Jean Grey 2 Preview Logan with Phoenix Force

[Icefanatic]

I agree with you about the parallels between Jean and Bobby. I remember that scene from Strange Tales #120 and how Bobby confessed that he also liked Jean. People make a big deal out of that initial panel from the first issue where he calls the other guys wolves, but I think even later in that same issue, he's show ogling Jean alongside Hank and Warren so clearly he was just as interested in her. And another early issue also showed that he was in competition with the rest of the boys to escort Jean. Yet, Jean's been paired with Scott, Warren, and Hank in the main universe and a myriad of alternate realities so it is strange that there's never been a reality where Jean and Bobby were paired together. Perhaps the true natures of their powers and overall roles in the cosmic order is what kept them apart.

I was going to post some of that but ran up against the character limit.

Stan definitely loved his alliterations. And since the X-Men already had Scott "Slim" Summers and Warren Worthington, it makes sense that Bobby Drake would be mistaken as Bobby Blake, especially with Donald Blake existing since until you mentioned him, I didn't make the connection as to how similar those two names would be.

I think it threw some writers when there wasn't alliteration, to the point they would get names wrong trying to make them alliterative.

Even Jean's original redesigns, before they came up with making her Phoenix, seemed to be connected to mysticism. It feels very New Age or Native-American inspired.

Also you can see how some aspects of those designs ended up being used for Storm and others.

You can feel the divide at Marvel when it comes to Jean and whether or not she should be Phoenix. So I can see why they'd have similar reservations for Bobby, especially in his case because he's not as identified with the Dragon mythos the way Jean is with the Phoenix mantle. It was the 2000s when Bobby's son was retconned and it seems like there was major work done to oppose the prophecy and Bobby becoming the Dragon by editorial, and that's the same era when the X-Men revolved around them being an endangered species that only dealt with mutant issues. The days where they had as many cosmic or fantasy stories were long over by then, so I can see why Marvel went out of their way to ensure that Bobby was only a mutant and nothing more.

I think it's so incredible that Bobby had such a huge fandom back in the day before the Internet. Do you know how his popularity compared to other X-Men of the time? Was he a lot more popular than the other O5 in terms of fandom or even the All-New All-Different X-Men? Perhaps it was also easier to see him as a solo character since he spent so many years with the Champions and New Defenders, had his own limited series, and was the star of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Also being the opposite of the Human Torch likely meant it was easier to see Iceman as a character on his own rather than just as one of many X-Men. Was there ever any love in the Bobby fandom for the Bobby/Lorna pairing? I always liked them best as a couple even if they never were allowed to become one officially. I wonder if Magneto would have approved of the Dragon being a son-in-law.

Yes to all of that. A lot of rivers flowed into Iceman's fandom over the decades. All of Iceman's past relationships have generated strong ships, with Lorna among the top favorites. About the only ones to generate much dislike were Opal(I never understood that) and to a lesser extent Mystique. As to his popularity pre-internet....
To keep from derailing the thread, you can find a lot more here.

I'm guessing Xavier had enough knowledge as to their powers to guess at how much they could potentially do. Characters like Scott, Warren, and Hank had powers that had clear limits but Bobby's power allowed him to manipulate moisture and water which would be basically limitless. Same with Jean as telekinesis gives her control over everything in the physical world and telepathy would do the same in the astral plane. The idea that Xavier put blocksin Bobby's mind to help him cope with his powers and never push himself too far would be an interesting revelation.

I did notice that the Frozen arc never really came up anywhere in any other X-Book. I actually don't even remember Daken bringing it up in UA so I'll have to check that out again to see his reference. Can you explain why Bobby has such a strong connection to the Outer Void and Oblivion? For example, when all those timelines are destroyed, why is it only Bobby who ends up in Oblivion and not everyone else from his same reality?

Daken brought it up in the 2017 Iceman ongoing.

I think it's funny how in Marauders when Iceman grows gigantic and battles Fin Fang Foom, Kitty pointedly said she's 'never seen anything like that before'. And people here complain that the writer 'forgot' about what she saw in the 'Frozen' arc. They are missing the point. There's no reason for kitty to say that except to point out that this version of Kitty didn't see that. Those are clearly clues and people are just dismissing them.

The Outer Void is a pocket dimension like the White Hot Room and is situated on an axis opposite it. Oblivion resides in it. He's older than the multiverse, and older than his siblings Death, Eternity and Infinity. He desires to bring order to creation by destroying it. His purpose and the Dragons would align. Oblivion can't enter the main reality, so he works though avatars. One of Oblivion's principal avatars was the Chaos King, an offshoot of Oblivion serving as the embodiment of the primordial Void before the seventh iteration of universe began. When the seventh iteration of the universe began, the Chaos King was weakened and integrated into the Amatsu-Kami, becoming known as Amatsu-Mikaboshi. The Dragon/Anti-All would have his origin in the Third Cosmos. In Defenders (Vol. 6) #5, the Anti-All is described to be primordial Void itself. It was depicted as a great crystalline dragon whose shattered fragments were scattered across the multiverse. Doctor Strange theorized that the fragments of the Anti-All spread across the Multiverse from the Third Cosmos became future versions of the "great Nothing" that will appear in future cosmoses, fragments that became Knull and The Dragon of the Moon. Iceman is almost certainly a fragment of the Anti-All.

Iceman would not be the only one that ends up there from a destroyed timeline, but just like other beings use the White Hot Room they don't all become the Phoenix. The last time he was there he had not awakened to the true nature of his power. That's why it was so key that it happened after the events of the Frozen Arc. It'd funny, the Phoenix became sundered and lost parts of itself, so did the Dragon. You have to wonder if the Dragon has been gathering the parts of itself that were lost.

When White Phoenix first came out, there was the idea that this was the most evolved version of Jean, purely balanced. Green was good, red was bad, and white was beyond good and evil. But even then, there was speculation from fans that White Phoenix was just an evolved form of green or good Phoenix and that there would be a dark counterpart to the White Phoenix, a more evolved version of the red or Dark Phoenix. People naturally associated this form with a black costume so it's interesting how that indeed did become canon.

Before WATXM, the only Kitty/Bobby interaction I was familiar with was from the movies and Ultimate Universe and in both those versions, she was always the third wheel of a love triangle with Rogue with Rogue usually winning out. So I never thought much of the Bobby/Kitty relationship because it felt more inspired from these alternate versions where Bobby and Kitty are only paired together because they're both the "young xX-Men" and the same age group. Same with his pairing with Rogue. I didn't realize that Bobby and Kitty were married and had a child in a future though. When I think of mutant characters who evolve into cosmic forces of the universe, I first think of Jean and Bobby, but Kitty comes next. In that respect, I can see why she and Bobby would be primed to be together (although it's also interesting that Claremont views Kitty's soulmate as Rachel, child of Jean and the Phoenix which could perhaps be another way the Phoenix opposes the Dragon by producing offspring to sever any potential relationship between Kitty and Bobby and ensure that the Omniversal Majestrix sides with the Phoenix and not the Dragon and that the Dragon, through Kitty, cannot freeze and erase all timelines. I didn't make the obvious connection that Kitty is the first association with X-Men dragons, and on a lesser note, she's one of the more educated X-Men like Bobby is. Even her power means that she could potentially phase through one dimension to another as easily as she walks through walls.

Yep, the kid is Carmen Drake, named after Kitty's Father.

On Iceman being the true Tatso'o, the true Dragonlord of Clan Tatsu. In fantasy derived from English folklore, a Dragonlord is a type of wizard, one that can either talk to, control, or transform into a dragon. Kind of makes Jason Aaron's 'Wizard Iceman' seem a lot less random...

[whitecrown]

I was going to post some of that but ran up against the character limit.



I think it threw some writers when there wasn't alliteration, to the point they would get names wrong trying to make them alliterative.



Also you can see how some aspects of those designs ended up being used for Storm and others.



Yes to all of that. A lot of rivers flowed into Iceman's fandom over the decades. All of Iceman's past relationships have generated strong ships, with Lorna among the top favorites. About the only ones to generate much dislike were Opal(I never understood that) and to a lesser extent Mystique. As to his popularity pre-internet....
To keep from derailing the thread, you can find a lot more here.



Daken brought it up in the 2017 Iceman ongoing.

I think it's funny how in Marauders when Iceman grows gigantic and battles Fin Fang Foom, Kitty pointedly said she's 'never seen anything like that before'. And people here complain that the writer 'forgot' about what she saw in the 'Frozen' arc. They are missing the point. There's no reason for kitty to say that except to point out that this version of Kitty didn't see that. Those are clearly clues and people are just dismissing them.

The Outer Void is a pocket dimension like the White Hot Room and is situated on an axis opposite it. Oblivion resides in it. He's older than the multiverse, and older than his siblings Death, Eternity and Infinity. He desires to bring order to creation by destroying it. His purpose and the Dragons would align. Oblivion can't enter the main reality, so he works though avatars. One of Oblivion's principal avatars was the Chaos King, an offshoot of Oblivion serving as the embodiment of the primordial Void before the seventh iteration of universe began. When the seventh iteration of the universe began, the Chaos King was weakened and integrated into the Amatsu-Kami, becoming known as Amatsu-Mikaboshi. The Dragon/Anti-All would have his origin in the Third Cosmos. In Defenders (Vol. 6) #5, the Anti-All is described to be primordial Void itself. It was depicted as a great crystalline dragon whose shattered fragments were scattered across the multiverse. Doctor Strange theorized that the fragments of the Anti-All spread across the Multiverse from the Third Cosmos became future versions of the "great Nothing" that will appear in future cosmoses, fragments that became Knull and The Dragon of the Moon. Iceman is almost certainly a fragment of the Anti-All.

Iceman would not be the only one that ends up there from a destroyed timeline, but just like other beings use the White Hot Room they don't all become the Phoenix. The last time he was there he had not awakened to the true nature of his power. That's why it was so key that it happened after the events of the Frozen Arc. It'd funny, the Phoenix became sundered and lost parts of itself, so did the Dragon. You have to wonder if the Dragon has been gathering the parts of itself that were lost.

Yep, the kid is Carmen Drake, named after Kitty's Father.

On Iceman being the true Tatso'o, the true Dragonlord of Clan Tatsu. In fantasy derived from English folklore, a Dragonlord is a type of wizard, one that can either talk to, control, or transform into a dragon. Kind of makes Jason Aaron's 'Wizard Iceman' seem a lot less random...

The poncho/cape design with jewel definitely went to Storm. That's around the time it was decided to merge the Black Cat character with the Tempest/Typhoon character to create Storm. The bathing suit with open skin on the sides also was incorporated into Storm.

Lorna was always my favorite pairing with Bobby. I hate that they were never allowed to become an official couple and Alex quickly came into the picture. The only love interest of his I never liked was Mystique. That was a little too far for me. I don't mind Opal but I can see why she wasn't a favorite because even off the top of my head, most of their scenes that I remember involved a lot of bickering and angst, usually from Opal's side. That, along with all the ninja drama and Mr. Drake's bigotry, means their relationship tended to be quite turbulent. And thank you for the link for your continued posts.

Thanks for confirming where Daken confirmed that he remembered the events of the Frozen arc.

Tbh, I don't blame fans for thinking that it was an editorial mistake for Kitty to not remember Bobby using his powers to grow so large before. With the current state of Marvel, it's pretty commonplace for one writer to ignore large swaths of what previous writers established.

I didn't realize that the Outer Void was a lot like the White Hot Room or that Oblivion was even older than Death, Eternity, and Infinity. I remember the Chaos King in Chaos War but I didn't know he was an avatar of Oblivion. How interesting that Iceman is a fragment of the Anti-All, a great crystalline dragon. Wasn't the Dragon of the Moon connected to Moondragon? I suppose it wasn't a coincidence then that Iceman and Moondragon were both on the Defenders together.

With Secret Wars and the incursions where all those alternate worlds were destroyed, that means there must be billions and billions of people in the Outer Void. Is the Outer Void multidimensional or is there one for each universe (I don't think it's ever been established if the White Hot Room exists in each universe or if the one we've seen from 616 exists for every universe)? Your description of the Dragon being shattered into fragments lost throughout the cosmos does remind me of when Phoenix was destroyed and she needed to find all her pieces together.

Wizard Iceman does make a lot more sense now that you've explained that Dragonlords are a type of wizard that deal with dragons.