and wisdom of the Gods of the Arctic, but due to her young age she doesn't know how to fully use it, as she is technically only a few years old. She also has the ability of "post-cognition," to envision events that happened already up to six hours in the past. She can replay events in an area, but only she is capable of seeing them. It is unknown if she can do this in forms other than her base form.
Being a mystical creature herself, she can pick up and sense various mystical activities from various places. She could detect the presence of magical energies or the breaching of a magical field. She can also resist teleportation. Talisman of Alpha Flight tried and failed to teleport her back to their headquarters.
Shaman's binding process initially restricted her from leaving Canada; upon doing so she would become weaker, although she once went to the United States with the X-Men and was not affected. This restriction has apparently been lifted, as she has traveled into interstellar space with no ill effects.
[edit] Trivia
Surprisingly for a woman who embodies Inuit culture, Narya is blonde and has blue eyes. This is most likely due to the fact that, like the other members of Alpha Flight, she was not originally intended to be a big character. Thus, her look was already established when John Byrne later gave her an origin after the team became popular and received their own book.
[edit] Appearances in other media
- Snowbird could be seen in the X-Men animated television series of the mid-1990s as she and the rest of Alpha Flight made cameos in the series. She displayed her shapeshifting abilities as she assumed the form of a snow owl and a white wolf when trying to capture Wolverine.
