Chapter 30: Zero Tolerance

We’ve come to the end of the Scott Lobdell era of X-Men, and while this period featured some stories and characters that were frustratingly unresolved, Lobdell manages to bring his Iceman story to a pretty satisfying conclusion, as we’ll see.

But first…

DC/Marvel: All Access #1-4 (December 1996-March 1997)
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Jackson Guice

It’s the follow-up to the hugely successful DC vs. Marvel event of 1995! In that miniseries, the DC and Marvel Universes were briefly merged into the Amalgam Universe, which featured characters made of combinations of characters from the two publishers. The story ended with a new shared character called Access given the power to travel between universes and the responsibility to ensure they stay separate, because any incursions could lead to a new permanent amalgam. (Hey, that’s the plot of Hickman’s 2015 Secret Wars…)

Anyway, in this series, Access discovers that Marvel villains are turning up in the DCU while bringing Jubilee over to visit Robin, upon whom she developed a crush in the original mini. Access takes Batman to Dr. Strange to find the source of the incursions, and Jubilee brings an assortment of trigger-happy X-Men to defend Dr. Strange when Batman accuses him of being the cause. Access gets the JLA to defend Batman, and the two teams fight, until the real cause makes himself known – Dr. Strangefate, who survived the end of the Amalgam Universe and is trying to recreate it. After briefly merging the JLA and X-Men into the X-League, Dr. Strange and Access defeat Dr. Strangefate, and Dr. Strange creates a sort of mystical replacement home for the Amalgam characters, which will exist inside Access.

It’s not a particularly deep story, but it has some moments. Iceman is mostly just along with the X-Men to make up the numbers, but there’s a moment where his ice accidentally powers-up Aquaman, and later Dr. Strangefate merges him with Aquaman into King Ice.

Later in 1997, DC and Marvel do a second series of Amalgam Comics one-shots, which includes the debut of Iceman’s Amalgam Universe counterpart in JLX Unleashed #1. He’s merged with the Justice League’s Ice into the female character “Iceberg,” which is a fun bit of gender play with the character.

The Marvel Chronology project lists this story after the Graydon Creed story that runs through to Uncanny X-Men #340, but that doesn’t work as you’ll see when we get there.

And good luck finding this story! It’s not available on either Marvel Unlimited or DC Infinite, it’s never been republished in trades, and it’s unlikely ever to be.

Uncanny X-Men #338 (November 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Joe Madureira

In a subplot that will bubble under for the next few months, Iceman and Cannonball have gone undercover in anti-mutant presidential candidate Graydon Creed’s campaign team as Drake Roberts and Samson Guthry. I keep waffling between “this is so stupid” and “so stupid it’s great!”

Meanwhile in the main plot, Archangel’s giant death metal wings flake off revealing his natural wings underneath. Ozymandias shows up to hint that this is somehow part of Apocalypse’s plan. Angel flies off in a daze toward a church where Pyro is giving a confession that sounds like he’s trying to deliver a warning about the Brotherhood’s plan to assassinate Creed. Why he’d go to a church instead of calling the Avengers or X-Men, I can’t say. The X-Men arrive just as Pyro’s flame powers flare out of control due to the Legacy Virus, and Pyro’s boyfriend Avalanche spirits him away before he can confirm anything.

Also, the X-Men are trying to jog Joseph’s memory of being Magneto (we’ll learn later that he’s not) and Psylocke develops a new power to melt out of shadows.

X-Men #58 (November 1996)
Writer: Ralph Macchio and Scott Lobdell
Artists: Bernard Chang

Graydon Creed appears on Trish Tilby’s news talk show to defend himself from accusations that he’s a hate monger. At the time, I remember feeling like the entire Creed storyline was so over the top, and Creed so unbelievably stupid, that it couldn’t be taken seriously. But in the aftermath of two Donald Trump presidential campaigns, with literal Nazis proudly on the march in the United States, it now reads as oddly prescient.

The interview gets interrupted when Bobby’s father William Drake turns up in the audience to heckle Creed with accusations that his fascist agenda will eventually turn from mutants to anyone considered weak or different. In something of a refreshing turn, instead of the usual comparisons to race and religion (which might have read awkwardly given the racism arc Mr. Drake was in the middle of), he speculates that Creed will go after the sick, the elderly, and “welfare mothers” (a very 90s concern that was also frequently code for anti-Black racism). But… is Mr. Drake a secret socialist?

Meanwhile, it’s the anniversary of the Morlock massacre (again? We just did this in Uncanny X-Men #325) and Storm finds Gambit paying respects in the tunnels, which feels suspicious. This is of course leading up to the big reveal next year that Gambit recruited the Marauders for Mr. Sinister and led them to the tunnels at the beginning of the massacre. This all puts Gambit in a bad mood that explodes when he sees Joseph creeping outside Rogue’s bedroom window. They fight and Rogue calls them both pathetic. Not wrong.

Uncanny X-Men #339 (December 1996)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artists: Adam Kubert and Cedric Nocon

Mystique spots Iceman in the background of a TV report on Creed’s campaign, which she says, “changes everything.” This is the sort of thing that makes the X-Men’s plan here look incredibly stupid.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man (currently Ben Reilly, the Spider-Clone, but the X-Men don’t know that) drops by the mansion to warn the X-Men that Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson is digging into Graydon Creed’s past – which, wouldn’t you expect that to be true? Wouldn’t every newspaper in America investigate a leading candidate for President?

No matter, the X-Men decide to tail Jameson to keep tabs on his investigation, and being in full idiot mode in this story, use the Beast to do it. Jameson spots him taking the same flight to London right away. It’s odd that the X-Men didn’t even consider leaking the truth to Jameson directly. It would at least be interesting to see the X-Men deal with the tricky politics of outing enemies. (Next issue, Cannonball dismisses the idea in a thought bubble as “fighting fear and loathing with more of the same”).

But before anyone can deal with this, Havok shows up and attacks the plane with his new Brotherhood (currently just one other member, the former Gene Nation member Ever) because, for some reason, he doesn’t want Jameson’s investigation to be seen helping mutants. Look, there’s a lot of stupidity in this issue, and frankly, the Brotherhood plot doesn’t actually get better over in X-Factor, where the creative team never seem to decide what Havok is trying to achieve.

And while all this is happening, Bastion executes the journalist Jameson was going to meet in London before he can reveal the secret of who Creed’s parents are.

X-Men #59 (December 1996)
Writer: Ralph Macchio and Scott Lobdell
Artists: Andy Kubert

We briefly check in with Bobby to confirm that William Drake refused to give his name upon being arrested for his outburst during the interview in the previous issue. I’m not sure what law Mr. Drake broke that would justify his arrest, but although Bobby is proud of the statements he’s given, he’s not rushing to his father’s aid either.

The rest of the issue is mainly filler as Cannonball has a chat with Creed, one of Creed’s assistants reveals she may have ties to the Askani somehow (this plot point is never resolved), and Hercules shows up to take Quicksilver away from the mansion. And Cyclops watches Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It seems to cheer him up.

Uncanny X-Men #340 (January 1997)
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artist: Joe Madureira

This is the classic Lobdell Iceman story that fans of the era remember.

After Bobby’s father stood up for mutants in X-Men #58, Creed has him beaten up as a show of force against Iceman, whom Creed has finally recognized was spying in his organization. While his father recovers in the hospital, Iceman decides to take a leave of absence from the X-Men.

After a rough few years of being portrayed as an unrepentant bigot, this story arc gets to complicate and humanize him a bit more by allowing him a moment of heroism. We get to see the old William Drake from the 60s who stood up for his son against bigots, and the moment is as moving for the readers as it is for Bobby.

Lobdell cleverly keeps Bobby and William from talking about their feelings to each other directly. Instead, Bobby talks about the distance he feels from his parents with Storm, who, as an orphan, has only been able to imagine what having parents in her life might have meant.

Meanwhile, William gets a brief moment with Gambit where he genuinely attempts to understand his son by asking what could possibly motivate him to put himself in danger when he could just pretend to be human and pass. Because Gambit doesn’t have the history with William that Bobby does, he’s able to actually engage with him without getting defensive, and they seem to make a genuine connection.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that it really does seem like William wants to set Remy up with Bobby here.

Meanwhile, Cannonball’s cover apparently hasn’t been blown and he has a meeting with Creed, but not before being accosted by his suspiciously large bodyguards, whom we’ll later learn are actually Omega Sentinels in disguise, planted by Operation: Zero Tolerance.

This story continues into X-Factor #130, which is an absolute mess of an issue that should just be avoided. There, Graydon Creed is killed by a mystery assassin, in what was supposed to kick off a thrilling mystery around who killed Graydon Creed. But with the lead story botched and Lobdell leaving the X-books, it basically goes nowhere until X-Men Forever reveals that it was a time-displaced Mystique.

The Marvel Chronology Project bizarrely places X-Men Annual ’96 here, but we covered it last time (and it really makes more sense there).

Wolverine #111 (January 1997)
Writer: Larry Hama
Artist: Anthony Winn

Wolverine returns to the mansion just in time for the Bobby’s going away party. Logan takes a moment to try to bond with him before he goes, much to Bobby’s annoyance. Logan acknowledges that their times at the mansion haven’t really overlapped, and that he didn’t go out of his way to get to know Bobby anyway. Nevertheless, Logan tells Bobby he respects him and will always be there for him.

It’s actually kind of a refreshing reminder that not all of these characters really get along. Bobby strongly disliked the “new” X-Men way back in Giant-Size X-Men #1, and unlike all the other original members, he never really came back to the team until X-Factor reconnected with them after “X-Tinction Agenda.” Even still, Bobby mostly stuck to his pals from the original team, and only really bonded with Rogue, Storm, and Colossus.

Storm also has a moment where she gives Bobby a rose grown in her greenhouse as a memento, and as something of a metaphor. She suggests that the X-Men, like the hothouse flower, can’t survive long outside a special environment – though the framing suggests she’s making the point more about Logan than Bobby.

There’s also some stuff here about Ogun, the inter-dimensional agency Landau, Luckman, and Lake, and Wolverine moving to an apartment in the city, none of which is particularly important, especially as Larry Hama’s run on the title is coming to an end.

This issue has never been reprinted in color and isn’t on Marvel Unlimited, but it will likely be in the Wolverine Epic Collection Vol 10 when it’s eventually published.

Marvel Holiday Special 1996 (December 1996)
Fifth Story “Humbug”
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Artists: Josh Hood

Wolverine mopes around the city monologuing about how he has never felt the Christmas spirit, while various X-Men do minor holiday deeds. Iceman stumbles across a pair of kids struggling to make a snowman with what little snow is one the ground, and makes them an ice sculpture of Santa and his reindeer. It’s, y’know, fine.

Marvel Chronology Project slips this one before Uncanny X-Men #339, but that doesn’t really make sense, given Iceman is in the middle of Creed’s campaign then. In any event, Creed’s election campaign would be well over by the time Christmas rolls around. Besides, It’s Christmas Eve in Uncanny X-Men #341, so it should logically be happening then.

The other stories in this anthology include a pretty good Kitty Pryde story that’s marred only by the fact the story turns on her favorite building in her hometown randomly being a Black church. Feels like a bit of a reach for one of Marvel’s most prominent Jewish characters to be honest, and it would’ve worked without that detail.

There’s also a short about the Rawhide Kid, a Marvel western character whom we would later find out is gay in the early 2000s. Before you ask, no, I’m not planning a Rawhide Kid reread.

This issue is not on Marvel Unlimited, but I’d wager on the Wolverine short being included in an eventual Wolverine Omnibus Vol 6, if not in Epic Vol 10. Maybe the Kitty short will end up in Excalibur Omnibus Vol 4, since its been left out of the Epic series.

X-Men Annual ‘97 (January 1997)
Writer: John Francis Moore
Artist: Steve Epting

(The Chronology Project lists this as coming before Wolverine #111, but Iceman clearly says he’s only visiting the X-Men in this story, so logically it should come after.)

Gamesmaster traps the X-Men in a fantasy world where all of their dreams come true until Jean frees them all. And if you’re thinking, “my, that sounds like the plot of an annual from just a couple years ago,” you’d be right!

In this version, Joseph is the sole X-Man who recognizes something is wrong, because for some reason, Gamesmaster can’t seem to effectively use his powers against Magneto or Joseph. That does have some precedence, since otherwise Gamesmaster would have known that Fabian Cortez didn’t actually kill Magneto back in X-Men #3 or that Joseph isn’t really Magneto.

Once again, oddly, Bobby’s fantasy appears at first to be that he made the cover of “Teenthrob Magazine,” and he’s constantly hounded by teenage girls. This is actually the first thing that sets Joseph’s alarm bells off that something’s wrong, so it seems like at least someone is aware of how odd it seems that Iceman is into girls.

Or is he?

It’s worth noting that the supposed fantasy involves strictly underage girls with whom Bobby would never be expected to consummate a relationship. Or, as Bobby responds to a girl who shouts, “I wanna have your baby,” at him:

“Whoa, let’s be realistic here.”

While Bobby’s away from the X-Men, Beast and Cannonball find Karma’s missing siblings in the Beast miniseries. Gambit, Bishop, Rogue, Joseph, Beast and Trish Tilby are sent to the Shi’Ar empire to stop a Phalanx invasion in Uncanny X-Men #341-347. The remaining X-Men fight Candra in X-Men #60-61, then team up with Shang-Chi to fight the Kingpin in Hong Kong in X-Men #62-64. X-Men Unlimited features a couple egregious filler stories, including one that’s actually an issue of Silver Surfer.

X-Men Unlimited #15 (January 1997)
Writer: Howard Mackie
Artist: Duncan Rouleau

When Chris Bradley – remember, he was the new mutant with the Legacy Virus that Iceman bonded with in X-Men Unlimited #8 – faces increased bullying and violence in his community, his mother calls Bobby at his parents’ house to ask for help. Unfortunately, by the time Bobby gets there, Chris has run away to meet up with Maverick, who is now in the advanced stages of the virus. Together, they dodge Iceman and a trio of humans who want them both dead as revenge for the time they foiled their plan to bomb a clinic that helps mutants with the virus (no I didn’t miss an issue; this all happened in flashback). Iceman calls in Wolverine for help, the baddies are stopped again, and Maverick agrees to take Chris under his wing.

This is all a trailer for the short-lived Maverick solo series, one of many concepts Marvel tried launching in 1997 to fill the void created by cancelling most of their legacy titles to launch “Heroes Reborn.” Although this period is little remembered, two of those properties have managed to continue off and on for 25+ years: Deadpool and Thunderbolts.

Anyway, despite art that is frankly hard to look at and some overwrought prose in the narration, this is actually a fun little story for Iceman, who gets to awkwardly attempt to slot into the mentor role that he really doesn’t see himself as built for. It’s also chock full of little queer Easter eggs if you’re looking for them.

First, the script misspells his name as the more feminine “Bobbie” twice – and both times on pages that also give the correct spelling, which is some ace copy editing. The opening narration really plays up how Bobby’s mutation led him to find a new family in the X-Men, driving him “further and further away from his birth family.”

When Bobby finds Chris about to destroy a Friends of Humanity storefront office – which is decorated with a cross, explicitly linking the group to conservative Christian fundamentalism, bringing the mutant-as-homosexual metaphor to the forefront – he attempts to talk him down with some wisdom that recalls what he learned from his own origin of being pursued by bullies and a torch-wielding mob. But Chris isn’t interested in hearing him, because he’s so disappointed in Bobby for not being there when he needed him.

And Chris has a point! As I said about his first appearance, it’s beyond callous that the X-Men just pack Chris off to go back to his small town, instead of inviting him to stay with the X-Men, or at least packing him off to the Generation X school. On the other hand, the fact that the Bradley’s have Bobby’s parents number indicates that he must’ve been in regular contact with them.

And in another little Easter egg, one of the assassins complains that he wants to get home to watch Xena: Warrior Princess, which was a popular lesbian action-fantasy series at the time.

Finally, Bobby does seem to act a little jealous when Chris chooses to go with Maverick rather than follow Iceman back to his parents.

Oddly, this issue has never been reprinted, thought it should have been in X-Men: The Trial of Gambit. Perhaps they’re waiting to do a Maverick Complete Collection.

X-Men #65-69
“Operation: Zero Tolerance”
Writer: Scott Lobdell, Steven Seagle
Artist: Carlos Pacheco, Salvador Larocca, Pascual Ferry

“Operation: Zero Tolerance” is one of those messy crossover stories where there isn’t a clear reading order, because the books are mostly just dealing with their own stories while fending off Bastian’s Prime Sentinels (very oddly, X-Factor skirts the whole crossover). It has a bit of a sour reputation, mostly for ending in what seems like an anti-climax – where the government just shuts the whole thing down after a debate that mostly takes place off-panel. That’s a fair criticism, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this story and for the ending. In particular, these chapters that spotlight Iceman are actually quite fun and memorable.

Bastian finally makes his move, launching the mutant-hunting program Operation: Zero Tolerance with the full support of the US government (and several other states that do not get specifically named). In his first move, he captures the X-Men on their way home from Asia – their story then picks up over in Wolverine. But when news breaks of the X-Men’s capture, Bobby feels a duty to act, and, in a fitting conclusion to their story, his father whole-heartedly supports him.

Okay, it’s not really a conclusion, because the 2015 Iceman series decides that Bobby’s parents are bigots again, but, alas. I choose to believe this is the real William Drake and the one in the Iceman series is a refugee from the Ultimate Universe post-Secret Wars.

Anyway, Bobby goes to find Bronx doctor Cecilia Reyes, a part of Xavier’s Mutant Underground that Bobby has been tasked with protecting in the event the mansion’s files are ever compromised (Bastian took the mansion over in Cable #45-47). He arrives at her hospital just as a group of Prime Sentinels out her to her colleagues and attempt to arrest her.

Reyes is a mutant who refused Xavier’s offer to join the X-Men “three years ago” (which I’m guessing would place it around the early days of the New Mutants, before Xavier goes to space), because she wanted to be a doctor and live a normal life. She spends a big chunk of the crossover complaining about how her life has been ruined because she’s now been outed as a mutant, in scenes that have obvious parallels. Bobby does his best to be sympathetic, but as he keeps acknowledging, leadership and mentorship don’t really come naturally to him. Lobdell gives Bobby and Cecilia somereally fun scenes throughout this story.

This beat about the closet comes right after Bobby gives Cecilia an obviously fake spy kiss, in case readers missed the point.

Bobby and Reyes eventually find themselves lured into a trap by Angel’s ex-girlfriend, NYPD Detective Charlotte Jones, who’s being coerced by O:ZT agents who’ve kidnapped her son. They get rescued by the unlikely pair of Israeli superhero Sabra – who has Mossad intel about Bastian’s origins and weakness – and Marrow, who editorial had decided was going to join the X-Men, despite the fact that she’s a serial murderer. Luckily, Bobby doesn’t know much of anything about her, and this is a problem for the new writing team to follow.

The four finally make it to the Connecticut home of Rose Gilberti, a woman whom Bastian identifies as a sort of mother figure, in a speech that rather obtusely hints at his origin (A year later, the Cable/Machine Man 1998 Annual will confirm that Bastian is a combination of Nimrod and Mastermold, born after they passed through the Siege Perilous in Uncanny X-Men #256).

Iceman heroically decides to face off against Bastian, one-on-one, while delivering a speech that hammers home the themes of Lobdell’s run – love over hate, freedom over revenge – which draws heavily on what Bobby learned from his story with his father. It’s pretty great.

I can sympathize with the criticism that the ending feels very deus ex machina, but on the other hand, especially in these chapters, Lobdell takes pains to showcase how many bystanders are not on board with O:ZT and are actually horrified by the existence of Prime Sentinels and their actions. It may have been more satisfying if the X-Men’s actions more directly played into the government’s decision to shut everything down, but in a weird way, this feels closer to the reality that oppressed people often feel with regard to hostile governments – buffeted about by their whims, until one day something changes, and then they’re not.

And if you treat this as an endpoint in Lobdell’s arc, there are seeds going back through to at least the beginning of “X-Cutioner’s Song” of the X-Men making broader appeals for public acceptance and even reaching détente with Senator Kelly.

“Operation: Zero Tolerance” has an epilogue in X-Men #70, but since that issue also serves as an intro to the Kelly/Seagle era, I’ll save it for next time.

And that’s the end of the Scott Lobdell era of X-Men – a particularly divisive era among fans, but one I’ve always cherished as it’s where I began collecting. In retrospect, Lobdell’s strongest bits have always been his smaller character stories, and his long Iceman arc is among his best.

Lobdell’s Iceman stories also probably contributed more to the “Iceman is gay” fan theories than any other writer’s, if only because these stories were more widely read than the any that came before and because they coincided with the rise of internet fandom that dissected every moment of these issues in ways that just didn’t exist when Champions, New Defenders or the original X-Men book were being published. It’s also worth noting that this coincided with growing visibility of gay and lesbian people in the early 1990s online and in media.

Of course, Marvel had a pretty strict “no homosexuals” policy during much of this time – despite Northstar coming out in an issue of Lobdell’s Alpha Flight in 1992, the 1994 Northstar miniseries reverted to only using innuendo despite the fact that the whole plot was that a homophobic general wanted to kill him because he’s gay. Of course, that only fueled fan speculation more, as fans sought to look for clues that writers placed in the books to indicate characters were gay without saying so outright. In other words, if you can’t say “gay” anywhere, readers start to find “gay” everywhere.

And the X-writers of this era certainly gave Iceman fans plenty to work with – not just Lobdell, but also Fabian Nicieza and Howard Mackie.

Next time: Going forward, Iceman’s appearances become a bit sporadic until the 2001 reboot, as the Kelly/Seagle era most focuses on new characters before getting shunted aside in another editorially-mandated reboot. But there’s still some key stories of interest in this era, particularly as Seagle does an original team reunion and then Alan Davis builds towards “The Twelve” story. If you want to read in advance, you’ll find most of the relevant issues in X-Men: Blue Vol 0 and X-Men vs. Apocalypse: The Twelve.

Where to find these issues: Unless noted, they’re all on Marvel Unlimited. The Uncanny X-Men and X-Men issues were reprinted in X-Men: Onslaught Aftermath and X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance. The Wolverine issue will likely one day be reprinted in Wolverine Epic Collection Vol 10.

ROB SALERNO

Chapter 30: Zero Tolerance

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