Snowbird (character)

Snowbird (Narya) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by John Byrne, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979). Snowbird is an Inuk demigoddess, being the daughter of a human and Nelvanna, the Inuk goddess of the Northern Skies. She has been depicted as a member of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight.

Snowbird first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 (April 1979) and was created by John Byrne. Byrne later revealed that, unlike most of the Alpha Flight lineup, she was a "fan character" who he created years before he began professional work in comics.

Several thousand years before Snowbird's birth, the immensely powerful and malevolent Arctic spirit Tundra sealed the Northern gods — including the Inuk 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 to produce a child who would grow to battle the evil, mystical "Great Beasts" of Canada. Easton reluctantly agreed, and the two conceived Snowbird some time in the early 20th century, 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 grows at a rapid rate. Within six years, she ages into an adult. Narya possesses various supernatural abilities, including the ability to transform into any animal native to Canada. 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 effects of the binding spell placed on her by Shaman.

When Shaman's friends, James Hudson and Heather Hudson, learn of Narya's powers and origin, they ask the two to join the Canadian super team the Flight, later known as Alpha Flight. Narya adopts the codename "Snowbird" and also assumed the human identity of "Anne McKenzie"; she subsequently trains to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, eventually working as a records officer in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Snowbird is eventually confronted by her new superior, Chief Inspector Hamilton, for repeated "unexcused absences" (which occurred as a result of her superhero activities) and is subsequently forced to break out of confinement to battle Kolomaq, one of the Great Beasts. Snowbird resigns from the police, abandons the Anne McKenzie identity, and decides to devote herself entirely to her service in Alpha Flight.

During her time as an officer, Snowbird falls in love with her workmate Douglas Thompson. After she entrusts him with her secret, she marries him, and eventually has a child. For that, she is cast out by the other Inuit gods and stripped of her divine essence. Later, Snowbird is possessed by the villain Pestilence, who kills her family and tries to kill Alpha Flight. In a mine in Burial Butte, a town in the Canadian Klondike, Vindicator kills Snowbird with a plasma blast. Snowbird's spirit passes into the realm of the Inuit gods, but she refuses to enter until the gods admit her husband and child, which they eventually agree to. Pestilence continues to possess Snowbird's body until he is banished into Shaman's medicine pouch. The mind of Walter Langkowski (Sasquatch), who was at that point trapped in Smart Alec's body, is transferred into Snowbird's body, which is eventually altered to resemble his original self.

Years later, Snowbird returns 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.^{[volume & issue needed]}

During the Secret Invasion storyline, Snowbird is sent by her uncle Hodiak to be part of a team of gods dubbed the "God Squad", assembled by Hercules to battle the Skrull gods; if the Skrulls win, then the gods of humanity will be devoured or enslaved. When approached by the new Guardian Michael Pointer, she informs him that, due to Alpha Flight's demise, 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. During a battle with a group of gods who had been absorbed into the Skrull pantheon, Snowbird changes into Neooqtoq, the deadliest of the Great Beasts. 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. At the last moment, Snowbird saves herself by transforming into a swarm of mosquitoes.