X-Men Questions — Part 4: Old & Young Iceman
This is part of a series on X-Men questions posed by my buddy Rene. Check out the previous parts: 1 2 3
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This is a question I’m pretty excited about. It’s not about Gambit¹, but it’s about another character I’ve really grown to love in my years reading X-Men: Iceman aka Bobby Drake.
Do young Iceman and Old Iceman hang out?
Oh boy, Rene. They don’t.
Iceman is one of the original X-Men. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, Iceman has been a character who has managed to survive the many, many, many, many years of the X-Men.
He’s dated around, hung out with Spider-Man a whole bunch, and has been a crucial voice of comic relief — especially in the last decade or so of X-Men comics. His powers over ice/water have ranged from “fun snowballs” to hordes of ice-people reaping destruction against his enemies.
One time he lost his powers, but then Mystique kissed him and made it better?More on relationships in a second.
Note: I’m going to answer these questions to the best of my ability and opinion with the help of Google, UncannyXMen.net, Wikipedia, and a few other sites.
Before we start, I want to warn you: There will be full spoilers for all X-Men titles as of August 21, 2017.
Why are there two Icemans?
At one point, Brian Michael Bendis was writing two X-Men titles: All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. I could go on and on about how this sucked and then it didn’t, but for now, let’s focus on Bobby Drake.
After the fallout of Avengers vs. X-Men, Beast made a decision a little on the rash side: Let’s grab the X-Men from the 1960s and show Scott Summers how he’s being a bad guy.
Spoilers: It didn’t work…?
We got a young Beast, Angel, Jean Grey, Cyclops, and, yes, Iceman. The details of the weirdness of All-New X-Men and Battle of the Atom unfurled. Young Cyclops went to space to see his Dad (Corsair) and the remaining X-Men tried to figure out their place in the world.
The biggest revelation of all of this came out in Bendis’ final issue of All-New X-Men: Bobby Drake is gay.
I won’t go into the craziness that unfolded due to that issue or how it was done (not so great), but, two years later, we have two Iceman characters and they’re both beginning to understand who they really are.
Young Iceman, being a soulful youth, has embraced who he is. As of now, he’s dating a nice young Inhuman boy named Romeo and, the last time I checked, it was going great.
Older Iceman? Well, he’s having a bit of a rough time. He’s spoken his ex Kitty Pryde once or twice on things, and the new Iceman series (which I highly recommend if only to get your monthly Iceman-level-bad-jokes in) balances Bobby trying to figure himself out while also being an X-Man.
Do they hang out?
Uncanny X-Men #600 had a few choice moments of both Bobbys “hanging out” which is X-Men-speak for “having a full blown conversation mid-mass-insanity-fight.” Not to mention a serious confrontation about, you know, being gay.
In my mind, they talk a little bit. Maybe a text here and there, but I think young Bobby gives older Bobby a lot of space. Older Bobby has a whole lot to work on, and talking isn’t his best point. Again, I seriously recommend reading the Iceman series if you want to get more in his head. Sina Grace is killing it on writing.
Meanwhile, younger Bobby is off trying to save the world, classic X-Men style, over in X-Men Blue. I dig this book as well².
I like to think that in the Iceman series, we’ll see young Bobby a time or two if only to motivate older Bobby to be a better him. The thing that I really enjoy about having both of these characters in-universe together (because the original five can’t go back in time³) is that we get to see them at two points in their lives. Knowing what they know about themselves and the world, their reactions are dramatically different to a lot of scenarios, and I really appreciate how the various X-writers are handling that.
One final note
According to Sina Grace, writer of Iceman, we’re going to see Young and Old Bobby together again, and that makes sense. The series so far (4 issues out) has been super solid so far (ice pun, I guess) and I think not bringing Young Bobby into the story at least once would be a mistake.
If you want more Bobby Drake, go read that book. It is a gem.
Notes & Research Sources
Notes
1 — I may have a weird obsession with Gambit
2 — I usually say this about all X-Men books as of late, so douse my words with a few morsels of salt.
3 — See also: X-Men Prime #1
Sources
For more of my thoughts on the X-Men and comic books in general, make sure to checkout the I Read Comic Books podcast where almost every week I find a way to bring up the X-Men on the show.
