Iceman (Marvel Comics)
| Iceman | |
|---|---|
 Iceman Promotional art by Carlos Pacheco. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Men #1 |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Robert "Bobby" Louis Drake |
| Team affiliations | X-Men, X-Factor Defenders Champions X-Terminators The Twelve Cataclysm Keys Secret Defenders |
| Notable aliases | Drake Roberts |
| Abilities | Thermokinesis, enabling local and body temperature reduction, Hydrokinesis Cryokinesis, thermal vision |
Iceman (Bobby Drake) is a Marvel Comics superhero, a member of the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #1 (September 1963).
A mutant, Iceman can freeze moisture in the air around him and turn his body into solid hard ice. Although he is an Omega-level mutant, Drake has never fully tapped his mutant potential.
One of the original X-Men, Iceman has had a frequent presence in X-Men-related comics and video games throughout the years. Shawn Ashmore plays him in the recent film series. In this continuity, he is still a teenager while most other original X-Men are adults.
Character biography
He was born in Floral Park, New York, United States to William Robert Drake and his wife Madeline Beatrice Bass. As a teenager, Drake was recruited to Professor Charles Xavier's "school for gifted youngsters", where he joined other young mutants as a charter member of the X-Men. Iceman quickly befriended Hank McCoy (Beast), and the two often served as comic relief. Drake was sometimes self-conscious that he was the youngest member of the original team. During his original stint with the X-Men, Drake pursued a relationship with Lorna Dane, but it did not last long. Iceman was among the X-Men captured by Krakoa. He left the X-Men shortly thereafter. For a short while, he moved to Los Angeles and became a founding member of The Champions.
After the Champions dissolved, Drake retired from life as a superhero to earn a college degree in accounting. He returned to full-time superheroing in an incarnation of the Defenders alongside his former teammates from the X-Men, Angel and Beast. After the Defenders disbanded, Drake embarked on his career as an accountant.
The original X-Men, including Iceman, were then reunited to form the superhero team X-Factor. Along with his teammates, he later rejoined the X-Men.
Iceman suffers from a chronic poor self image and is a classic under-achiever. Bobby's use of his powers has often been lazy and undisciplined. Iceman often played the part of the joker, which annoyed Professor Xavier and Cyclops. Iceman has never realized the true potential of his abilities and even went through a period of deep depression after Emma Frost, the former White Queen of the Hellfire Club, took over his body and used his powers at levels which Iceman himself had generally been unable to reach. The White Queen believed that Iceman had the potential to be one of the most powerful mutants on Earth.
Iceman left the X-Men shortly after the White Queen incident, only to take an uncharacteristic turn as a leader during Operation: Zero Tolerance. The majority X-Men had been captured by Bastion, leaving newcomer Cecilia Reyes and former Morlock Marrow defenseless against the Prime Sentinels. Iceman left the X-Men again after Zero Tolerance was settled, but by the time he re-emerged, he seemed to have gained some confidence in himself and his powers, beginning with 2002's "Poptopia" storyline (Uncanny X-Men #394-399). This turnaround was short-lived, however: Iceman began to doubt himself once again when he began to developed a secondary mutation, finding himself unable to revert a portion of his chest that had been damaged while in ice form and later fixed, back to flesh. While encountering Azazel and his followers, Iceman had his body from the neck down shattered while iced up, and afterwards appeared to be permanently stuck in ice mode. Worse than just immature, Bobby now came across as bitter and despondent.
Polaris broke up with Havok and Iceman admitted that he still had feelings for her. The two have engaged in mild flirtation, but nothing serious has happened yet. They do seem to be beginning a small relationship, however.
After the events of the House of M, Iceman found himself to be flesh and blood again and believed himself to have lost his powers. Shortly after, while being held at gun point by the Leper Queen, Emma Frost pushed something in Bobby's mind that forced him to turn to ice, revealing that he had not lost his powers and had instead repressed them. After this, Bobby is once again able to covert from ice to flesh.
Appearance
Iceman's appearance has changed significantly over the years. In the early X-Men stories, his appearance was more reminiscent of a snowman. The explanation that was given in those days was that when he used his abilities, he became so cold that frost formed on his skin. In X-Men #8 (1964), at the prompting of team leader Cyclops, he learned to cover his body with hardened-but-flexible ice and adopted the hard crystalline appearance familiar to modern readers. After a battle with the Norse god Loki, Iceman temporarily lost control of his powers and was required to wear a belt to keep his powers from raging out of control and to keep him from becoming a large block of ice. Even more recently, Iceman developed the ability to not only cover his body with ice, but to actually become organic ice. Though the appearance is similar, Iceman is now actually translucent in his ice form. Iceman is virtually indestructible in this form: he can reform his shattered body even if the rest of his body is completely destroyed. Iceman was for a time unable to revert back to human form, but recently regained this ability. Iceman is one of the few Omega-level mutants with virtually unlimited potential.
Powers and abilities
An Omega-level mutant, Iceman's powers have evolved considerably over the years. Originally he had a normal human and an ice-form. In normal human form, he had the strength, agility and durability of a typical athletic male of his size. In his ice-form, his strength and durability was enhanced.
According to the laws of thermodynamics, cold is defined as the absence of heat. Therefore, Iceman does not actually emanate cold, but rather absorbs and dispels heat. Since heat is energy, Iceman's power then becomes a psionic ability to manipulate energy.
Iceman is able to lower his body temperature without harm to himself, reaching minus 105F within a few tenths of a second. He is able to freeze any moisture in the air around him into unusually hard ice to form ice-slides and various projectiles and shields. He is also able to summon moisture from the air and create a flood.
Iceman is immune to sub-zero temperatures and has thermal vision: the ability to detect objects visually by how much heat the objects generate.
Over the years, his mutant physiology has gone through radical changes. First, he was able to fashion an armor of densely packed snow around his human form when lowering his temperature; later, this became armor of solid ice. Eventually, he was actually able to transform his body into organic ice in which his strength and endurance were augmented to enhanced levels, but when he turned his body back to normal, he would be an ordinary human.
For a time, Iceman could no longer revert to a human form as part of a secondary mutation. He was constantly in a translucent organic ice-form. Iceman is also able to reconstitute his ice-form if any part of it is damaged or even if it is completely shattered, without permanent harm to himself. He is able to temporarily add the mass of a body of water to his own to increase his mass, size and physical power. His strength and durability in his ice-form are enhanced beyond normal human levels. He can survive not only as sentient ice but as sentient water and vapor. He has the capacity to manipulate all forms of moisture. He has all of the abilities to generate projectiles, slides and shields that he always has had but they have been augmented greatly. Under the mind control of Emma Frost he was able to deposit his bodily mass into a river and reconstitute his entire mass a great distance away in a matter of minutes.
Writers have implied that Iceman's lack of personal initiative has prevented him from discovering the deeper facets of his abilities and has led him instead to focus only on what might be the easiest manifestation of his abilities, the creation of ice.
In House of M #8, it appeared that Iceman was among the many millions of mutants who lost their powers due to the magic of the Scarlet Witch, having returned to his normal human form and noticeably sweating. However, at the end of X-Men #178, while repelling an attack of anti-mutant protesters, Iceman's powers reactivated. In X-Men #179, it was revealed Iceman did not lose his powers, but had subconsicously shut them down out of fear due to the aftermath of the House of M.
In X-Men: Evolution, he has the ability to create an ice statue of himself on the spot by moving, similar to Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat. In Operation: Zero Tolerance, while fighting Bastion, Bobby used a similar ability to trick the sentinel leader. Grabbed by the throat and pinned to the ground it seemed as if Bobby had been defeated, but it turned out he had replaced himself with an ice statue without Bastion noticing.
Alternate versions
Age of Apocalypse
- Main article: Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse crossover event, Bobby, along with the rest of the X-Men, are trained by Magneto. Because Magneto is harder on his students than Professor X, Bobby lacks his 616 sense of humor. Instead, Bobby becomes very cold and inhuman, making his teammates feel uncomfortable. In addition to his normal abilities, Bobby is capable of breaking down his body and merging it with another body of water to travel great distances in a matter of seconds. He can bring others along through a process that he calls "moisture molecular inversion", though it is a painful process for the passengers. Bobby is also able to reconstitute his body from broken pieces.
Ultimate Iceman
- Main article: Ultimate X-Men
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Bobby Drake is 15 years old and the youngest founding member of the X-Men. He ran away from his family at the peak of government-supported Sentinel attacks, fearing they would kill them if they found out he was a mutant.
Bobby establishes himself as a valuable asset, single-handedly taking out the Ultimates once with a gigantic ice wall (see Ultimate War), as well as single-handedly halting an invasion by Colonel Wraith and Weapon X. He was only able to be stopped by Rogue, who was in temporary possession of Marvel Girl's telepathy. During the World Tour arc, Bobby is greatly injured by Proteus, which resulted in a lawsuit issued by his parents against Xavier. Bobby eventually rebells against his parents, and later returns to the X-Men.
Before Bobby joined the X-Men he had a girlfriend, but Professor Xavier erased all memories of her from Bobby's head when he told her too much about the X-Men. Upon her acceptance into the X-Men, Bobby begins to date Rogue. The pair date for a considerable amount, but eventually break up to Bobby's growing feelings for Shadowcat and Rogue's feelings for Gambit. Eventually Rogue leaves, and Bobby starts to date Kitty for a short while. Bobby and Rogue have rekindled their relationship since Rogue's return to the X-Men and Kitty breaking up with Bobby to date Spiderman, this time with the ability to touch people.
Other Versions
- In the Mutant X universe, Robert Drake is the victim of misfortune. The Asgardian god Loki amplified Bobby's powers to a dangerous level, leaving him unable to make contact with any organic thing for fear of killing it. Now going by Bob and calling himself Ice-Man becomes very bitter from his circumstances.
- During the series Earth X, Bobby had becomes trapped in his ice form, making him vulnerable to melting. He moves to the Arctic regions of Earth, and made an ice city for himself and the Inuit. Due to a series of events where Earth's orbital path moves, Bobby is able to return to the United States to aid in the battle against the demon Mephisto.
- In X-Men: Fairy Tales (issue #1), Iceman appears as the dog. His fur is completely white, and goes by the name of Kori(Japenese for ice). Before he is reached by Cyclops, he appears to have lost faith in friendship.
- Iceman is Roberto Trefusis in the miniseries Marvel 1602, a member of the group of "witchbreeds" founded by Carlos Javier (Professor X) and led by Scotius Summerisle (Scott Summers). He is related to naval commander Sir Francis Drake. As in the Marvel Universe, he generates ice and can assume a physical ice form.
Appearances In Other Media
Television
- Iceman was one of the three leads in the animated television series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, in which he was voiced by Frank Welker. Very little background is given on the character, though in several episodes he appears with his former teammates, the X-Men. In the episode Vengeance Of Loki, he's revealed to be a government agent; his codename is "Windchill Factor Zero." In the episode Mission: Save The Guardstar his half sister, Aurora Dante (Lightwave), is introduced.
- He also appeared in the X-Men animated series voiced by Dennis Akayama in the episode "Cold Comfort" where he gets Jubilee's help to rescue his girlfriend Lorna Dane (not called Polaris here) from a government facility which is housing the X-Factor led by the modern day Forge. In the series, Iceman was seen in many flashbacks which include "Sanctuary Part 1", and the "Xavier Remembers".
- He appeared in the X-Men: Evolution animated series played by Andrew Francis. Iceman was meant to be the 8th X-Man of the show, but rejected in favor of Spyke. Not surprisingly, Iceman appeared more often, when Spyke left. In the series Iceman was a New Mutant who often acted as the un-official leader of the New Mutants.
Film
Template:Spoilers In the movies X-Men, X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand he is played by Shawn Ashmore. Bobby is one of the first students to reach out to Rogue and begins a dating relationship with her. In X2, he has an uneasy friendship with Pyro. In X3, his relationship with Rogue appears to be deteriorating, strained by their inability to have physical contact and by his apparent romantic interest in shy, soft-spoken Kitty Pryde. This prompts Rogue to seek out "the cure" so she can finally touch Bobby without fear of hurting him. He takes part in the X-Men's final confrontation with Magneto's army and fights Pyro one-on-one. During this battle, Iceman's ability to transform his body into ice manifested itself, being first implied in a previous confrontation between the two former best friends. Unlike his mainstream counterpart, Bobby Drake is more of an everyman and not a cynical underachiever. Template:Endspoilers
Video games
- Iceman has appeared in various video game adaptations, such as X-Men: Children of the Atom, the subsequent Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
In the Capcom games, he is especially notorious for his ability to take little to no blocking damage from projectile and beam attacks, special attacks in general, which combined with his powerful ice beam attacks make him an excellent defensive character. In the competitive scene, he fell out of use as Cable players evolved; Iceman's special attacks are vulnerable to Cable's instant super attacks. Iceman's super attack is when he discharges an immense amount of ice particles from his body to damage the enemy.
- He also has appeared in the more recent X-Men Legends, where he was voiced by Darren Scott, and its sequel X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, where he was voiced by James Arnold Taylor. In both of the Legends games, he is one of the quickest characters to become extremely powerful in melee combat. A cursor of his ability to add his icy damage to his melee attacks and to his own defense.
- Iceman is one of the three playable characters in the game X-Men: The Official Movie Game which fills in the gap between X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. He was voiced by Shawn Ashmore, the same actor who played him in the films.
- Bobby/Iceman will appear in the upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, where he will be a playable character. In this game, Iceman will be a powerful character and will have all his comic powers. He will be voiced by the same voice actor who voiced him in the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, James Arnold Taylor.
External links
- MDP: Iceman - Marvel Database Project
- Spotlight On... Iceman at UncannyXmen.Net
- Iceman - Marvel Universe
- Defenders members
- Marvel Comics mutants
- Omega-level mutants
- X-Factor members
- X-Men members
- Fictional Americans in Marvel Comics
- Fictional cryokineticists
- Fictional New Yorkers
- The 198 Files
- Jewish comic book characters
- Spider-Man supporting characters
- Marvel vs. Series characters
- Marvel Legends
- Fictional hydrokineticists