Bobby Drake: Iceman Appreciation 2022

[BobbysWorld]

I'm gonna be so bummed if I've spent so long hyping myself up for the idea Ewing might be writing Bobby once he's gone from the Marauders cast, if it turns out he's just moving to a different Duggan title. I just really don't like how Duggan writes Bobby, when he bothers to actually write him at all. Its just very bland and superficial, totally focused on just feats and power displays THAT HE'S LITERALLY ALREADY SHOWN UNDER MULTIPLE OTHER WRITERS BUT THAT DUGGAN KEEPS ACTING LIKE HE INVENTED, and like, there's literally not a single ounce of depth or genuine emotion to anything Bobby's said under Duggan's pen, IMO.

[ZuLuLu]

Looking at Ewing's playlist for X-Men Red, 'Glacier' if being in there is a clue it seems to point to evidence of Iceman being in the book

[Wiccan615]

Looking at Ewing's playlist for X-Men Red, 'Glacier' if being in there is a clue it seems to point to evidence of Iceman being in the book

I thought that too, if you find out the song’s meaning, it really fits what Arrako could mean to Bobby and his journey. But I don’t want to get my hopes up just to be disappointed lol, Ewing and Red would be the ideal placement for Bobby.

[PolarIceFire]

I disagree, BobbysWorld, and appreciate the set-up Duggan's given Bobby to get him to this point. Because from its beginnings in Marauders #8 to its culmination in last month's #26, I think there has been progressive, subtle development, with some nuanced depth.

[BobbysWorld]

I disagree, BobbysWorld, and appreciate the set-up Duggan's given Bobby to get him to this point. Because I think there has been progressive, subtle development, with some nuanced depth, from its beginnings in Marauders #8 and then to its culmination in last month's #26.

I mean, totally fair for people to disagree, lol, this is just my take. To me the only actual story beats Duggan has bothered giving Bobby are ones that he's been cycled through by other writers since literally the 90s. I honestly don't think there's a single scene Bobby's had in Marauders that I can't point to at least two other writers having done similar ones to. *Shrugs* But like I said, YMMV, this is all subjective.

[PolarIceFire]

I too was pretty much convinced Red was where he was headed, because that's what his Marauders 26 opening quote strongly suggested:

[PolarIceFire]

I mean, totally fair for people to disagree, lol, this is just my take. To me the only actual story beats Duggan has bothered giving Bobby are ones that he's been cycled through by other writers since literally the 90s. I honestly don't think there's a single scene Bobby's had in Marauders that I can't point to at least two other writers having done similar ones to. *Shrugs* But like I said, YMMV, this is all subjective.

That's kind of my case in point. If it is repetitive and/or redundant in certain ways to some, it leads me to conclude that when it was done before, it never amounted to enough meaningful development to reach any real significant and lasting change.

[BobbysWorld]

LOL yeah, and also the playlist Ewing released for X-Men Red. There's Glacier, as others have pointed out, a song with ice in the title and a music video all about fights for LGBTQ+ rights in times past, and that's about as big an Iceman clue as you can get.....but Ewing also just said on twitter that songs 7-13 on his playlist are each about a different character named in the first two X-Men Red solicits, and one more secret character who hasn't been mentioned in regards to X-Men Red in any official releases yet.

Song number 13 is Indestructible, by Robyn, and I honestly believe that one makes a ton of sense to be about Bobby and doesn't actually fit any of the other mentioned characters. First of all, its like, one hundred percent a song you'd hear in a gay dance club lol, but also its all about having always made the wrong choices in love and not wanting to make the same mistake again and from now on vowing to live like you're indestructible rather than going through life afraid of getting hurt. That's Bobby's love life to a T, and could be about his burgeoning relationship with Christian, and like, none of the other characters really fit it in terms of their own romantic histories.....like, yeah, Storm and the others have all certainly had some duds in their long romantic histories, but nothing that can be described as constantly going after the wrong people or being afraid to get hurt emotionally.....

Not to mention that if there is one aspect of his powers Bobby does admittedly seem more aware of nowadays than in past years even if he's known about it for a long time, it DOES have to be acknowledged that he has really started to embrace the fact that more than just about any other mutant I can think of, he's like.....the essence of. Y'know. "Indestructible."

That's kind of my case in point. If it is repetitive and/or redundant in certain ways to some, it leads me to conclude that when it was done before, it never amounted to enough meaningful development to reach any real significant, lasting change.

And that is a fair point, but the reason I don't give Duggan much credit for that here is because he's HAD Iceman fully available to him for over two years, and if it takes up until his very last issue with a book he picked Iceman to be a main character for, before Duggan actually REACHES a point where he can move PAST something others have established before but never gone past either.....then he's not exactly breaking that tradition, y'know? Actual development would be acknowledging the pattern of past writers ALREADY having established this cycle of characterization and building off of THAT from day one....not just repeating that pattern yourself, beat for beat, and only getting to the same 'endpoint' that usually leads to where Bobby gets reset back to square one with every other writer, on like....your very last issue with the character. Since that literally just....repeats the cycle, and accomplishes nothing new either.

I mean, I freely admit, if Duggan IS still the one writing Bobby in another book this year, and THERE he ends up moving past what's been established before and again here in Marauders....like, I will fall on my mea culpas and happily eat crow. Since again, the POINT is that I want Bobby to develop past this point and I don't just mindlessly hate Duggan and I'm not trying to be like no, I don't actually want new Bobby developments if its eww Duggan that's doing them, lol. Its really just the fact that I dislike Duggan in part BECAUSE I don't see anything new in what he's done thus far and I don't think its unreasonable to judge him based on what he's actually done and not done with the character after two plus years of having him at his disposal. Again, if that changes? If he's still in Duggan's hands and we see a culmination of some longterm plan Duggan had for the character? Cool. Great. I will happily say my bad, I was def wrong about him, lol.

But if it turns out Duggan's not the one continuing with Bobby past this point, then I stand by what I've said because I don't think there's anything groundbreaking in what he's done, and I think its fundamentally short-sighted to repeat previous writers' work just in your own words rather than springboarding off it into something new from the get go.....especially if you're not going to prioritize actually getting Bobby to the point where he's actually doing something new WHILE he's still available to you. Y'know?

[Jackraow21]

I too was pretty much convinced Red was where he was headed, because that's what his Marauders 26 opening quote strongly suggested:

He may still be. Perhaps Ewing is holding some things back in terms of cast and whatnot? Hopefully we get some interviews soon with more detail and art for the X-men Red book.

[PolarIceFire]

Yes, and the sooner the better. Not knowing where he's going has really got me preoccupied. I just want him somewhere, and preferably not by himself. I don't really want any more of sad, lonely Iceman, I want the ballsy Bobby who just sent that big, crybaby Fing Fang Foom packing, to go lick his wounds and nurse his fragile ego:

https://www.cbr.com/x-men-iceman-ome...tant-god-tier/

[BobbysWorld]

Somewhat random aside.....but as a lot of people have stated that their biggest concern or dislike about the Krakoan era is how isolated and cut off from the rest of the Marvel U a lot of mutants are becoming, upping the isolationist vibes......like, I'm not the biggest Slott fan and really hate the Franklin not being a mutant retcon for a ton of reasons, but one thing I DO like is that he's had Bobby make recurring appearances in his FF run and expanded on his history with them. Acknowledging that Bobby technically was a temporary FF member way back when, and I've always liked his sorta friendship sorta rivalry with Johnny Storm.

The annoying part about his dynamic with Johnny though has always been that some writers act like they know each other really well and have been interacting regularly since they were teens, while others act like they're largely strangers who just have either a natural camaraderie or dislike of each other based on their elemental natures.

What do other people think about the idea of building up Bobby's relationships outside of just the mutant corner of the Marvel U, and having him spend more time around the FF or just Johnny himself, or having Johnny make recurring appearances in Bobby's next X-title as a friend popping by just to hang out at times? Personally, I'd like to see them expanded on as natural friends who have a lot in common due to their shared experiences of being the youngest and most underestimated member of their respective original teams, while at the same time that very thing means they're two of the people who have been doing the risk their life to save the world thing from a younger age and for a longer time than most anyone else out there.

[Wiccan615]

My naughty Johnny/Bobby folder of fanart aside, yes, I quite like their estabalished and potential dynamic, they have quite a bit of overlap in their themes but just enough contrast to have a fun dynamic, and their quips with each other would be quite fun. I was thinking, before the Franklin retcon, that Bobby could actually mentor Franklin and help him be more comfortable with his mutant identity since Bobby and identity go hand in hand, but of course that didn’t pan out. I would rather Bobby get more development in the X-Verse before branching out to the larger MU, there’s so much continuity to play with there but writers haven’t done a whole lot with it in the past, almost 3 years now. Give me his friendship with Rogue, or Storm, or Sam. How do his parents feel about Krakoa? How does he feel about Akihiro being redeemed? There’s a lot to play with but we haven’t gotten much.

[BobbysWorld]

My naughty Johnny/Bobby folder of fanart aside, yes, I quite like their estabalished and potential dynamic, they have quite a bit of overlap in their themes but just enough contrast to have a fun dynamic, and their quips with each other would be quite fun. I was thinking, before the Franklin retcon, that Bobby could actually mentor Franklin and help him be more comfortable with his mutant identity since Bobby and identity go hand in hand, but of course that didn’t pan out. I would rather Bobby get more development in the X-Verse before branching out to the larger MU, there’s so much continuity to play with there but writers haven’t done a whole lot with it in the past, almost 3 years now. Give me his friendship with Rogue, or Storm, or Sam. How do his parents feel about Krakoa? How does he feel about Akihiro being redeemed? There’s a lot to play with but we haven’t gotten much.

Agreed. There's SO many potential Bobby subplots and storylines they could be playing with, which is a large part of why it bugs me that the only thing writers ever seem interested in is his powerset.

Like......I doubt it'll ever happen, but the second Iceman limited series from the early 2000s (which interestingly was written by Dan Abnett, the long time writing partner and collaborator of Al Ewing) introduced Opal Tanaka's son Robert, a biracial half-white boy named after Bobby and with implications he had abnormalities in his genome that could be explained by him being a potential mutant down the line or by having a mutant father. Now obviously the story ended with the reveal on the last two pages that despite initially being told Robert was Bobby's son, this wasn't true and with Bobby saying he'd known all along it wasn't true and would have stayed anyway.....but I always got the sense that the original plan WAS for him to be Bobby's son and at the last minute editorial pulled the plug on that, likely because of the usual bullshit fears that having a kid would make a character feel too old in readers' eyes. Which I think is dumb, but whatever. Anyway, I maintain that Robert always should have been Bobby's son and there were too many clues dropped that he absolutely was no matter what the official claim was for it to be believable for him not to be (I mean, who names their kid after their ex if that ex isn't even the kid's actual father, y'know?) I'm not the only one to think so, other writers have as well, with Marjorie Liu making a point to bring both Opal and Robert Jr. back into Bobby's life during the Dark Iceman arc and Opal talking about how she had thought more than once about maybe someday getting back together with Bobby and raising Robert Jr. together.

Now, obviously that's not ever going to happen now since Bobby came out, and I'm glad for that (not just because I prefer Bobby as gay but also because I think Opal gets a bad rap with readers but I still prefer her dynamic with Bobby more when they're not together and think they were always a hot mess as a couple, even when Bobby was being written as straight). BUT I still would love for somebody to someday retcon the Robert Jr. isn't actually Bobby's son 'twist' and say that no, he definitely is Bobby's, and a mutant as well. Like, its 2022. The traditional heteronormative nuclear family structure isn't the only way for people to be a family. I think there's SUCH a cool story to be told - and one that could cut to the heart of a lot of the Krakoan era's biggest themes - in Bobby and Opal reconnecting as friends, discovering Robert Jr. is a mutant, and co-parenting Robert without needing to be in a relationship or even with both of them moving on to each having a longterm romantic relationship with someone else, all without this impacting their parenting of Robert one bit.

Like, show us what it looks like for a gay mutant and a straight Asian woman to successfully and happily raise a son who exists fully in BOTH of his parents' worlds, spending time with his mother in New York and his father on Krakoa and all three coming and going as they please and the full weight of Opal and Bobby's complex history honored as something that was real and mattered even if Bobby was never truly in romantic love with her and just in denial due to his being closeted. I think its all the better that Robert Jr.'s identity includes him being not just the son of a human and a mutant, but biracial as well, with stories of this unconventional family unit thus being ideal to explore what its like to have an identity that includes more than one marginalization, to have parents with more than one marginalization, to have a cross-section of identities and communities even within just this single three-person family unit that means none of the three of them belong wholly to the same communities or reflect each others' identities exactly, but this in no way lessens the fact that they're family and part of each other's identities and community.

Robert Tanaka could be SUCH a powerful character for readers to learn about and invest in - a mutant who is both white and Japanese, who has a straight parent and a gay parent, a human mother and a mutant father, and every single facet of this is just as relevant and important to who he is himself and a part of his identity, without any single angle being more important to who and what he is than any other.

There's SO much good stuff to explore there, IMO.

[PolarIceFire]

LOL yeah, and also the playlist Ewing released for X-Men Red.

Not to mention that if there is one aspect of his powers Bobby does admittedly seem more aware of nowadays than in past years even if he's known about it for a long time, it DOES have to be acknowledged that he has really started to embrace the fact that more than just about any other mutant I can think of, he's like.....the essence of. Y'know. "Indestructible."


I mean, I freely admit, if Duggan IS still the one writing Bobby in another book this year, and THERE he ends up moving past what's been established before and again here in Marauders....like, I will fall on my mea culpas and happily eat crow. Since again, the POINT is that I want Bobby to develop past this point and I don't just mindlessly hate Duggan and I'm not trying to be like no, I don't actually want new Bobby developments if its eww Duggan that's doing them, lol. Its really just the fact that I dislike Duggan in part BECAUSE I don't see anything new in what he's done thus far and I don't think its unreasonable to judge him based on what he's actually done and not done with the character after two plus years of having him at his disposal. Again, if that changes? If he's still in Duggan's hands and we see a culmination of some longterm plan Duggan had for the character? Cool. Great. I will happily say my bad, I was def wrong about him, lol.

With the first part, you had me enjoying and fully on board with all your insightful, possible playlist connections. Until you got to Christian, then you lost me. Just kidding, because if their relationship does continue, I'll need to accept that and be open-minded to changing how I feel about it as of now. Seriously, though, most everything else rang true. That last bit in particular.

On the second, perhaps it is that I'm too forgiving, and tend to lean more towards your own, net positive perspective shown. But I don't see it as a restringing of the same threads, so much as a picking up of the ones that were never properly tied off, for whatever reasons. Especially when taking things into context, such as the entire Krakoan reboot itself and what that entails, as well as his immediate canon since at least the Bendis era. I'm admittedly a lot less familiar with things before that. Then there was the pandemic, too, and how that changed things during the downtime, like padding X of Swords.

I can't deny wanting more from what's been done with Bobby, so far. Or even some things that were, done differently. But that's always been the case in my experience, with comics and the like. Which is why I've been going in hoping and looking for a plus-sum outcome, for a long time. And while I'm aware and agree that Iceman can be one of the most glaring examples of the never-ending reset, that's hardly been exclusive to him, as you can read and see here where I asked and got answered as such:

https://aiptcomics.com/2021/10/25/x-...een-book-club/



Interestingly enough, Johnny Storm (among others), gets the first mention as a comparison. I just try to be considerate, understanding, and not judge too harshly, realizing that not everything can be simply laid at Duggan's feet, that there are many other, influencing factors involved.

[BobbysWorld]

Well Christian is an interesting subject, actually, as his non-relationship with Bobby is one of my pet peeves with Duggan. I feel like he falls into the Bendis trap of a straight writer who wants a pat on the back for using a gay character or putting him in a relationship but not only has no interest in actually SHOWING that relationship, he can't even come up with a starting point as to why two men would be together or what they would even talk about. Thing about Christian is he actually has a ton of potential depth and issues arising from his backstory as invented by the Emma Frost series and Morrison and expanded upon via Sina Grace's reintroduction of the character and how that tied into Bobby's own ongoing story.

And not a single facet of ANY of that previous look at Christian Frost is present in Duggan's sporadic use of him, as he's essentially just written him as a generic cardboard cut-out of a character whose only dialogue is idle chit chat with Bobby and discussion of his mutant name (I harp on that last bit but it bugs me SO much lmao, because since when before Marauders has Bobby ever been shown giving a **** about stuff like mutants using codenames?)

But admittedly, a fair amount of my interest in the Bobby/Christian pairing is based on one specific element of both their backstories and ongoing narratives, which I just haven't gotten around to expanding on yet but which drives a LOT of my thoughts on both their potential as a pairing, and my biggest issue with how Bobby's been written ever since Bendis wrote him coming out. There's a HUGE, HUUUUUUGE fundamental plothole in Bendis' coming out narrative that not only exemplifies my problem with straight writers writing gay characters without centering them in their own narratives or just using superficial developments that let them say 'see I'm using this gay character' but without requiring they actually DO anything with them....

Like, see the way with the exception of Sina Grace's runs, with him a gay man himself, literally the ONLY development of Bobby's romantic life in the entire six plus years since he came out can be counted off on your fingers:

1) giving young Bobby an Inhuman love interest named Romeo right before the Inhumans vs X-Men event, with most of the coverage and articles surrounding the event focusing on or mentioning the star-crossed romance between a founding X-Man and his boyfriend on the opposite side of the conflict, very pointedly named Romeo....and with Romeo only showing up in a grand total of like, seven pages throughout his entire existence and ghosting Bobby and vanishing from existence the SECOND the IvX event was over, never to be mentioned again

2) Guggenheim writing Bobby having a one-night stand with Simon Lasker before the Piotr and Kitty wedding event, without any follow up or attention given to the pair at any point after that or with any effort put into establishing why and how Bobby even ended up sleeping with Simon when literally their only other page time before that was Bobby questioning Simon's motivations for being an X-Man and whether he could be trusted not to stab them in the back, like what, did the first time they had a conversation about anything other than Simon's prior Brotherhood affiliation consist of Simon saying hey btw I'm gay too and Bobby saying oh worm? we should totally have sex then

3) Duggan officially putting Bobby and Christian together in a grand total of six pages across a spread of 27 issues, with no development put into how they got together and why, with readers just expected to assume that they hooked up after Christian's appearance in Bobby's solo series because why wouldn't they, and also why wouldn't the focus for a character recovering from over a decade institutionalized because of homophobic oppression have anything else going on besides hopping into a new relationship his very next appearance with zero acknowledgment of his trauma or any kind of recovery period

4) oh wait no, that's it, that's literally ALL the romantic development Bobby's received since his very public and highly promoted coming out narrative by Bendis - written on the very last issue of Bendis' run with Bobby, no less, after Bendis had the character for four years before that point without ever showing the slightest interest in exploring Bobby's potential coming out as a personal journey of self-exploration during all that time and just using him to make jokes instead - and while its extremely true and important that gay characters not be limited to just their romantic lives, with there being more to being a gay man than just who you sleep with or date, there's additionally been zero exploration of any other facet of Bobby's experiences as an out gay man after coming out by any writer other than Sina Grace.

Like, anyway, its a huge pet peeve when writers who specifically PRIDE themselves on being supposedly progressive allies to marginalized communities they're not part of them themselves, like.....somehow manage to claim credit for their interest in and work on a high profile gay character like Bobby all without ever actually TELLING any kind of story that incorporates that character's marginalized identity or experiences they have specific to that identity that readers who share in it might relate to or see themselves in.

So I freely admit that's part of what preconditioned me to be judgmental of Duggan, when after two whole years I can't point to anything that suggests he's actually any different than Bendis or the pattern of non-marginalized writers claiming to add to representation when the only marginalization actually represented in their work is the Community of Generic One-Dimensional Cardboard Cut-Outs Who Could Only Be Picked Out Of A Line-Up Thanks to Their Writer Selecting One Single Non-Threatening Character Trait Completely Unrelated to Being Marginalized and Thus Won't Alienate Bigots and Making That the Entire Focus of Their Characterization So Their Writer Can Have Their Cake and Eat It Too, Getting a Gold Star From Progressives for Their Use of A Marginalized Character and a Gold Star from People Who Hate Being Reminded That Character Has That Marginalized Identity and Thus Applaud Writers' Avoidance of Showing It Any Focus, Especially When That Avoidance Can Be Praised Without Risk of Being Viewed As A Bigot For Wanting Distance Kept Between A Pre-Existing Fave Character and The New Marginalization They Hate Now Being Attached To Said Fave Character.

Lol. Like I said. Its a big beef of mine. I don't deny it or pretend it doesn't drive a lot of my views of certain writers. I'm open to being wrong about writers or their intentions, since my cynicism doesn't actually equal telepathic insight into their intentions, but I don't apologize for being cynical about this matter and won't credit a writer as not falling into this type unless there work gives me at least SOME reason to see it as not describing them. And I just don't think after two plus years, Duggan's done anything to make me suspect he's not the above kind of writer. And this is also based on the fact that he's written a LOT of recent X-books, and I can clearly see a stark difference in how he writes characters in opposite gender relationships as well as how casual he is when it comes to heterosexual characters demonstrating their attraction to or romantic interest in someone, not to mention referencing their history of attraction/romances and in doing so blatantly acknowledging those characters' identities as heterosexual individuals. Like, when you look at his writing of non-marginalized characters and juxtapose it alongside his writing of marginalized characters - not just LGBTQ+ ones but also his characters of color like Bishop, Storm, Sunfire, etc there's a CLEAR difference in how Duggan prioritizes, with his straight white characters benefitting from being given a much wider breadth of focus, interests and storylines than his marginalized ones. His marginalized characters are much more limited and finite in their storylines and characterization, and almost never get much pagetime outside of their use as plot vehicles or in service to other characters' plots.

But anyway, lol. This wasn't meant to turn into a Duggan rant, I honestly don't care about him or his work enough to hate him or anything, I'm just grouchy and annoyed by it often enough I figured it was worth it to expand on where that comes from. Rambling aside though, like I said earlier, I DO like the Christian/Bobby pairing and have hopes for it that I know aren't shared by many, largely because of how undeveloped the relationship is despite its very existence being one of the only developments we can point to for Bobby in the Krakoan era. But again, the potential I see in it is due to a shared connection/element both Bobby and Christian's backstories and coming out narratives have and that's gone completely untouched or unacknowledged. I'll expand on that later when I have time, but as I said, it all stems from the huge, gaping plothole Bendis left in how he wrote Bobby coming out that's so fucking large you could drive an eighteen wheeler through it, and that I've been desperately been waiting six plus years for SOME writer to acknowledge and explore.