A review by omnombailey
Iceman, Vol. 1: Thawing Out by Sina Grace, Alessandro Vitti, Edgar Salazar

challenging emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 Why You Should Stop Everything You're Doing And Read Iceman Vol. 1:

  1. Bobby Drake is witty, fabulous, gay, and very front and center about all of that.
  2. It's written by An Actual Gay Man.
  3. It finally gives Iceman the respect he deserves as a character and seriously elevates him from the class clown status I remember him being in earlier iterations of X-Men.
  4. The puns. So many puns.
  5. As a queer person, I've gotten immensely nauseated by how most queer stories are coming out stories with a thick coating of homophobia (internal and external). It's even worse when you can see between the cracks and tell these very real scenarios are just a Straight Person trying to juggle someone else's shit... and fails miserably. This story addresses these real scenarios so beautifully to the point I had to stop halfway reading to look up the writer to confirm if he was gay, because no Straight Person could write this so fucking accurately. So again, as a queer person, who is jaded as fuck by this, I cried every chapter because I knew everything Bobby was going through and everything I ever said and wanted to say was what he said. It's genuine and raw and touches close to home. And yes, trust me, there's a huge difference when An Actual Gay Man writes about A Fictional Gay Man.
  6. Jumping off of that, A) of course Bobby has awesome, supportive friends; Johnny Storm's remark had me in stitches and B) this all highlighted what I have loved and still love about X-Men all these years: the experience of feeling Othered in a world where people hate and don't accept you. There's little room differentiating being a mutant and being gay - and then Bobby has to live with both of that.
  7. The art is lovely and I admire how the artist didn't try to romanticize Bobby's older parents. They had wrinkles and sagging skin galore and it was really nice to see.

But seriously, I have now found something to adore and squee over now that I've the original run of Ms. Marvel, and that alone is worth praise.