Marvel Comics of the 1980s: Snowbird

Showing posts with label Snowbird. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Snowbird by Jason Copland

Thursday, February 5, 2015

1985: Alpha's Beta Flight part IV: Black, White & Mac All Over...

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the fourth entry of Alpha's Beta Flight, John Byrne's nearing the proverbial down home stretch with Canada's finest. But before he bows out, there's the two year anniversary to celebrate and it promises to be one hell of a good time... literally!

"But he's DEAD... Isn't he?"

Spoiler alert: that will be the most frequently asked question in this chapter. But, as always, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Ever the gifted storyteller, not to mention a smooth marketing type, John Byrne figured that with Alpha Flight's two year anniversary coming up it was high time to work towards a climax of sorts. At last, several of the mysteries he introduced would lead to a pay off... Starting with just what the heck was wrong with Snowbird in recent months. The demi-goddess had apparently fallen out of favor with her ancestors... And in the opening pages of #23, the arctic deities finally tell her why they're so cross with her.

"Look... and tell me if you have not failed us...

Tell me you have fought the beasts wherever they might appear..."

Say, that *does* look an awful lot like her teammate Sasquatch, doesn't it? But surely, you'd expect a demi-goddess with enhanced, mystical senses to be able to tell the difference between a fellow Alphan and one of the mystical beasts she was bred to destroy. Yeah, guess only Shirley expected that. Now aware of her mistake, Snowbird begged Hodiak and Nelvanna for forgiveness and set off to correct this particular oversight. Meanwhile... a considerable number of Alpha Flight members had conveniently assembled to deal with the threat of Caliber.

"ALPHA FLIGHT!"

Yeah, guess it really is Alpha Flight. It's a testament to the (accidental) artistry of John Byrne that the readers get an all too subtle realization that Alpha has come a long way in its relatively short existence. From government backed team with two sub-divisions to a bouncy dwarf, a reluctant art history student turned mystical talisman, a schizophrenic with a big, blue scarf that screams *choke me, choke me* and a somewhat sadistic looking Sasquatch. Still, they are able to take down Caliber, who did manage to get a few decent shots in... Shots that really hurt Sasquatch who seemingly had trouble dealing with his wounds.

And then Snowbird showed up, quickly shifting to her snow owl form to attack Sasquatch. Now, Aurora might be mentally unbalanced but she was still able to tell when a teammate was acting out of character. So, she intervened...

"Get your claws out of my man !!"

Little over a decade after this issue hit the stands, Jerry Springer would make a fortune hosting talkshows with similar titles. For now, things escalated far beyond that show's usual shouting matches and hitting with folding chair. In fact, way before Jerry or anyone else's final thought... Sasquatch showed his true colors...

"I shall grant thee the boon of a quick and merciful death!"

See Aurora, I told you that scarf would lead to trouble.

So, what's been going on? Well... remember Walter Langkowski turned into Sasquatch when he tried to recreate the gamma bomb incident that led to the creation of the Hulk? Turns out "Sasquatch" had been a lie all along. Langkowski's gamma experiment caused a tiny tear between Earth and the Great Beasts' prison realm. The beast Tanaraq seized this opportunity to merge with Langkowski, allowing Walter to change into his giant, orange shape.

However, with every subsequent transformation Tanaraq slowly gained more control of their dual form. The inevitable take over was actually sped up whenever Langkowski lost his temper or experienced severe pain... For instance when Caliber pelted his pelt a couple of times. That attack proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, finally allowing Tanaraq to take over completely. This forced Snowbird to rely on extreme measures... Shapeshifting into a white sasquatch, she finished her teammate by ripping his heart out...

"It... is done!"

No, not by a longshot actually, no matter what Snowbird tries to tell the grieving Aurora. Luckily for her, Puck can spot a fib a mile away...

"To save Langkowski, it would mean crossing the dimensional barriers,
entering into those planes where evil holds eternal mastery...
The kingdom of the Beasts!"

Oh boy, road trip!

In many ways, #24 is similar to Alpha Flight I#12. Once again, the team must gather to go abroad and save one of their own in a double sized anniversary issue... But while #12 ended with an Alphan dying, #24 starts with the corpse already on the floor (and turned to stone for easy transport, incidentally).

Using her handy, nebulously defined powers, Talisman summoned every Alphan ever to come to "the eye of the world", a barren piece of rock that houses a portal to otherworldly realms. In time, Heather Hudson, Shaman and even the reluctant Northstar showed up. However, Jean Paul was ready to leave as soon as he realized it wasn't his sister who had called for him. Luckily, Talisman wasn't the only one with nebulously defined abilities...

"It is always dangerous to shape the minds of humans against their will.
I am sworn never to do so myself"

Sage advice from a man who only four issues earlier blatantly lied to turn his only child into a mystical messiah against her will. Oh Shaman, you truly are the worst.

Still, his abilities were needed to get the team where they needed to go. While their leader Heather Hudson stayed on Earth to look after the slowly crumbling form of Walter Langkowski, Shaman produced a totem staff from his medicine pouch to open the eye of the world. And with that, he takes Alpha across several dimensional planes. After two pages of Kirbyeque alien realms, always a convenient way to fill 48 pages, the team arrived at their destination...

"Behold my friends! The realm of the Beasts!!"

A lot has been said about the way John Byrne's drawing style evolved from the late 70s to the mid 80s. He's been accused of cutting corners, adopting a far less detailed style, even leaving out backgrounds altogether... But man, can he still pull out the stops when he wants to. The realm of the Beasts looks astonishing, perhaps even more visually impressive than the City of the Sun God he drew back in Uncanny X-Men I#116. The lack of color also adds to the effect, clearly showing just how intricate this piece of work is. But enough sightseeing, we're here to find Walter Langkowski's soul...

"You are most welcome here.

As meat is welcome in the house of a starving man!"

Meet Somon the Artificer, leader of the Great Beasts. Alpha is in for the fight of their lives when Somon summons (get it?) the other beasts: Tundra, Kariooq the Corruptor and Kolomaq the fire beast all have a(nother) go at trying to kill the heroes. The key to their defeat lies with Somon, whose power keeps the Beasts from remembering they actually hate each other more than the outsiders. As soon as Snowbird took out Somon in her bearform, the Beasts tore into one another allowing Alpha time to continue to look for Langkowski. After some doing and a brief sojourn into the Well of Sorrows, they retrieved his soul and headed for the exit.

Meanwhile in the real world, Heather's been busy too. Not only was she joined by Box who was late to arrive in response to Talisman's summons... She was also busy keeping what remained of Walter's body from blowing in the wind.

"But... where is his body?!"

You're looking at it, Snowbird... Alpha took too long in the realm of the Beasts and now Walter's physical form had deteriorated way past the point of even Shaman's Sarcee skills. And what's worse: without a body to house it in, Walter's soul would soon be lost as well. Luckily, you can always rely on Michael Twoyoungmen's ability to improvise. If you don't have a body handy, will a Box do?

"It is done!"

Yup, in a ludicrous "only in comics!" Silver Age style turn of events you could barely get away with by the mid 80s, Byrne decides to have Walter's soul inhabit the semi-living metal of the robot created by Roger Bochs. Never mind the psychological effect of suddenly finding you're a disembodied spirit, stuck inside a robot, not to mention that Aurora can now add objectophilia to her list of disorders... Shaman is pleased as punch.

"We have prevailed!
Alpha Flight is whole once more!"

Whole, Shaman? I guess that's true, if you gloss over the fact Guardian is still dead even though his wife swears she saw him on the street a few weeks ago. But hey, you diagnosed that as little more than a bout of grief induced hysteria. So, onwards to #25, which opens with the semi-official court martial of Northstar. Back in #22, we learned Jean Paul Beaubier used to belong to the Séperatistes, a terrorist group fighting for an independent Qúebec. After finding this out, his shocked sister Aurora announced she'd reveal this to their teammates.

Naturally, Northstar stood up for himself in his usual, charming way...

"Talisman just called in, that creep Caliber has busted jail
and he's right in the middle of a big battle downtown... with Guardian!!!"

And so he was. Talisman watches in awe as Guardian took on Caliber, who mysteriously had managed to not only escape prison but also reclaim his battle armor. In the end, she was able to defeat him by channeling some magic and literally wishing the armor away. Moments later, the rest of the team arrived...

"And I thought that kind of thing only happened in comic books!"

Said the former orange haired demon beast encased in a talking tin can. Yes, ol' Mac is back and he even proves he's the real deal by kissing Heather who passes out as a result. Guess that's one way of testing for DNA. Once she came to, Guardian finally explained what had happened to him. And if you felt the Sasquatch/Box transfer story was 1950s Superman comics weird... Hold on to your hat.

A little used feature of the Guardian suit allows the wearer to teleport. In the final pages of Alpha Flight I#12, with his damaged suit's power pack about to explode, Mac saw Heather enter the room. Not wanting his wife to get hurt in the explosion, he channeled all available energy into the suit's teleportation mechanism. As a result, he vanished through a miniature rift in the space/time continuum.

Still with us? Good.

When Guardian reappeared, he couldn't breathe the air and in the few seconds of consciousness left to him, he realized why: he was on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. You'd think that'd be the end of James McDonald Hudson but no, he was found by the Quwrlln, an advanced alien race who lived in the ice seas underneath Ganymede's surface. They took Mac in and nursed him back to health.

"There were tears... or the equivalent... on both sides
when I announced my return to Earth."

Tears under water? Won't those be hard to spot? The Quwrlln used their transoptic scanners to take a look at Earth in order to figure out a way to get Guardian back there... and that's when the other shoe dropped. Upon viewing his homeplanet, Mac realized he had also traveled back in time... ten thousand years in fact. Needless to say, he couldn't possibly return now. So that's why the Quwrlln offered to put him in suspended animation for the next hundred centuries while they worked on a means to transport him home.

Mac agreed and awoke refreshed after a millennia long nap to find the Quwrlln civilization had bombed itself back to their version of the stone age. However, they did leave him a rocket ship which, amazingly, still worked after all that time and, even more amazingly, he instantly knew how to pilot without any training whatsoever. The trip back lasted 28 months, so he took another suspended animation snooze and then he was home...

"I appreciate irony as much as the next man..."

After breaking into a nearby cabin to get some clothes, Mac didn't bother to call the government or even his wife. No, he bummed his way to Vancouver where he happened to run into Heather anyway. He quickly ran off, figuring that with all that had happened she might be better off believing he was still dead. After empathically assuring her husband what an idiot he was for even thinking that, Heather received yet another surprise... As great and wonderful as the Quwrlln were, they had no prior experience with human physiology. That's why when they tried to fix up Hudson, they made a few understandable mistakes...

"They had no way of knowing what was me...
and what was my armor."

And speaking of metal men and their problems; Walter Langkowski was still trying to get used to his own robotic body. And he wasn't alone in this discomfort. Aurora prefers her men with buns of steel, but this is ridiculous...

"You love me for my mind too, don't you?
Don't you?!"

An honest question deserves an honest answer and that's what Walter gets from his flighty girlfriend. He doesn't take it too well, finally acknowledging he is having trouble coping with all he's been through recently. Luckily, Roger Bochs has a solution...

"She needs a man with a real, human form.
And I think I know how we can get you one."

And that's all the set up required for the fifth and final part of Alpha's Beta Flight: Byrne 'n Body Switcheroo... Plus the Beyonder too!"

Sunday, February 1, 2015

1985: Alpha's Beta Flight part III: I Sing Of Pink Pearls and Lillies Gilded

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the third entry of Alpha's Beta Flight a new team is slowly forming. But before the renewed Alpha Flight can launch, we focus on some of the old Alphans and their problems. And oh boy, those will fill an issue or three.

"GILDED LILY

Try to forget her"

Considering Lily only made two additional appearances following her debut in March of 1985, I'd say forgetting her is a done deal. To be frank: Alpha Flight's early 20s didn't have the most memorable of villains, as this entry will prove. No, the true drama came from the team dynamics... for instance the already strained relationship between Shaman and his daughter Elizabeth who he had pretty much tricked into becoming Talisman without telling her she'd be unable to ever take off the coronet of enchantment that powered her. In #20, the truth comes out when Elizabeth decides she isn't cut out for superheroing...

"All I have to do to resign is take off this magical headband..."

Needless to say, she isn't happy about this and to make matters worse Snowbird assures her she's supposed to be the messiah. While she tries to take that in, Heather Hudson is trying to cope with the news as well. Barely a week into her tenure as Alpha's leader and she already has to deal with having a reluctant savior as a new recruit. And to make matters worse, a man about half her size and over twice her age starts flirting with her.

"Sure, see you in a wee bit."

Ow, Heather... talk about an insensitive crack about the man's stature. Moments later, Shaman discusses Puck's feelings for Heather with him and, true to form, gives him terrible advice. While Puck was planning to be a perfect gentleman and not act on them, Shaman tells him to go for it because Heather will soon need emotional support. Sure, but does that necessarily mean a romance, doctor love?

Soon after this interlude, the story focuses on Alpha's other oddball romantic couple: Aurora and Sasquatch. The two lovers have been somewhat at odds ever since Sasquatch messed with her genetic structure. For one, she altered her costume to reflect her new identity, but as an unwanted after effect she also seemed to be developing a third personality that appeared to be a mix of her two current ones.

"Everyone needs a change now and then, mon ami"

After passionately frenching the miner who wasn't complaining, an annoyed Sasquatch felt it was high time they had some alone time. That's why he took her for a semi-romantic getaway to Tamarind Island, where his family owned a seemingly abandoned estate he figured Alpha Flight might use as a base.

"It was built around 1896, by a great-aunt on my mother's side.
She was something of a character by all accounts."

I'll say. Notice that golden hand holding back the right curtain? That's our girl... Lillian van Loont, better known as Gilded Lily, still alive after all these years. How, you ask? Well, #21 told her full origin story. In a nutshell: Lilian was an ordinary woman who became Diablo's apprentice and lover after the evil alchemist saved her from a car crash in the late 19th century. When the local villagers attacked his castle and imprisoned Diablo, she swore to avenge him which she did by seducing his attackers one by one and turning them into living golden statues she had all shipped to her home and alchemy lab on Tamarind Island. And now she was about to do the same to Sasquatch and Aurora.

"Who are you? What have you done with Walter?"

We already covered those questions, Aurora. For someone with superspeed, you sure have trouble keeping up. Anyway, Lily had already changed Langkowski into one of her living statues and was about to dip Aurora in gold as well when Walter managed to free himself by changing to Sasquatch. He easily rescued his girlfriend and then inadvertently revealed the secret of Gilded Lily's eternal youth.

"Sapriste!"

Talk about steampunk alchemic engineering... You can live forever as long as you don't mind turning into a robotic stickfigure. As creepy as this was, things got worse when Sasquatch removed her face plate thereby somehow breaking the spell that held Lily together. She crumbled into dust, along with her dungeon laboratory and all the upstairs furnishings, leaving behind an empty and barren mansion. That'll make Alpha's job a lot easier when they want to redecorate.

Issue #22 also stars Aurora, this time she's paired up with her estranged brother Northstar. She shows up straight from her adventure against Gilded Lily. Moments after leaving Tamarind Island, she had a mental breakdown when Sasquatch tried to touch her romantically and flew off, eventually ending up at his doorstep, exhausted and frazzled.

" Yes, yes, I must try. But it is so hard..."

Well, it's hardly the first time Northstar heard that line in his bedroom... so he takes it in stride and decides to take her under his wing again. She gladly accepts his support and even accompanies him when he goes to visit Clementine D'Arbanville, an old friend from his days with the circus who wrote him a letter asking for help. Their reunion was... surprising, to say the least.

"Oh Jean-Paul, I'm so glad you came..."

Nope, sorry... I've used up the legally allowed amount of double entendres for one review. Still, given what we'd eventually find out about Northstar's preferences places this passionate kiss in an interesting perspective. Then again, Clementine does have pretty short hair. And speaking of women who know what they want: Clementine asked Northstar's help in dealing with Pink Pearl, a performer who has slowly been working to take control of Clementine's circus by hiring acts loyal to her. Wait, here she is now...

"Now, Pearl told you everything would be just fine.
If only you'd keep your nose out of Pearl's business"

I guess it's obvious how she came up with the stagename 'Pink Pearl', right? At any rate, you'd think a single woman, even one of Pearl's size, would be no match for two superheroes with lightning fast reflexes and the ability to generate light energy. Well, think again. For one, Pearl wasn't alone: her acrobatic associate Bones took on Northstar who soon found himself tied up with a slender, incredibly limber man on top of him (...). And as for Aurora, well... Pearl personally took care of her too.

"Sleep sound, baby."

Hey, I never knew Aurora was Russian or into motorboats. It goes without saying that Pearl's ultimate plans involved more than merely taking over a travelling circus. Pearl had her henchmen tie up the Beaubier twins and Clementine while she moved on to the final phase of her scheme. Once Aurora and the others woke up, Pearl explained the true purpose of her scheme as any classic, heavyweight baddie is wont to do.

Long story short: Pearl is actually an undercover operative working for a number of unrevealed agencies who want her to bomb a top secret meeting between the prime minister of Canada and the president of the United States.

"The... parties I represent don't wish to see this happen."

Pearl's people specifically chose Clementine's circus as a cover because they were aware she used to be a member of the Séperatistes, a violent terrorist cell who fought for an independent Quebec... A cell Northstar used to be a part of, as we learn in this issue. Pearl's reasoning is surprisingly simple: the explosive will inevitably be traced back to Clementine, ensuring that the Séperatistes serve as unwitting scapegoats. Luckily, Aurora recovered in time to use her powers to stun Pearl and her associates long enough for Northstar to join the fray. Eventually the twins are able to win the day, even if Pearl was only taken out by a poorly aimed blade thrown by her associate Bones.

All's well that ends well, especially after taking down enemies as swollen as Pearl. However, the little revelation that her brother was connected to or even part of a terrorist group wasn't lost on Aurora.

"You have said you no longer wished a place in Alpha Flight, North-Star.
C'est bien, when I tell them of your past,
you will no longer be welcome there..."

Talk about ungrateful... We'll see how Aurora's promise to rat out her own brother will play out next time. From issue #23 on, Byrne starts to actively tie up all the various, seemingly unconnected storylines. In a way, his take on Alpha Flight in its second year is very much reminiscent of how Jack Kirby structured the first ongoing Eternals series back in 1976.

In a truly revolutionary move for the mid 70s, Kirby didn't stick to a single narrative. With seemingly casual disregard, he switched his focus to various groupings of characters, this kept readers guessing just who the true stars of the book were supposed to be while continuing the overall story. To Byrne's credit, he applied a bit more focus than Kirby by having at least one easily distinguishable main story, intersected with various cut scenes like the Talisman/Heather Hudson bit, an update on the paraplegic Roger Bochs and Madison Jeffries and the continuing mystery of Snowbird who had fallen out of grace with her godly ancestors since issue #12.

"I am a child of the gods.

And only they could strike at my very being like this.

But... WHY?!?"

Next time, we'll get to the reason why Snowbird is in such distress. Turns out she's been unforgivably lax in her duty to fight and kill any of the Great Beasts she encounters. Also, we'll find out if Heather Hudson has been slowly losing her mind because she's been seeing dead people.