Astonishing Iceman #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
ASTONISHING ICEMAN #5
“Out Cold, part 5”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Vincenzo Carratù
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. A shattered Iceman.
PAGE 2. Flashback: Mr Clean defeats Romeo.
This takes place before page 23 of the previous issue, and shows Mr Clean defeating Romeo while Iceman was off in New York. Clyde, the guard drone was seen in issue #1, and mentioned again by Iceman as one of his security measures last iissue.
Romeo actually puts up more of a fight against Mr Clean than you might expect from him, because it turns out that his empathic powers also extend to imposing painful emotions on people when he hits them. I’m pretty sure that’s new. I’m not entirely sure it makes sense – his powers don’t normally depend on touch – but it’s a nice idea, so what the heck.
PAGES 3-6. Mr Clean gloats to Iceman.
This picks up directly from the cliffhanger.
Lojack was indeed seen in issue #3. He was one of the “Y-Men” who had gained quasi-mutant powers from a mutant tattooist. His power was said to be some sort of homing / radar thing, so by definition we didn’t see him use it on panel, but he does seem to have glowing eyes on page 9 panel 2. The flashback panel specifically shows him shaking Iceman’s hand is at page 20 panel 4 of issue #3. He doesn’t do anything on panel that’s obviously treacherous, but Mr Clean does say on the next page that “My man’s already got a bead on [Iceman].”
The description of Iceman as a “class clown” goes back to the very early Silver Age when he was initially presented as the youngest member of the team.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGE 8 (top half). Pequod tries to monitor Clean.
Pequod’s dialogue has two bits of ironic foreshadowing: “Clean is my nuclear option – if he fails, I’ll see you in the janitoriial corps.”
PAGES 8-10. The fight continues.
We make sure to establish that Iceman can reconstitute his body from being destroyed.
“Mr Clean” suggests that the “clean” in his name refers to being clear of mutant DNA – I think that’s new, but it makes as much sense as anything.
PAGE 11. Iceman forces Romeo to the escape hatch.
We’re reminded that Romeo has been helping Iceman to hold his body together throughout the series, and that Iceman has been doing an increasingly good job of managing it on his own. It’s not entirely clear why Romeo needs to be physically present in order to help Iceman reform, given the nature of his powers and the way he was able to help Iceman re-form after the Hellfire Gala.
PAGES 12-19. Iceman defeats Mr Clean, who tries to nuke him.
Clean’s basic angle is that if he can’t beat Iceman, he can at least opt for mutually assured destruction that will leave Iceman’s mind with nowhere to go. This links to the data page on page 22, where Killian Devo sets out the theory that Iceman’s mind will survive as long as there’s some local water vapour that he can inhabit. Iceman refuses to be intimidated and treats this as an opportunity to prove that he can reincorporate on his own. (Again, it’s not obvious why he’s going to be on his own here as opposed to what happened at the Gala. In the flashback in issue #1, Romeo was present when Iceman reconstituted, but it didn’t happen anywhere near the location where he had been destroyed.)
PAGES 20-21. The aftermath of the nuke.
Mr Clean is apparently dead, though there’s certainly wiggle room.
Romeo escapes in the Bluebird sub… which is a little unfortunate, since Sage also has it to hand in Wolverine #40 this week. Perhaps there’s more than one of them. Note that he draws a heart on the glass.
The final panel shows Pequod apparently contemplating his imminent demotion to janitorial duty for this disaster, as he foreshadowed earlier in the issue.
PAGE 22. Data page: Killian Devo reflects on the plot. Pequod has been marked as a failure not just for failing to kill Iceman, but for doing so in spectacularly conspicuous fashion.
The “thermal satellites” and the idea of teleporting Iceman into the centre of the Earth presumably came somewhere before issue #1. The nanosentinel cloud was in issue #1, and the Element of Doom were in issue #2.
PAGE 23. Data page: an unspecified person at “narrative ops” keeps Killian Devo up to date on further Iceman sightings. It’s not quite clear why this report is being sent direct to Devo – the author suggests that it’s because Pequod hasn’t yet been replaced, but Pequod wasn’t the head of “narrative ops”. That was Judas Traveller, until Firestar took over the role in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #117. Orlando knows that perfectly well, because he co-wrote that story, so perhaps the idea is that Pequod was always reporting direct to the higher-ups in Orchis given the importance of his mission (and its somewhat tenuous inclusion within the “narrative” remit in the first place).
PAGE 24. Romeo gets his message from Iceman.
Responding to the heart that Romeo drew on the glass on page 21.
PAGE 25. Trailers. This is the final issue, but unlike with other titles, we’re not pointed to any particular place to continue the plot. The Krakoan text reads ICEMAN WILL RETURN.
I think Romeo’s “weaponized empathy” first turned up in Vecchio’s Iceman mini on Infinity? He touches Bobby’s chest and seems to project the feeling of being loved, or something like that, to get him out of a cosmically-induced funk or somesuch.
The idea that it’s only possible to destroy Bobby if you destroy sufficient local atmospheric water vapor is presumably meant to explain why Bobby survived Nimrod’s attack but his evil Age of Apocalypse counterpart was killed with heat.
Bobby seemed to be running into Orchis a lot while he was trying to reform. How did he know where Orchis was? It was explained earlier that he was only able to locate Orchis attacks because Romeo was sensing the emotions of their victims. (Which raises the question of how the emotions of Orchis victims differ from the victims of ordinary murderers and rapists.) So if Bobby can locate Orchis on his own, why did he need Romeo to do it earlier?
The. more I think about it, the less sense Bobby and Romeo having the Bluebird sub makes. For starters, there was no suggestion earlier in the series that Bobby and Romeo had some transportation to inhabited areas- Bobby was using undersea life for food and clothing in issue 3. But how would they get the sub in the first place. Sage, Domino and Black Tom were members of X-Force, so they would know where the Bluebird was. And they escaped from the Gala, so they could go for it immediately. But Bobby had no reason to know where the Bluebird was. And he was killed at the Gala and it took him who knows how long to pull himself together. There’s no way he could get to the Bluebird before Orchis. And Romeo probably didn’t even know the Bluebird existed. Plus, have either Bobby or Romeo ever been shown knowing how to operate a sub. This reads like X-Force was supposed to have the Bluebird for Fall of X and Orlando suddenly realized he needed a way to have Romeo survive.
Romeo sleeping with another guy 10 days after his boyfriend died is just bizarre.
Are we supposed to believe Bobby was watching that other guy have sex with Romeo without the other guy knowing? That’s just creepy.
Clearly Romeo’s emotion punches are the focused totality of his empathic powers.
^^ 1000 upvotes for MasterMahan ^^
I don’t know that I could tell focused totalities from totalized focalities, but it is not all that difficult to believe that an empath with impressive range can be more aggressive and effective when he is engaged in actual brawling with his target.
And sure, I would expect that punching one’s foe does wonders to focusing any aggressive mental powers.
Totally or otherwise.
I might go with the idea that Romeo’s fists are portals to a dimension consisting of nothing but emotion, myself.
I’m a little disappointed the unnamed Orchis drone doesn’t report:
‘A partially muscled skeleton stands by the perimeter fence and screams for thirty seconds before vanishing.’
More conformation too that Romeo and Bobby have an open relationship. Great of Orlando to slip that in.