Legend has it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2 on Gobbler's Knob in west-central Pennsylvania, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early. The prediction is made during a ceremony overseen by a group called the Inner Circle. Members don top hats and tuxedos for the ceremony on Groundhog Day each year. Bill Deeley, president of the Inner Circle, says that after "consulting" with Phil, he makes the call in deciphering what the world's Punxsutawney Phil has to say about the weather. Phil is known as the "seer of seers" and "sage of sages." Organizers predicted about 20,000 people this weekend, a larger-than-normal crowd because Groundhog Day falls on a weekend this year.I never did understand how people know if Phil actually saw his shadow or not. But it must be accurate because other groundhogs, such as Staten Island Chuck, General Beauregard Lee and Wiarton Willie also seem to have predicted early spring.
In honor of Groundhog Day, I thought it would be fun to post a listing of my favorite comic book groundhogs! Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of comic book groundhogs. In fact, I'm aware of two and I'd only heard of one of them before this morning! I've done shorter lists of favorites before and that's what I'm planning on doing today.
Behold my Favorite Comic Book Groundhog!!:
The Flight actually featured some interesting characters besides more familiar characters like Wolverine, Snowbird, and Smart Alec. It also featured the godlike St. Elmo and the mutant Stitch. Wolverine's final Flight member was a former police officer from Vancouver named Sean Bernard. He almost got himself killed by a bunch of crooked cops after reporting them to internal affairs. Fortunately, Wolvie saved Bernard and decided to give him a giant battle suit and his own super-hero code-name: Groundhog! The Flight only survived one mission. Egghead and his minions were chased back to America, but not before St. Elmo was killed in battle. Groundhog retired in disgust and return to the police force.
Interestingly, in the most recent ALPHA FLIGHT re-launched, a bunch of civilians were given their own Groundhog uniforms, which they used to fight back against the Master of the World alongside Alpha Flight.
So that's my favorite comic book groundhog. Who do you like best?