Nightscrawlers

I found this in the entry for Thunderbird over on Wikipedia:

It is interesting to note that, metatextually, Marvel editors decreed Proudstar should die because he and Wolverine were too similar, personality wise; if things were just a little different, Wolverine may have been chosen to die in his place.

I was wondering if Dave or Paty could shed some light on why it was Thunderbird chosen over Wolverine?

Also does anyone else consider it was a bad move considering the slavish fan boys and idiotic stuff often published by Marvel concering Wolverine aka 'cash cow' Logan?

Any specualtion what things might be like if Thunderbird had survived instead of the looney?

Come to think of it... the two ARE really similar!!
If Thunderbird were to have lived, I think that things wouldn't have changed much, exept for the rest of the x-men being a little annoyed at him. I think that Thunderbird is a bit too full of himself in terms of his strength, and he refuses to accept help from his peers, among one or two other reasons.

Even so, he was cool, and it was upsetting when he died in the line of duty.

Wolverine was never in danger. He was established as a Canadian character in hopes of boosting sales in Canada. I do agree it was a bad move to kill Thunderbird pff--he was a great-looking character with a lot of potential if only we'd researched his Amerind origins. We simply took the easy way out and killed him for the shock value.

Late coming into this, but I never understood the purpose of killing a new character like Thunderbird. I would have thought it would have been one of the established characters like Banshee, Sunfire or even Wolverine. For me, it was a bit frustrating to have a taste of an interesting character and then have him taken away.

Notice no one's ever done anything similar since then?

Not to my knowledge, no. Closest thing I can think of was when the old Red Circle line revived the older Archie line title 'The Shield', the Simon & Kirby character who was kind of a cross between Captain America and Superman. They killed him off in the third issue of his own title. I'm STILL pissed about that.

Originally posted by jafabian
Late coming into this, but I never understood the purpose of killing a new character like Thunderbird. I would have thought it would have been one of the established characters like Banshee, Sunfire or even Wolverine. For me, it was a bit frustrating to have a taste of an interesting character and then have him taken away.

Notice no one's ever done anything similar since then?

Judd Winick actually killed off one of his main characters in Exiles, Magnus, I think in the second issue.....coincidentally, that team had a Thunderbird

I'm not sure how I feel about his death, considering it occured a decade before I was born, but I think his death helped Xavier snap back into reality and realize these kids aren't immortal and to send them into battle with little expertise was a big mistake.. it also led to the newest member of Uncanny: Warpath;)

Another person to die quick was 616 Blink.... sacrificing her life to stop the Phalanex.(sp)

I didn't know there was a Blink 616 But, someone else was right in another thread - there is still the Exiles version running around, isn't there?

About the topic though... Wolverine's a heck of a better character then Thunderbird! I mean their both tough, stoic strong guys but Wolverine has the claws and the healing factor and the midget complex.

Besides he has that whole failed samauri back-story, knows so many characters throughout Marvel History, and has that tragic Tuck Everlasting curse to deal with.

What does Thunderbird except Native American ancestry, a brother and parents, and a traumatic experience in Vietnam to write stories about? I can't see him carrying his own series Could he?

The record for the shortest superhero carreer??:smirk I wonder how Marvel would be now if Wolverine had died instead.. do you think Thunderbird would be in every book now??

I don't know if Thunderbird would have had the same appeal. He's kind of a generic strong guy, : I can't think of anything really special about him except for his heritage and his time in the military

Do you think he would have been as popular as Wolverine if he'd lived instead?

I wonder what the movies would have been like without the Canadian

[Edited on 8/3/06 by chicory]

Thunderbird never really got developed enough! He was always running around with a chip on his shoulder until he redeemed himself in X-Men #95 with his act of self-sacrifice with the plane. (Goodness he had a short career, Dave!) I do know of one native youth up here in Edmonton who had a chip on his shoulder because he thought the X-Men had no native(First Nations!) hero! I showed him my copy of Giant-Size #1...reprint...do you think I would leave the house with the original?...and let him see Thunderbird. Obviously Rick has yet to learn about Warpath...I agree that it was the parallel between him and Wolvie that caused him to buy the big one. Besides, his attitude was always bad...would have liked to eventually have seen that softened!

[Edited on 8/3/06 by StarChild]

If we had bothered to develop him further, I believe Thunderbird would've become a strong character, though I doubt he'd have ever had the appeal of Wolverine. Wolvie's potential for unleashed mayhem definitely was a draw to the disenfranchised youth of the world.

I would have thought that, power-wise, Thunderbird would be on par with the Legion's Timber Wolf had he stuck around. It would have been interesting, IMO, to have seen how he and Wolverine would have interacted with one another as the series went on. Would they have been a pair of teammates who get the job done, David Robinson and Tiim Duncan were in San Antonio? Two seven footers who played the same position but teamed together for a championship.

Or would they have been like Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'neal? Two talented indiviiduals who's egos keep them at each other's throats? Just something to ponder.....

I know who Shaquille O'Neal is, otherwise the basketball reference would've been totally lost on me.

Originally posted by Dark Bamf
If we had bothered to develop him further, I believe Thunderbird would've become a strong character, though I doubt he'd have ever had the appeal of Wolverine. Wolvie's potential for unleashed mayhem definitely was a draw to the disenfranchised youth of the world.

That and Marvel's annoying tendency to put Wolvie in EVERY book!

It would have been nice for Thunderbird to come back during House of M - having him dealing with the current XMen or even his brother could have sparked off some cool stories.

Guess Marvel 'forgot' about him...... he was even missing off the 'tribute' cover for Deadly Genesis #1

Acutally a further question for Dave:

Was the design of Werehawk from Futurians partly based on Thunderbird?

I note a lot of red and black in both designs...

Originally posted by jafabian
I would have thought that, power-wise, Thunderbird would be on par with the Legion's Timber Wolf had he stuck around. It would have been interesting, IMO, to have seen how he and Wolverine would have interacted with one another as the series went on. Would they have been a pair of teammates who get the job done, David Robinson and Tiim Duncan were in San Antonio? Two seven footers who played the same position but teamed together for a championship.

Or would they have been like Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'neal? Two talented indiviiduals who's egos keep them at each other's throats? Just something to ponder.....

I think option two - at least for a long time.

Didn't Wolverine predict that Thunderbird would 'outlast them all' in one of the unlimited books? There could have been mutual respect there eventually.

Wolverine's closer to being a 5'0" dwarf than a 7' foot giant though

Actually, no. The only relationship--other than the fact that they were both Native Americans--was that I'm bored with Indian characters in buckskin costumes, and thus went for bright, colorful costumes.

Originally posted by Ogrebear
Acutally a further question for Dave:

Was the design of Werehawk from Futurians partly based on Thunderbird?

I note a lot of red and black in both designs...

Pay attention boys and girls. This is how the mind of one of comics top designers works.

Originally posted by Dark Bamf
Actually, no. The only relationship--other than the fact that they were both Native Americans--was that I'm bored with Indian characters in buckskin costumes, and thus went for bright, colorful costumes.

Originally posted by Ogrebear
Acutally a further question for Dave:

Was the design of Werehawk from Futurians partly based on Thunderbird?

I note a lot of red and black in both designs...

What Dave said about boosting Canadian sales with Wolverine...am I the only one who misses the international flavour the X-Men used to have? The team used to be so diverse but now it's like we've got a token non-American (besides Wolverine) on each team...Kurt on Uncanny...Piotr on Astonishing...and, um...who's the non-American on the other one? Mystique! She Austrian, right?

Uncanny was pretty diverse: Psylocke is from Britain (her body's from Asia), Kurt's from Germany, Storm's from Africa, Rachel and Bishop are both from the future:LOL, and Sam's from the South.. pretty diverse if you ask me.. Real World material, I must say

Storm's actually from New York by way of Africa. She was born here, remember.

I'm not gonna argue with the Creator himself I knew her father was American, but I guess I forgot that particular aspect of her origin

Her dad was American, her mum African. She went to Egypt as a tot...I think her dad was posted there or something...her parents both got killed, she became a street child and a thief then wandered off to find herself in Africa just before she manifested...

As for the diversity I was referring to the teams as they soon will be...Storm, Psylocke and Bishop will no longer be a part of them…Ororo’s becoming a trophy wife, Betsy’s getting unhinged from time, I’m not sure what’s happening to Lucas other than he’s siding against all the other X-Men in Civil War…and even if Rachel is from the future and Sam’s from the South, they’re STILL Americans.