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 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78)

Iceman spends nearly five years in the woods as seemingly no writer wants anything to do with him until he joins the cast for the tail end of the New Defenders. It’s a pretty shocking considering that this time period is also when Iceman was making a move into mainstream popular culture as one of the main characters in the syndicated Saturday morning cartoon show Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Original episodes aired between 1981-83, and continued in syndication through 1986. While that show is beyond the scope of this blog project – unless you think I should do a full entry on it (let me know in the comments) – it’s definitely responsible for how a generation of nerds came to perceive Bobby Drake.

It’s even the foundation of this notorious Family Guy joke from 2006.

But despite his lack of a main book, Iceman makes a handful of guest appearances in this era.

X-Men #138 (October 1980)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: John Byrne

This is the clip show issue after the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga, where Cyclops spends Phoenix’s funeral recapping the series so far. There isn’t much significant for Bobby in this issue, but Claremont does specifically include the scene from X-Men #1 where Iceman brushes of Jean’s arrival with “A girl… big deal!”

Other notes of interest: It doesn’t appear that Havok or Polaris attend Phoenix’s funeral. Also, Phoenix’s grave lists her lifespan as 1956-1980, meaning Claremont considered her 23-24 at this point in the story, which gives you a relative ballpark age for the other original X-Men. Bobby should be about a year younger than Jean.

 

X-Men #141, Uncanny X-Men #142 (January-February 1981)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: John Byrne

The classic “Days of Future Past” story, in which time-travelling Kate Pryde gets the X-Men to stop Mystique’s new Brotherhood of Queer Evil Mutants from killing Senator Kelly, unleashing the Sentinel apocalypse.

Bobby’s not in this story, no, but his tombstone confirms that he was killed by the Sentinels in the DOFP timeline. He’s buried between his two silver age loves, Beast and Polaris (Honestly, it’s odd that the Sentinels bothered with building a graveyard, isn’t it?). But that’s just an admittedly flimsy pretext to talk about a story that’s pretty important for any queer history of the X-Men.

It’s the first published appearance of Mystique’s lover Destiny. The narration refers to her as Mystique’s only friend in the group, so it’s clear they have a special relationship, even if the degree of closeness isn’t yet evident. We’ll see more of this in Avengers Annual #10 (January 1981), the issue where Rogue debuts and steals Ms. Marvel’s powers.

The story also strongly hints that Kate Pryde and Rachel Summers have a queer relationship (perhaps with the approval of Kate’s husband Colossus). Rachel calls Kate “my darling” at one point. The narration also makes the point of saying that while Kate is being pulled back to her home timeline, she gives her younger self a kiss. She does this right after she phases through, or physically penetrates Destiny, who yells that Kitty is “consuming” her (eating her?). This is the beginning of a long tradition of queerbaiting with Kitty Pryde that was finally paid off in Marauders #11, in which she has her first on-panel same-sex kiss.

Finally, I should note that it’s the debut of the original Pyro. So far as I know, he’s never been officially confirmed as queer, but he’s certainly coded as such with his pink shirt and ascot, and his flaming powers. Pyro was eventually given a backstory as a writer of steamy romance novels under a woman’s name. As in this story, he’s often paired with Avalanche, who’s never really been given a proper backstory as far as I can tell.

More good analysis of this story here.

X-Men Forever Vol 1 #4-5 (2001) established that in the new timeline created after Kate Pryde stopped the assassination, Iceman lived through the Sentinel apocalypse and was a mutant freedom fighter, at least to that point (the given year was 2014).

 

Marvel Two-In-One #76 (June 1981)
Writer: Tom DeFalco and David Micheline
Artist: Jerry Bingham

By coincidence, Thing and Iceman happen to both be at the Circus of Crime’s latest show (how do they keep getting bookings?) and they team up to stop them from robbing the audience, with the help of Goliath (Bill Foster). The story is called “Big Top Bandits.”

No explanation is given in this issue for why Iceman is in New York, but presumably he’s already transferred to the unnamed east coast university he’s studying at in Uncanny X-Men #145. Terri Sue Bottoms, his, uh, girlfriend from Incredible Hulk Annual #7 is still with him, living in New York City.

When Bobby goes to pick her up, he thinks about how hard it’s been for him to live a “normal life” and how much he misses the X-Men.

Once he ditches Ms. Bottoms, Bobby is all about the Tops.

After the Circus of Crime is stopped, everyone goes home. Iceman and Thing barely even exchange any lines in this team up. Terri Sue Bottoms is never seen again.

Unfortunately, this issue is not on Marvel Unlimited.

 

 

 

Uncanny X-Men #145-147 (May-July 1981)
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Dave Cockrum

Ms. Locke kidnaps a bunch of the X-Men’s associates, in order to coerce the team to rescue Arcade, who’s (sort of) being held hostage by Dr. Doom. The X-Men recruit Iceman, along with Havok, Polaris, and Banshee to form a scratch team to search Murderworld while they confront Dr. Doom.

This story picks up on a stray plot thread from Marvel Two-in-One #68, where Arcade hired Toad to kill the Thing and Angel in Doom’s upstate New York castle, but Toad failed and ultimately turned the castle into a successful frog-themed amusement park. Having now regained the castle, Doom has kidnapped Arcade as a sort of revenge, and yet he treats him as a guest. It’s all very muddled, to be honest, as is Storm’s ‘psycho-goddess’ freakout in the climax.

The narrator says Bobby’s a college sophomore, but that should be glossed over. Bear in mind, he’s in his early twenties at this point – a little old to be an undergrad living in dorms. Presumably, he’s pursuing graduate studies or a professional program.

But let’s take a look at what’s visible in Bobby’s dorm room: on the walls he has a poster of the Ayatollah with darts thrown in it (topical in 1981), a poster for “Space Craft Yamato,” and what looks like a Playboy centerfold. There’s also a bra visible above his dresser, oddly tacked to the wall. And yet in the same story, Bobby notes that he’s more likely to be studying than making moves on ladies. You might say Bobby has staged all of this junk to make anyone who comes into his room think he’s a big ladies man.

It’s also worth wondering why Bobby needs to drink alone in his room.

At Murderworld, when Bobby has to rescue Lorna, his thought bubbles do give us some insight into his romantic feelings. He’s accepted that Lorna is with Alex now (and thank goodness because they haven’t even seen each other in over two years of story time!) but he tells himself he’s still in love with her and always will be. As I’ve said before, Bobby’s compulsive need to be loved by women who aren’t interested in him in the slightest seems is a good cover to others, but it’s becoming clearer here that it’s also a defensive mechanism for himself. Bobby is outright explaining to himself why he doesn’t feel attraction or the need to pursue other women. He’s starting to believe his own story.

The scratch team don’t appear in Uncanny X-Men #147, but it completes the story.

 

Bizarre Adventures #27 – second story (July 1981)
Writer: Mary Jo Duffy
Artist: George Perez

While visiting friends at Dartmouth College, Iceman stops burglars from stealing some technology on loan from Henry Pym.

The story opens on a page of Bobby admiring an ice sculpture someone made of Angel in particularly lusty tones. “These ice sculptures are nice. Especially the Angel. Those wings glittering in the sun make him a very impressive figure.” When Bobby’s friend asks about a girl Bobby was supposedly dating, Bobby dismisses the idea, saying he dumped her because “she was too fickle.” It sounds to me like a skeptical friend nudging him into admitting that he’s into dudes, and indeed, he tells Bobby “there’s this freshman in my dorm” he wants to introduce him to, being careful to use a gender-neutral term.

We have to handwave references to Bobby being a college sophomore, since we’ve settled on Bobby getting his Bachelor at Xavier’s, and assume Bobby is still pursuing a professional post-grad degree. That also resolves the awkward point about all the students who are openly drinking in front of police officers (as the drinking age in New York wouldn’t be raised to 21 until 1986, five years after the story was published).

This story was originally published in black and white, and that’s how you’ll find it on Marvel Unlimited and in X-Men Omnibus Vol. 2. However, it was digitally colored for the X-Men Rareties TPB from 1995, which is how I first read it. I remember it looking quite nice.

This issue also contains two other stories. In the first story (by Claremont and Buscema), Jean Grey’s sister Sara reminisces about an adventure they had where Attuma kidnapped them both and turned them into Atlanteans in an attempt to force them to breed mutant Atlanteans (the R-word isn’t used in this story, but…). That story fits best between X-Men #110-111. It’s mostly remembered for the flashback-within-the-flashback that gives Jean Grey’s origin for the first time. Structurally this is a mess (why is Sara remembering Jean’s origin?), but it’s held up as an important Phoenix story. Also, Sara is worried about her son Tommy, who is never spoken of again (going forward, she has twins Joey and Gailyn).

The other story (by Layton , Duffy, and Cockrum) has Nightcrawler and Vanisher accidentally trapped in an all-female dimension when Nightcrawler tries to free Vanisher from the halfway-teleported state he was left in Champions #17.

 

Avengers #211 (September 1981)
Writer: Jim Shooter
Artist: Gene Colan

Another one of those periodic issues where the Avengers just argue over their roster. Moondragon, who isn’t even a member at this point, decides to summon a bunch of heroes she considers good candidates for the team, and Iceman is one of them. Angel and Dazzler also show up, but Iceman doesn’t have lines with either of them.

Iceman does get into a fight with Moon Knight while both are being controlled by Moondragon. Of minor interest, Moon Knight calls Iceman a “punk,” which depending on your reading may be a homophobic insult.

Iceman mentions he’s still a college student and planning to be an accountant.

Eventually Moondragon decides she doesn’t want to help the Avengers, and all the candidates leave, except Tigra, who joins.

Beast decides to quit, too, so he can go back to being a scientist. He mentions in this issue he holds a dozen PhDs and speaks 53 languages. Beast also mentions that he has a lot of girlfriends – not sure if that’s a part of his character during Avengers, but it’s certainly not something that continues into his return to the mutant books. He ends up joining the Defenders just a few months later in Defenders #102, a couple years ahead of Iceman and Angel.

Speaking of Angel, he turns up again in Avengers #214, where Ghost Rider attacks him for no terribly good reason. Angel forgives him, but Ghost Rider is too stubborn to accept help, and everyone goes home. This sets up an eventual appearance in New Defenders that we’ll get too soon.

 

Marvel Super-Hero Contest of Champions #1-3 (June-August 1982)
Writers: Mark Greunwald, Steven Grant, Bill Mantlo
Artist: John Romita Jr., Bob Layton

The Grandmaster and Death force Marvel’s Super-Heroes to fight each other in a pointless bet.

A notorious cash-grab mini with a broken story. It was supposed to tie in with the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but Marvel held and revised the series after the US boycotted those games. Somehow in the three-year long production cycle, no one noticed that the plot doesn’t work because while all the characters act like Grandmaster won, they actually played to a tie. The writers simply miscounted the points. The plot hole was sort of handwaved away in Avengers Annual #16.

The entire first issue is just a glorified tour of all the super-hero characters Marvel had in its roster at the time. Iceman appears in two panels, where he has a brief conversation with Darkstar. Oddly, the narration refers to them as “two who had once been lovers,” when Champions made it clear that they were never actually a couple. Maybe the narrator is being sarcastic? Certainly Darkstar doesn’t look happy to see Bobby, despite what she’s saying on panel. Maybe she’s just trying to be polite.

This is the first time Iceman meets Northstar, the Marvel Universe’s first gay superhero. They don’t share any scenes, and Northstar is still a decade away from coming out, but they’re stuck in the same room with all the other heroes for the duration of the story.

 

Incredible Hulk #278-279 (December 1982-January 1983)
Writer: Bill Mantlo
Artist: Sal Buscema and Mark Gruenwald

After Bruce Banner is finally able to control the Hulk, all the Marvel heroes get together to petition the President to pardon him for everything the Hulk has done, and New York City throws a parade in his honor.

Iceman is seen at the parade and it’s implied he’s at the petitioning ceremony. The X-Men are seen at both. Oddly, Professor X is seen with the X-Men on the White House lawn, when his connection to the X-Men is not generally public knowledge.

This story doesn’t work at all for me. Leaving aside that Banner only got control a few days ago, it’s odd that they’d throw a parade for a guy who’s repeatedly devastated whole cities.

And that’s it for five years of Iceman appearances!

Elsewhere in the Mutant world:

• Uncanny X-Men #117-137: Xavier and Lilandra leave earth and he tells the story of how, he fought his first evil mutant, the Shadow King (#117); the X-Men finally make it back to America after Wolverine falls in love with Mariko and the team fights Moses Magnum in Japan (#118-119) and is ambushed by Alpha Flight in Calgary, where Marvel’s first gay hero Northstar makes his debut (#120-121); the X-Men fight Arcade (#122-124) and Arkon (Annual #3); the X-Men are finally reunited with Jean in Muir Island where they fight Proteus and Banshee leaves the team (#125-128); Kitty Pryde, Dazzler, Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club all debut, Angel rejoins, and Phoenix goes mad and commits suicide to save the universe in the Dark Phoenix Saga (#129-137)
  • Worth noting: Two of the Shi’ar soldiers that Phoenix murders appear to be in a gay relationship (#135).
• Uncanny X-Men #139-144: Wolverine helps Alpha Flight with Wendigo, ending his obligation to Canada (#139-140); We finally learn Nightcrawler’s origin story, including his weird incestuous relationship with his foster sister, and a bisexual demon comes onto both him and Storm (Annual #4); Kitty fights a Demon (#143); and Cyclops meets Lee Forrester and fights D’Spayre (#144)
• Uncanny X-Men #148-167: The X-Men and Dazzler fight Caliban (#148); The X-Men fight Magneto on his island and we learn that he was a Holocaust survivor (#149-150); Emma Frost swaps bodies with Storm (#151-152); Kitty’s Fairy Tale (#153); Cyclops finds out Corsair’s his father and the X-Men fight the Brood (#154-157); the X-Men fight Rogue at the Pentagon (#158); Storm fights Dracula (#159, Annual #6); Belasco kidnaps Illyana (#160); Young Xavier and Magneto fight Hydra in Israel (#161); and the X-Men fight the Brood again (#162-167).
• Classic X-Men #23-44, once again, just the highlights of backup stories set in this era: Colossus goes home to Russia where he’s first denounced as a traitor but allowed to leave and banned from returning (#29); Moira attempts to clone Proteus but decides not to in the end (#36); Dazzler stops a possible mugger/rapist/murderer who claims to be a filmmaker (#38); Storm, Colossus and Wolverine fight a psychopathic mutant named Briggs (#39); Nightcrawler meets a mutant street busker (#40); a flashback to Cyclops’ time in the orphanage run by Sinister (#41-42); Phoenix in the afterlife (#43); and teenage Rogue gives trouble to her foster parents Mystique and Destiny when Mystique takes her on her first mission with the Brotherhood (#44, and Marvel Fanfare #60) – notable for Mystique’s stern insistence that Rogue “be strong and stay away from boys!”
• X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills: The X-Men fight Reverend Stryker and The Purifiers, an anti-mutant religious movement.
• Power Man and Iron Fist #56-57: The X-Men help Power Man and Iron Fist stop the Living Monolith, who has figured out a way to absorb cosmic energy without involving Havok. (Between X-Men #121-122)
• Marvel Team-Up #89-90: Spider-Man teams up with Nightcrawler to fight Cutthroat, and then with Beast to fight Killer Shrike.
• Super Soldiers #7: The X-Men try to recruit future Marvel UK character Guvnor. (During #129)
• Marvel Team-Up #100: Xavier helps the Fantastic Four deal with Karma, who makes her debut. Decades later, she’ll finally come out as a lesbian in the Mekanix Also, Storm and Black Panther meet again and reminisce about their brief teenage romance. (Between #138-139)
• Wolverine: First Class #1-21: Wolverine takes Kitty Pryde on a number of training missions.
• Dazzler #1-24: The first X-Men spinoff series sees Alison Blaire struggle to be a single working mutant woman musician while fighting off the Enchantress, Dr. Doom, Terror Tank, Hulk and She-Hulk, Galactus, Terrax, Techmaster, Titania and the Grapplers, the Absorbing Man and the Inhumans, and Mystique’s Sisterhood of Mutants. She also briefly dates Angel and finally finds her estranged mother. She also teams up with Spider-Man and Paladin to fight Thermo in Marvel Team-Up #113.
• Spider-Woman #37-38: The X-Men help Spider-Woman stop Black Tom and Juggernaut and the debuting Syrin.
• Marvel Fanfare #1-4: The X-Men team-up with Spider-Man on an adventure in the Savage Land.
• Marvel Team-Up #117-118: Spider-Man teams up with Wolverine and Professor X to fight Mentallo.
• Defenders #102-105: Beast “joins” the Defenders after asking Dr. Strange for help curing his girlfriend Vera, with whom he reconnected in Avengers #209 right before she was poisoned by a Skrull. She continues being his girlfriend through to the early issues of X-Factor. There’s no real moment where he actually joins the non-team. He just kind of becomes part of the cast.

Next Week: Iceman is reunited with his teenage crushes when he joins the New Defenders!

Where to find these stories: The X-Men issues and Bizarre Adventures are all in Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol 2. The other guest appearances are scattered in a number of trade paperbacks, and you’re probably best to find them on Marvel Unlimited.