Bobby Drake’s Cold Crusade Against Mister Sinister In Iceman #4
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
Iceman is still at odds with Madin of the Morlocks. Bobby wants to break Madin’s brother out of prison, but Madin knows that would just make things even worse for the Morlocks. Madin tells Iceman to focus on hunting down Mister Sinister and to keep the Morlocks out of the crossfire, so Iceman does just that. Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde and Storm prepare for the Mutant Pride Festival. Kitty’s nervous, but Ororo tells her to have more confidence in herself.
Iceman #4 is split between Iceman hunting down Sinister and the events of the Mutant Pride Festival. Admittedly, there is little connection between the two events beyond a possible thread about the X-Men focusing too much on being warriors.
It’s also possible that Sina Grace is just having fun with the opportunity to use the X-Men, for which I’m certainly not going to judge. The Mutant Pride Festival half of the story is genuinely fun.
Iceman’s crusade against Mister Sinister is made up of a gauntlet of creatures being forced to follow Sinister’s whims. We get to see Bobby blow through them in a cool sequence of panels.
Bishop also has a plot thread in this issue, but it’s deliberately opaque.
Nathan Stockman’s artwork looks great and captures a Mark Bagley-esque mixture of old and new art stylings. Both the Mutant Pride Fest and Iceman battle scenes look good and are given a lot of detail and flare. Federico Blee’s color work keeps the scenes vivid and lively with bright and contrasting colors, as a good superhero comic should.
Iceman #4 is a fun and energetic comic finding one of the X-Men’s greatest members on a lone crusade against one of their greatest villains. The writing and art are both top-notch, and I’m left eager to see where the next issue leads. This one earns a recommendation. Check it out.
Iceman #4 comes to us from writer Sina Grace, artist Nathan Stockman, color artist Federico Blee, color assistant Ulises Arreola, letterer VC’s Joe Sabino, and cover artist W. Scott Forbes.
