{"id":9600,"date":"2023-11-16T21:16:30","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T21:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9600"},"modified":"2023-11-16T21:16:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T21:16:30","slug":"astonishing-iceman-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9600","title":{"rendered":"Astonishing Iceman #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>ASTONISHING ICEMAN #4<\/strong>
\n“Out Cold, part 4”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Steve Orlando<\/strong>
\nArtist: Vincenzo Carrat\u00f9<\/strong>
\nColour artists: Java Tartaglia with Chris Sotomayor<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Travis Lanham<\/strong>
\nDesigners: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Iceman and Spider-Man in action.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Iceman races off from his citadel.<\/em><\/p>\n

The previous issue ended with Iceman getting back home but quickly heading straight back out to deal with a problem in New York, which we saw was Feral (as a Hound) attacking Spider-Man. Mr Clean was fairly obviously engineering these events to lure Iceman away from the citadel and leave it unguarded. As we’ll see later on, Iceman\u00a0has<\/em> actually got some security measures in place – he’s not an idiot – but they don’t get the job done.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 4-5.\u00a0<\/strong>Spider-Man fights the Hounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Feral<\/strong> has previously appeared as a Hound in\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> (and in the previous issue). Reaper<\/strong> and Fatale<\/strong>, who we see a little later, have evidently been turned into Hounds after being captured in Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

Chantal<\/strong>, who could also be seen last issue, appears to be a new character. She says that she’s a Genoshan mutate who had her tattoo removed – in other words, she’s one of the mutants who were physically modified into subservient slave labourers in the version of Genosha that first appeared in late 1980s stories, and was overthrown by the X-Men in “X-Tinction Agenda” in 1990.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-11. <\/strong>Iceman and Spider-Man fight the Hounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Straightforward fight scene, really.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-14.\u00a0<\/strong>Iceman defeats the Hounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously, this issue really is mostly a fight scene.<\/p>\n

It’s not immediately obvious what hits Iceman in page 12 panel 3 and chips his face – maybe it’s just a regular projectile weapon, but perhaps it’ll be significant later on.<\/p>\n

Randall’s Island<\/strong> is the main New York prison operated by Orchis, as seen over in\u00a0X-Men\u00a0<\/em>(in particular).<\/p>\n

Snow drones\u00a0<\/strong>were indeed used by Iceman in issue #2 when he needed to take on all of the Elements of Doom.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.\u00a0<\/strong>Spider-Man rescues Iceman from the collapsing ice.<\/em><\/p>\n

We don’t see who’s responsible for the teleporter, but Iceman is presumably correct about it being Orchis. On the other hand, the breaking shard of ice is indirectly explained in the next scene.<\/p>\n

Iceman does understand that Orchis are trying to lure him out but takes the view that he’s willing to take them on and keep them occupied, since he’s better placed than most remaining mutants to defend himself.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-19.\u00a0<\/strong>Iceman and Spider-Man talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iceman recaps the premise of the series, but also makes the point that he depends on Romeo’s empathy to keep him solid, and explains that that’s why his ice broke at the end. He’s correct, but in the previous issue Iceman didn’t seem to fully realise how hard Romeo was working to keep him solid from a distance. As we’ll see later, Romeo has been taken out by Mr Clean while Iceman was in New York, and the breaking ice is supposed to indicate that.<\/p>\n

Iceman also takes pride in the fact that this is the longest that he’s remained solid away from Romeo. Naturally, in just a minute he’ll be feeling terribly guilty for not getting home sooner.<\/p>\n

Iceman claims that it’s “not safe” for mutants to get together, though this doesn’t quite explain why he hasn’t attempted to make contact with the remaining X-Men. Most likely, they’ve just been so effective at staying under the radar that he doesn’t know where they are. Admittedly, you’d have thought he would know where to get in touch with the Avengers, given that the Unity Squad have some degree of public profile over in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’m fairly sure the stuff about Spider-Man worrying about whether he was a mutant is a retcon (though a plausible one) – anti-mutant sentiment wasn’t a particularly big deal in the Silver Age.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page – a pro-Orchis angle on Iceman’s big iceberg stunt. Firestar gets a reference as a “heroic” mutant, because of her public role as an Orchis agent.<\/p>\n

The “masked mutant menace” mentioned in the top left is Nightcrawler, over in\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGE 21.\u00a0<\/strong>Vulture meets Pequod.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ve seen the Vulture in\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em>, where he was working on weaponing the technarch virus to create the Hounds.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page – a letter from Iceman to Romeo. Mostly, the point of this is to stress that Iceman’s castle has plenty of security features that are supposed to keep Romeo safe in Iceman’s absence – as we’ll see, they don’t get the job done, but it serves the purpose of showing that Iceman isn’t just an idiot who failed to anticipate this kind of attack.<\/p>\n

Clyde<\/strong> is the snow drone we saw at the end of issue #1, serving as a sort of butler. He was the one who wore black and yellow boots like early Silver Age Iceman.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.\u00a0<\/strong>Iceman finds that Mr Clean has seized the castle.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krkoan reads OUT COLD PART FIVE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. ASTONISHING ICEMAN #4 “Out Cold, part 4” Writer: Steve Orlando Artist: Vincenzo Carrat\u00f9 Colour artists: Java Tartaglia with Chris Sotomayor Letterer: Travis Lanham Designers: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1. Iceman and Spider-Man in action. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9602,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9600\/revisions\/9602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}