For the Sake of Arguement

[DelBubs]

I've got to thinking after reading the Wolverine First Class thread and all the talk about Snowbird. In volume 1 Snowbird seemed to change into a swarm of Mossies or some such. Now did she actually do that ? Should she have been able to do that, shouldn't she have just turned into one mossie?

[Dfense75]

Very good point. IMO she should have only been able to change into 1 of them.

[-K-M-]

I've got to thinking after reading the Wolverine First Class thread and all the talk about Snowbird. In volume 1 Snowbird seemed to change into a swarm of Mossies or some such. Now did she actually do that ? Should she have been able to do that, shouldn't she have just turned into one mossie?

When was this? She turned into a swarm of mosquitoes but don't remember her turning into a flock of birds.

[HappyCanuck]

I've got to thinking after reading the Wolverine First Class thread and all the talk about Snowbird. In volume 1 Snowbird seemed to change into a swarm of Mossies or some such. Now did she actually do that ? Should she have been able to do that, shouldn't she have just turned into one mossie?

When was this? She turned into a swarm of mosquitoes but don't remember her turning into a flock of birds.

Um, Mungi, "Mossie" is Brit slang for "mosquito". Del never mentione anything about birds, except to comment on Snowbird.

But I vote "yes", since, like most insects, mosquitoes could be seen as hive-minded.

[-K-M-]

Um, Mungi, "Mossie" is Brit slang for "mosquito". Del never mentione anything about birds, except to comment on Snowbird.

But I vote "yes", since, like most insects, mosquitoes could be seen as hive-minded.

Mossie is also a bird known as a Cape Sparrow, hence my confusion

[HappyCanuck]

Mossie is also a bird known as a Cape Sparrow, hence my confusion

Wasn't aware of that. Thank you, you've taught me something new.

[DelBubs]

Um, Mungi, "Mossie" is Brit slang for "mosquito". Del never mentione anything about birds, except to comment on Snowbird.

But I vote "yes", since, like most insects, mosquitoes could be seen as hive-minded.
I did think about the hive mind aspect of this, but all hives are made up of individuals thinking as one (as is). I'm still not sure she could become lots of different parts going to make a whole.

[HappyCanuck]

I did think about the hive mind aspect of this, but all hives are made up of individuals thinking as one (as is). I'm still not sure she could become lots of different parts going to make a whole.

Hmm, I'll have to give you that one. For me, tho, I still have to say 'yea' for the swarm as compared to the single (tho perhaps she could go both routes). To me it makes more sense, from a conservation perspective (don't get me going on her turning into a whale as when AF and the Avengers were in Atlantis.... I can stretch my mind around her expanding/contracting her molecules to turn into a polar bear [a creature much larger than a human] or something like an owl [smaller than a human], and retain the overall strength and weight of said creatures, but, imo, turning into a whale stretched it TOO much! I mean, where did she get the matter to simulate THAT MUCH mass!!)

[rplass]

Yeah, it would have been very odd for her to turn into one tiny buzzing insect. Fans of the famous Avenger, "The Wasp" may disagree, but it just wouldn't make sense for a demi-goddess with the incredible mystical power of Snowbird to turn into such an ineffective foe as weak and fragile as one teensy weeny bug. I thought about the mosquito swarm thing too, and I remember the scene in AF#1 where Guardian scooped up the swarm of mosquitos that Tundra threw at Snowbird with his plasma funnel. Tundra generated the swarm from his arm, and Snowbird can take the form of the Great Beasts, so she was becoming a form of a Great Beast when she transmorphed into the mossies? Something like that.

Love,
rplass

[-K-M-]

Technically she should have turned into a giant mosquito, or the swarm somehow equalled her mass.....

"When she took the form of an animal whose mass and volume were less then that of a human being, she became a human sized version of that animal"

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c365/A_Flight4/MasterEdition-27-Snowbird_2.jpg

[cmdrkoenig67]

She didn't all the time, though...Arctic Hare (AF Vol. 1, #eighteen) and recently, a mouse (Wolverine: First Class)...Remember?

Dana

[-K-M-]

I remember, but that still doesn't make it right as I mentioned in the First Class thread. The mass thing has been stated for many years as how her powers work.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I remember, but that still doesn't make it right as I mentioned in the First Class thread. The mass thing has been stated for many years as how her powers work.

So John Byrne got her powers wrong? Hmmmmmm. Fans tend to think too much about this stuff...In the end, it doesn't matter what the fans think. It all depends on the writers and artists and editors...they could even make up a new power (or several) for her if they wanted to in her next appearance.

Dana

[-K-M-]

John Bryne himself mentioned the mass thing in an interview similar to Marvel Age. I'll see if I can dig up the scan.

Also yes main writers can make mistakes, and have.

[Legerd]

The way I see it she's a god, her powers work the way she wants them to work, in other words: "it's magic, we don't have to explain it." However, it could be she has a connection to the dimension of the Northern Gods and is borrowing energy from there to increase her mass and shunting energy into it to reduce her mass.

[HappyCanuck]

The way I see it she's a god, her powers work the way she wants them to work, in other words: "it's magic, we don't have to explain it." However, it could be she has a connection to the dimension of the Northern Gods and is borrowing energy from there to increase her mass and shunting energy into it to reduce her mass.

Actually, Legerd, that is the best explanation I've heard, and one I can subscribe to to ease my logical mind. Unlike most people, I have extreme difficulties with suspension of disbelief - to a point where I need to understand how an ability works in the realm of natural physics (magic I put aside, since it's supposed to be unexplainable).

[Le Messor]

Which actually gets to me about OHOTMU. They consistently say 'they're magic, so their powers don't need to be explained... they grow using mass from a possibly extra-dimensional source'...

Are mossies (we Aussies use that term, too! Aussie mossies.) a hive culture? I don't think so... but two points about a swarm / hive species:

1) It was said she became a swarm of mosquitos. It was never said she became an ordinary swarm. I just got that she broke her body down into swarming components, rather than turning into multiple individual animals.

b> Hives are generally run by one mind: a queen. Kinda appropriate, n'est-ce-pas? (This doesn't add to the argument, I just think it's a bit cool, and I only just thought of it.)

Was the hare ordinary-sized? Hmm... from memory, I think she was large, but a lot smaller than Birdie's human form. No help there.

- Le Messor
"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."
- Noel Coward

[Legerd]

Was the hare ordinary-sized? Hmm... from memory, I think she was large, but a lot smaller than Birdie's human form.

I looked it up and she was a regular-sized hare.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Yup...and she was a regularly-sized mouse, recently...Obviously, the Handbook description isn't as iron-clad canon as some fans believe. This is still fiction, we're talking about here...And all fiction is at the whim of those who write it...Handbooks are just guides, they don't need to be followed to the letter.

Dana

[-K-M-]

It wasn't just said in the handbooks, but I digress. I even stated how the recent First Class issue was incorrect in that sense; but, I even said it wasn't a big deal.

[kozzi24]

When the Wasp shrinks, she retains her mass and gains super-strength in relation to her size. (One of the older handbooks had her bending a steel bar from the Stern era of Avengers.
Snowbird probably also compacts strngth and mass. The hare and the mouse were probably super-strong rodents.
She probably COULD shrink down to a single mosquito...but where's the tactical advantage in combat?
My understanding is that she could take on the form of any arctic-native animal, and if in the form too long, could lose her sentience. She does not necessarily take on all the animal's natural attributes. While mosquiroes are not hive-minded, the Snowbird-swarm probably was, by the strictest definition of hive-mind.

[Le Messor]

She probably COULD shrink down to a single mosquito...but where's the tactical advantage in combat?

She hasn't used the mosquitoes for combat; only to get into tight spaces.
Which goes back to the mass / size argument; if she could change to a single animal of small size, technically she wouldn't ever have needed to break up with herself.

- Le Messor
"Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall."