It Might Be Just A Bit Chilly In Here: Reviewing ‘Astonishing Iceman’ #1

The X has fallen, and the era of ORCHIS is in full bloom. Except, the era of X isn’t done. Risen from the ashes of the incident that went down at the Hellfire Gala, Bobby Drake the Astonishing Iceman is ready to fight back.

Truth be told, the feelings that I have about the Hellfire Gala and what went down are complicated. Too complicated to really get into here but I was not overly happy about several things (the vote fallout iykyk) and liked other things. Generally, I’m not a fan of the X-Men/Mutants once again being smacked down, hated and feared, on the run. It’s a status quo we’ve seen far far too much in the span of the past two decades (decimation, Inhuman cloud, etc.).

That being said, so far this time is off to a bit of an interesting start. This series is at least, can’t speak to what I haven’t read yet.

Bobby Drake might be an omega mutant but he’s also one of the oldest and most well-known X-Men, and the most underutilized. Long seen as the jokester and screwup of the gang, his powers have finally been really showcased and addressed. He’s a hero but is often just the supporting guy in any team or to characters outside of the X as well. Not this time, this is his book where he’s the full hero and it’s well done.

First of all, I like how Steve Orlando found a natural, logical, and fun way to sort of nerf Bobby for the moment. It takes him from the can-do-anything uber mutant down to someone with drama and a ticking clock. We love a good drama and a ticking clock, soap opera-style situation. It doesn’t get more soap opera than literally being brought back from the dead and held together by love and the powers of his boyfriend. An Inhuman boyfriend to boot.

I’m a sucker for these types of stories, mostly in comics as I’m not huge on romance stuff in films for some reason. Yet, there was a thing that made it fall just a tiny bit flat. Bobby and Romeo were a thing during the time that the teenage original five X-Men were brought forward to the future. Comic books gotta love them! They broke up and haven’t been a thing since. Except apparently there was a Marvel Unlimited (paid service) exclusive Marvel Voices Infinity Comic story that aged Romeo up and reunited them.

As I said I like romance and reconnection, it just felt slightly out of nowhere for anyone that didn’t read one of many comics offered only on a paid service.

We get tons of ice, ice palaces and ice golems, and ice battles, all of it rendered beautifully by Vincenzo Carratú and Java Tartaglia.

I really came to enjoy Carratú’s style in the recent Mary Jane And Black Cat miniseries that bordered on the X-Line because of Dark Web. It’s a style that is very detailed and has a hefty weight to it, yet is also very light and whimsical in some regards. This is useful when drawing things like the aforementioned ice palaces and technology tuned into monsters and even a helium-based bad guy and his gang of elements. Yeah, that’s a whole thing, more on that in a bit.

No matter the tone of the story, superhero, and fantastical energy is just radiating off what Carratú puts on the page. Plenty of slick kinetic energy to the whole thing so everything always feels like it’s in motion, even dynamic freeze frame-like superhero poses. Also, can’t forget just how creative the panel styling choices are and how much they add to the storytelling energy. Standard panels are classic and never out of style but there is just something special about how many comics are laid out these days.

Palette-wise, Tartaglia keeps things to the brighter lighter side to fit that very superhero feel the title needs. Things to do with Orchis have some harsher and darker elements woven in, they are the bad guys after all, but also are quite vibrant and light. It makes for a very fun type of atmosphere through the whole issue. Even in the pages where things are heavily blue/white icy, there are flares of other colors to break things up.

Such as all the mixing of the blue/pink colors we get on the pages with Bobby and Romeo. Their power signatures are so different yet together they are two great paired colors.

Anyone that has read any of these reviews knows how much I love sentence case in comics and Travis Lanham delivers that here. It’s just such a solid way to set a natural/neutral sort of voice base that can be built upon. Shooting up the font size or dropping some bolds changes things fast, before allowing us to return to something natural. To me, it also just reads better because all caps these days just point to loud or screaming, even if that’s not the intent.

Next to all that are plenty of fun colorful, thematically perfect SFX and caption boxes that I love. These are elements that really should take on a lot from the characters and the story. Not just basic side things unless the story needs them that way. It’s a great way to allow us to hear things more accurately and have fun in the process.

Overall, this is a fun first issue. There are some issues such as the Iceman/Romeo relationship and lack of foreshadowing before this. Another is that while visually great, the flashbacks a bit did feel like an exposition dump of Bobby talking at us (or Clyde the Golem as us). None of that takes away from how it was a fun superhero romp during a very dark time for the X-Line.

It’s a comic that ends with the introduction of a new foe called Helium the Unfreezable Man and brings back the deep-cut villains the Elements of Doom. Yes, we will see Iceman, master of two elements, fight a man made of helium and villains made from other elements. How can anyone, not love comics?

Astonishing X-Men #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.