Let's start off with the cover. Again, there is nothing remotely amazing or interesting about this cover. It tells us everything that's happening in the comic, but that's about it.. We've got Bobby with his parents in a picture, signifying him returning to speak with his parents again and then a Purifier holding Bobby down with a gun. That's about it. I mean it definitely sells the story, but that's also what makes it incredibly sad and boring.
Now onto the story, first thing in the book we get a page of Bobby outside his parent's new house and him texting all his friends to tell them he is gay. This is just.. odd. Most of them are X-Men and the X-Men have been an actual family for Bobby for years. Also we get more with 2 of Bobby's exs, Opal Tanka and Lorna Dane, which are similarly awkward and weird. Opal's is pretty much an I had no clue and Lorna's is and this is why I picked Havok over you. It's a weird text conversation. Not to mention he texts Northstar, who says they have to have coffee, Iceman's sometimes buddy, Johnny Storm, who makes an incredibly stupid joke, Spidey, who again makes a stupid joke, and finally Boom Boom/Boomer/Meltdown and she just says New Phone. I think this was supposed to be funny/deal with some of the issues of Iceman not coming out to friends, but it's a weird group and honestly some of these would have been better as on-the-page interactions than a text message. Also Rogue, who Bobby is very close friends with, is left out mysteriously. I'm just not sure about any of that.
Then we go inside for page after page of awkward people who are related, but really know nothing about each other and don't even really want to spend time with each other, but for some random reason decide they all need to torture themselves by having random family time for several panels. Bobby tries to talk about his life as a mutant and hero and his dad wants none of it. Then Bobby basically says he has nothing else other than being a mutant. This is just.. sad. Bobby is a teacher, he's a certified CPA, and all he can talk about is how he's a mutant and saves the day? In fact, the only thing he does try to talk about is the last issue, which makes me wonder how much Sina Grace really knows about Iceman. Ultimately though, Bobby tries to come out, his parents don't hear him over their grudge for having a mutant son.. and it goes no where just like you'd expect.
Things take a slight change when a large group of Purifiers break into the house and take Bobby's parents hostage. It appears that the head of this group is the father of the guy from the first issue and he's upset that his son was arrested and blames Bobby. Bobby's dad has a few moments where he argues with the head Purifier dude about religion (under the premise of arguing scripture, but no one quotes any scripture in the entire time) and references some weird teacher or principal or someone that treated Bobby's dad like crap as a child over religion. This seemed like it was supposed to be the "Ah-ha, my son is cool cause he's a hero" moment as cliched as that is, but when Bobby saves them and stops the Purifier, his dad and mom still don't like him all that much, so all it really is is a random story and development of a character that nobody cares about and hopefully we never see or hear from again instead of the main character.
Finally though Iceman hulks out, beats the Purifiers, threatens main guy saying he could kill them all at any chance and branded him. So much for changing hearts and minds and peaceful co-existence.. It's just all about feeling good for the moment. At the end Bobby returns with students to try to help fix his parents' new home, but his attempt is rebuffed mostly and his mom says "We'll try to be better." That's it.
This whole issue was just.. a waste. Other than a few moments of interesting dialogue and the real Bobby popping out again, there was nothing happening and nothing resolved. I have no clue what this issue was supposed to be other than a coming out story again for no reason and I have no clue what this series is supposed to be on any level. I'm not even sure the writer knows Iceman all that well and is instead just inserting his own ideas about coming out and dealing with it rather than Bobby Drake coming out and dealing with it. Plus every issue has been about Bobby being gay and reinforcing that he's gay so that we can never ever forget he's gay, which is just boring especially since other than the first issue with building his dating profile, none of this is really anything about Bobby dealing and understanding himself. In fact, the most interesting part of this was him coming out to his ACTUAL family, the X-Men and superhero community and all that is done in a series of throw away texts and misses a bunch of people that it would have been vastly more interesting to see Iceman talk it out with while fighting baddies.
Comments
Post a Comment