THE BREWER REPORT: SNOWBIRD

Two in the bush:

The strange story of Snowbird

By Byron Brewer

SNOWBIRD

Snowbird was one of the characters introduced in the pages of Uncanny X-Men as Logan’s old pals from Alpha Flight. I always loved John Byrne’s design of this character and the thought that went into her mystic, if not Cosmic, origin.

After fighting in Secret Invasion with the original “God Squad,” Snowbird is set to fly again, this time with her old allies (alive and dead!) from Alpha Flight, in the one-shot Chaos War: Alpha Flight by the team of writer Jim McCann (Hawkeye & Mockingbird) and artist Reilly Brown (Heroic Age: Prince of Power).

Who is this winged adventuress preparing to take on the minions of the Chaos King, in addition to again fighting alongside several dead teammates possibly returning to the fold after Amatsu-Mikaboshi absolutely destroys the afterlife?

Glad you asked!

Several thousand years before Snowbird's birth, the immensely powerful and malevolent Arctic spirit Tundra sealed the Northern gods -- including the Inuit goddess Nelvanna -- within a mystical barrier in another dimension, rendering them incapable of defending the mortal realm of Earth. Through clever persuasion and trickery, Nelvanna bargained with Tundra to strip her of her godly powers, so that she could pass through the barrier to find and mate with a male human of Earth. 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 (eh?). Easton reluctantly agreed and Nelvanna became pregnant. Snowbird was born some time in the 1900s, near Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories, Canada.

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, due to the literal effects of the binding spell placed on her by Shaman; it is possible that being outside Canada's borders for too long could prove fatal.

Though not much at all is known about Snowbird's childhood, she is believed to have actively engaged in battle against such malevolent Arctic entities as Tundra's kind. Narya adopted the codename "Snowbird" on the battlefield and the ordinary identity of "Anne McKenzie" in public. In time she trained to join the RCMP, eventually rising to the rank of colonel, working as a Records Officer at Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. When Twoyoungmen's friends, James MacDonald Hudson and his wife Heather, learned of Narya's powers and origin, they asked both of them to join the Canadian super team, The Flight, later known as Alpha Flight!

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 killed Snowbird's family. In a mine in Burial Butte, a town in the Canadian Klondike, Vindicator killed Snowbird with a plasma blast to prevent Pestilence from taking possession of her body. 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. She was again an active member of Alpha Flight, and was no longer physically limited to Canada's borders.

CHAOS WAR: ALPHA FLIGHT

In recent days, Snowbird is sent by her uncle Hodiak to be part of team of gods dubbed the “God Squad” assembled by Hercules to battle the Strull gods, for if the Skrulls win then the gods of humanity will be devoured. When approached by the new Guardian Michael Pointer, she informs him that, due to Alpha Flight's demise at the hands of the Collective (who was in part Pointer), the end of her marriage, and the loss of the Great Beasts, she will not join the new Omega Flight team. When captured by Nightmare, it is revealed that her greatest fear is survivor's guilt for not being present at the battle between Pointer and Alpha Flight. Later, Snowbird has sex with Hercules.

During a battle with a group of gods who had been absorbed into the Skrull pantheon, Snowbird changes into Neooqtoq the Ravager, deadliest of the Great Beasts of the North. In doing so, she loses her rational mind, attempting to kill anything in her way. She pulls in all the fallen gods, and seemingly collapses into herself. However, at the last moment she transformed herself into a flock of mosquitoes, choosing to honor her fallen teammates by fighting on, and rejoins the battle against the Skrull gods. She returns at a crucial moment, and impales the Skrull god Kly'bn on the spine of the slain god-eater Demogorge, eldest child of Gaea (Mother Earth). Snowbird later carries a weeping Hercules and Amadeus back to Earth in the form of a great white bird. Some time later, she attends Hercules' funeral.

Like the winter she loves, will Snowbird come on like a lion or a lamb in the Chaos War? We will soon find out!

The Chaos War: Alpha Flight one-shot hits LCSs in November!