Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1

X-Men Origins: Jean Grey (August 2008)
Writer: Sean McKeever
Artist: Mike Mayhew

In a continuity insert, Jean nearly injures Bobby in the Danger Room by deflecting a missile toward him, which gives her a crisis of confidence that leads her to skip an unspecified mission against Magneto.

 

 

 

 

Excalibur: XX Crossing (July 1992)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Ron Lim, Dwayne Turner, Jae Lee, Malcolm Jones, Steve Lightle, Rick Leonardi

A time-travel story where the six members of Excalibur are each pitted against a time-displaced member of the original X-Men.

Iceman, who’s been reduced to a barely verbal cave person, spars against Ky’lun, but doesn’t seem to actually fight with him, instead simply lobbing snowballs at him and giggling. One reading of this scene is that he’s flirting with Kylun. It won’t be the last time that a change in Iceman’s mental state would reveal his desires.

Eventually, all the heroes team up against the one-off villain Sidestep, who was trying to impress Dr. Doom, and we are told that the X-Men return to their home timeline with no memory of what happened.

 

X-Men: Endangered Species (June 2007)
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Scott Eaton

A flashback to the original team apparently posing for a class portrait on the front steps of the mansion.

 

 

 

 

 

Uncanny X-Men #289 (June 1992)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: While Portacio

And here we see the actual class portrait, as Storm gives new member Bishop a tour of the mansion and a crash course in X-Men history. Bobby is for some reason giving a parody of the Vulcan hand signal from Star Trek. I said this would be comprehensive!

Compare the scene from Endangered Species and the photo in this issue below. (We’ll get to yet another group photo from this same shoot soon.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Classic X-Men #17 (insert pages) (January 1988)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Kieron Dwyer

The new pages inserted into Uncanny X-Men #111 include a random group shot of the Silver Age X-Men during the early days, as well as a shot of Hank leaving the team in Amazing Adventures #11. In the group photo, Iceman is standing in his usual arms akimbo pose.

 

 

 

 

X-Men: Prelude to Schism #1-4 (May-June 2011)
Writer: Paul Jenkins
Artists: Roberto Delatorre, Andrea Mutti, Will Conrad, Dalibor Talajic, Clay Mann

As the X-Men prepare for an unspecified threat to Utopia, Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, and Wolverine reflect on their pasts and how they all see Cyclops’ leadership of the mutant nation.

You forgot about this mini that ended up having nothing to do with the “Schism” story, didn’t you?

Flashbacks in issues #1, #2, and #3 expand on the fight with Magneto in X-Men #1. Issue #1 also includes a scene of all the original and new X-Men returning to the mansion after Giant-Size X-Men #1. Issue #3 includes a strange scene of the original X-Men in what looks like a school hallway, but given the number of people seen it has to be after Havok and Lorna are living there, so probably immediately after X-Men #66. And issue #4 has a flashback of Iceman and Angel fighting Blob and Toad, which probably lives somewhere in the hiatus period based on Angel’s costume. All of these are inconsequential.

But issue #1 includes a generic danger room scene that ends with Bobby rat-tailing Scott in the change room afterward, setting up a homoerotic rivalry that we’ll see more of in just a second.

Also, generally, the silver age flashbacks put the X-Men in the version of their uniforms from X-Men: First Class, corroborating that series’ continuity status.

 

 

 

World War Hulks: Spider-Man vs Thor #1-2 – backup stories (July 2012)
Writer: Audrey Loeb
Artist: Dario Brizuela

Following events in the “World War Hulks” story, Cyclops and Iceman have become hulks and while they fight each other, they reminisce about a long fight they had in the Silver Age ostensibly over Bobby constantly pranking Scott with his ice powers.

Bobby and Scott’s rivalry gets homoerotic really quickly. There’s a real element here of the little boy who pulls the girl’s hair because he secretly likes her and doesn’t know how to express it. We already saw last week how early on Bobby appeared to idolize and crush on Scott in the early days. Here it’s coming to the fore.

Eventually, Xavier chastises Scott for not making an effort to make friends with Bobby, who as the youngest member is obviously having a hard time fitting in. So he invites Bobby to hang out, which only makes matters worse as Scott ignores him and spends the whole time flirting with Jean.

When he overhears Bobby calling home to complain about how lonely and out-of-place he feels at the school, and getting an unsympathetic reaction from his dad, Scott empathizes with Bobby. They make up, but Bobby still tapes a kick me sign on Scott’s back. In the present day, Hulk Iceman writes “SMASH ME” on Hulk Cyclops’ back, which feels apropos – after all, being a Hulk is meant to amplify repressed emotions. So here’s Bobby literally saying he wants to smash Scott’s behind.

The continuity on this one isn’t perfect. Chronology Project sprinkles the scenes across the whole Silver Age and the end of the fight just after the Factor Three story in X-Men #39, because that’s the earliest point at which Scott and Jean are a couple. But that doesn’t really work for Bobby, because at that point, he wasn’t really the group outcast anymore – he was constantly going out with Hank. A better fit is before issue #7 (the first Coffee A-Go-Go issue) and to just hand-wave the parts where Scott is hanging out with Jean. After all, it can’t be that romantic if he’s brought Bobby along. This story serves a useful bridge between the early stories where Bobby was the kid who got no respect and the post-Stan Lee stories where he was generally more accepted as an equal.

 

Untold Tales of Spider-Man #21 (May 1997)
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Pat Oliffe

The Silver Age X-Men team up with Spider-Man to stop “The Menace,” a bank robber who claims to be a mutant terrorist to drum up anti-mutant hysteria. In a scene at the Coffee-A-Go-Go, Bobby acts a little over-the-top in his interest in girls and in poor Zelda particularly.

 

Still, Hank refers to Bobby as “My dear Iceman,” at one point in the fight scene, so there’s at least a little evidence for my theory that Bobby and Hank were a couple.

 

 

 

Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual ’97 (May 1997)
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Tom Lyle

The Silver Age X-Men are among many heroes that team up to stop the villain Sundown. Nothing terribly important to report here.

Both of these issues fit between X-Men #7-8.

 

 

X-Men Gold Vol 1 #1 – Second Story (September 2013)
Writer: Louise Simonson and Stan Lee
Artist: Walt Simonson

An anthology of stories celebrating 50 years of X-Men. This reprises one of those tropes from the early days where the boys all race to the Danger Room with the winner being able to take Jean on a date. These stories must have been groan-worthy in the Silver Age and they’re even worse now. Bobby again is a little crude in playing up his heterosexuality, but then again, he does seem preoccupied with Hank’s butt in the opening splash.

 

X-Men Giant-Size #1 and X-Men Vol 3 12-15
Writer: Christopher Yost
Artists: Paco Medina and Dalibor Talajic

The “First and Last” story. The Evolutionaries attack the X-Men’s base on Utopia island in the present day, causing the original X-Men to suddenly remember their encounter with them in the Silver Age.

In flashbacks, we see the X-Men fight the Brotherhood until a prototype Sentinel shows up and everyone retreats. Interestingly, Magneto is already aware of the Sentinel program, but Xavier was not, making this retroactively the first Sentinel story. Back at the Mansion, the Evolutionaries arrive and explain that they are 2.5-million-year-old austrolopithecus that were rescued and evolved by the Eternal Phastos and set to guard each new species as it evolves. Their plan is to find someone who will lead the entire mutant race, and then wipe out all of humanity so that humans can no longer compete with them. Unimpressed with the X-Men, they turn to Magneto and the Brotherhood. They attempt to recruit Emma Frost, who’s been sent to an insane asylum by her parents, so she can use Cerebro to recruit all the other mutants in the world. But when Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch defect over Magneto’s insane plan, the Evolutionaries retreat and charge Cyclops with the responsibility of saving mutantkind. But then they wipe everyone’s memory of the entire story, so it seems kind of unfair that they hold him to that promise.

There isn’t much to stick to this story, although it is canonically the first time Bobby meets Emma Frost, who later would be a big part of his coming out process. She spends most of this story in a drug-induced daze. This is the third retcon of Xavier trying to recruit teenage Emma into the X-Men – Xavier refers in this story to a scene included in X-Men Origins: Emma Frost, and then later there’s a story in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #5, when she’s already working at the Hellfire Club. He presumably doesn’t recognize her when they meet in X-Men #129 because of her extensive plastic surgery.

This is also the fourth continuity insert story that wipes the Silver Age X-men’s memories of the events and we’re not even counting the time-travelling All-New X-Men yet!

 

Marvel Heroes and Legends #1 (October 1996)
Writer: Stan Lee and Fabian Nicieza
Artists: Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Romita Sr, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Marie Severin, Ron Frenz

A tribute issue retelling the wedding of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman from Fantastic Four Annual #3, showing alternate battle scenes that weren’t shown in the original issue. In the X-Men’s chapter, they end up fighting Batroc, the Executioner, and the giant monster Grogoom.

Iceman’s main character beat is that he complains about all the bigots who run away when the X-Men try to rescue them, which is fitting. He also gets another arms akimbo panel.

Not on Marvel Unlimited.

 

X-Men Unlimited #42 – third story (April 2003)
Writer: J. Torres
Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa

Probably a non-continuity story, but in this short, it’s Jean’s birthday and all the X-Men have each gotten her gifts. Bobby made an ice swan that doesn’t look right, Hank baked a cake that looks meh, Warren bought her diamond earrings, and Scott gave her a team photo (possibly from the same shoot referenced above), which she declares is the best present and gives him a kiss. All the boys are jealous, including Bobby, who I guess is just acting. Then the Professor gives Jean her new miniskirt uniform, contradicting the story where Jean says she designed it. Kinda creepy for Xavier to give Jean a miniskirt and ask her to go try it on so they can all look at it, to be honest.

 

Avengers: Domination Factor 2.4 (December 1999)
Writer/Artist: Jerry Ordway

Members of the Avengers and Fantastic Four are time-travelling to key moments in their histories after being tricked by Loki into retrieving slices of a golden apple. In this issue Scarlet Witch relives the X-Men/Avengers crossover from X-Men #45/Avengers #53. Iceman contributes nothing new.

Not on Marvel Unlimited.

 

 

 

Uncanny X-Men #297 (February 1993)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Brandon Peterson

Iceman doesn’t actually appear in this issue, but the story has a generic image of the silver age X-Men at Harry’s Hideaway, and Beast reminiscing about the time he wrote a term paper for Angel, only to confess to the Professor that Angel cheated, leading to embarrassment that made Bobby laugh out loud. The only clues to where these vignettes go are that Beast says the term paper story was in “junior year” (presumably of their college program, so toward the end of the series), and that the X-Men should be old enough to drink at a bar (though sliding time means the silver age X-Men wouldn’t be old enough to get into a bar in New York, so presumably they have fake IDs or Harry’s doesn’t card).

This is the only story where we see the silver age X-Men hanging out at Harry’s Hideaway in Salem Center (which was a Claremont invention). Since the backup in Classic X-Men #4 suggests that Harry is gay or queer, this would again be an early opportunity for Bobby to meet another queer person.

 

Marvel Holiday Special 1994 (December 1994)
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: James Fry

When Metoxo the Lava Man attacks, Bobby and Hank reminisce about the first time he attacked Manhattan and they taught him the meaning of Christmas.

This continuity implant is meant to be the missing story of “Beast and Iceman vs Metoxo and the Lava Men” that was solicited but never appeared in X-Men #49. There isn’t really much to this, but it does give us one last chance to see Zelda before Bobby finally ghosts her. Like in Untold Tales of Spider-Man, Busiek takes the Bobby-Zelda relationship more-or-less straight, and as with Marvels, it’s part of a pattern of treating silver age stories with a sort of reverence that doesn’t really call for alternative interpretations.

The framing device, and the short X-Men Christmas story that also appears in this book take place between Uncanny X-Men #319-320.

It’s not on Marvel Unlimited.

***UPDATE: Dec 1, 2021***

Savage Hulk Vol 2 #1-4 (Jun-Sept 2014)
Writer/Artist: Alan Davis

I somehow forgot about this strange little series, and it hadn’t yet been input to Bobby’s entry on the Marvel Chronology Project when I wrote this page, so here we are.

In yet another story that picks up immediately after X-Men #66 (see below and X-Men: The Hidden Years), the still weak Xavier is suddenly obsessed with the idea that he can cure Bruce Banner of being the Hulk with the gamma device the X-Men retrieved in that story. But when they go looking for the Hulk, they stumble into the Abomination instead, and wind up in the middle of a scheme by the Leader. In the end, the Hulk and the X-Men bust loose, and Hulk destroys the machine out of frustration that it didn’t seem to work.

Bobby doesn’t do a whole lot in this story, but he does take the opportunity to comment on Abomination’s appearance.

 

X-Men & Spider-Man #1 (November 2008)
Writer: Christos Gage
Artist: Mario Alberti

Confusingly listed as “X-Men/Spider-Man” on Marvel Unlimited, this mini followed a team-up between Mr. Sinister and Kraven across four eras of X-Men history starting with the silver age in this issue that picks up immediately after ­X-Men #66 and before X-Men: The Hidden Years can start.

Kraven announces to the public that Spider-Man is a mutant, which makes the X-Men worry that he could become a target of anti-mutant sentiment, which has run hot since the X-Men have been blamed for the Hulk and US Military tearing up the Las Vegas strip in X-Men #66. Since they don’t know how to find him, the X-Men just head to Greenwich Village and hope Jean can telepathically recognize his alter-ego among the youth who hang out there. Sure, why not? By blind luck, he happens to be on a double date at the first club they go to.

Bobby is still publicly pining for Lorna (who, along with Alex, is mysteriously absent this issue). When the X-Men urge him to get over her, he says it’s no use as no girl could be better than her – a convenient excuse not to have to flirt with other women. Eventually, he ends up dancing with Gwen Stacy, when she and MJ are trying to make their dates jealous and Warren is too dickish even for them.

Kraven and Blob attack and the X-Men fight them off. In the end we learn Kraven was hired to collect blood and DNA samples from the X-Men for Sinister, setting up the miniseries plot.

 

Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Comics Magazine #3-4, 11 (April-December 2001)
Writers: Erik Larsen, Tom Defalco, Eric Stephenson
Artists: Erica Shanower, Tom Scioli, Keith Giffen, Al Milgrom, Frank Fosco

This is a tribute series to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s run on the FF and follows their sort of loopy Silver Age plot logic. Basically, it’s a 12-issue cat and mouse game with Dr. Doom. In #3, Reed Richards decides to try to draw out his unknown adversary who’s been stealing powerful weapons, by positioning an ultimate weapon near the Baxter Building. And that ultimate weapon? A pair of Sentinels the X-Men just happen to have in storage (lord knows where or when they were acquired or why they’re lime green throughout the issue). Unfortunately, Dr. Doom has already figured out that was Reed’s plan, and broke into the X-Mansion to sabotage the Sentinels and the X-Men’s Danger Room robot Colosso. The Sentinels go on a rampage in New York City until they explode. A coda to the story appears in #4.

The X-Men then cameo again in #11 in the big showdown against the cosmically powered Doom.

Nothing really big to report about Bobby, but boy do I never want to see Iceman with lips again!

Where to find these stories: Unless otherwise noted, all of these issues are on Marvel Unlimited, which is probably easier than tracking down multiple out of print TPBs and omnibuses.

NEXT WEEK: We begin looking at the long-running X-Men: First Class series, which attempted to build up the school dynamic that never really existed in the original stories but became part of the folk canon of the series. You can find the entire series on Marvel Unlimited, and it’s been reprinted in TPBs and volume one was released as an OHC.