Snowbird (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

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. Easton reluctantly agreed, and the two gave birth to Snowbird 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, that she could 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 Royal Canadian Mounted Police, eventually rising to the rank of Colonel, working as a Records Officer at Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. When Twoyoungmen's friends, James MacDonald Hudson and Heather Hudson, learned of Narya's powers and origin, they asked Twoyoungmen and Snowbird 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 Snowbird's 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 is again an active member of Alpha Flight, and is no longer physically limited to Canada's borders.

Much later, a time-displaced alternate Snowbird from relatively early in her Alpha Flight career was brought to the present-day with her teammates. While most of this group was 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.