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| Art by Joe Jusko |
Although he
might have been gay in his initial 1963 appearance, Bobby Drake – the X-Man
known as Iceman - dated girls for more than 50 real-time years and missed out
on a chance to get with the gay superhero Northstar before coming out as gay
himself in 2016. And then his dating life became really entertaining. Here’s a
look back at his Marvel-time love life, both with his many attractions to
fellow mutant girls like Darkstar, Lorna Dane and Kitty Pryde, otherworldly
girls like Mirage and Cloud and human girls like Zelda and Opal Tanaka as well
as his fatal attractions to Infectia and Mystique and his first regular human boyfriends. Yes, he was the youngest X-Man, but also the most prolific in that area.
When writer Stan
Lee and artist Jack Kirby created the Marvel Comics Group series X-Men in 1963,
it was separated from other superhero comics at the time by the X-Men being
mutants, Homo Superior. They were born with an extraordinary gene that
manifested during puberty, resulting in superpowers. In the Marvel Universe,
mutants were not deviations from humanity, but instead the next step in
humanity’s evolution. That’s why mutants were hated by humanity, which feared
that mutants would take over the world. The X-Men’s mission was to find mutants and teach them how to deal with
their super abilities, as well as to protect both mutants and humanity from the
exploitation of evil mutants.
The X-Men’s teacher was Professor Charles Xavier, and in
the first issue the X-Men consisted of Cyclops (Scott Summers), Beast (Henry
McCoy), Angel (Warren Worthington) and the young Iceman (Bobby Drake). The
latter was not impressed by new member Marvel Girl (Jean Grey) that had all the
other boys in Xavier’s school drooling. “A girl… big deal!” Iceman thought to
himself and strode off. And so. the scene was set for the revelation years
later that he was gay, but before that, the X-Man Iceman – in his civilian
identity as Bobby Drake – dated several girls before admitting to his true
sexuality.
Straight double-dating and love triangle
Bobby Drake was revealed to have
dated a girl named Judy before joining the X-Men when his origin was first told
in back-up features in X-Men #44 to 46 by writer Gary Friedrich. Bobby Drake
was living with his parents in a small town in Nassau County before moving to
Westchester County, New York, to take up residence at Charles Xavier’s School
for Gifted Youngsters. On a cruise for teenagers around Manhattan in Strange
Tales #120 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Bobby Drake hit on Dorrie Evans, not
knowing she was the girlfriend of Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four. Then he
got a girlfriend of his own, Zelda – a waitress he met in X-Men #7 at a coffee
house in New York frequented by bohemians. Soon Bobby Drake and his X-Men
teammate Henry McCoy (Beast) were hanging out at the coffee house regularly on
double dates with Bobby seeing Zelda and Henry seeing Zelda’s friend Vera
introduced in X-Men #19.
Writer Roy Thomas took over with
X-Men #20 and kept the very straight double-dating going and had Bobby come of
age by turning 18 in X-Men #32. Following X-Men #47, Bobby and Zelda’s
relationship seemed to end when new writer Arnold Drake had Bobby met the girl
Lorna Dane on a street in San Francisco in X-Men #49. Bobby took a liking to
her and brought her to his apartment where she turned out to be a mutant
herself. However, nothing serious developed between them because Lorna Dane
developed an attraction to the mutant Alex Summers known as Havok instead. The
triangle culminated in X-Men #66. March 1970, by returning writer Roy Thomas
who had Havok ask Iceman if Lorna agreed that she was his girl – the final
issue featuring new stories until X-Men #94 in 1975. In between those issues,
the straight love triangle seemed to get resolved in Hulk #150 from 1972 by
writer Archie Goodwin where Havok had left the X-Men following a fight with
Iceman over Lorna and Lorna followed Havok to his desert hideout. Stan Lee had
Iceman appear with another girl – possibly Zelda - in Amazing Spider-Man #92
from 1971 anyway.
On friendly terms with mutant ex-girlfriends
In Marvel mags cover dated February
1971 it said on the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page: “We sure hope you caught
Spidey’s recent ish #92 – the one featuring Iceman. The reason we mention it is
that our chilly little cherub was such a smash hit in that yarn that we’ve been
toying with the idea of giving Iceman a strip of his own. So, as soon as we can
find an artist and a writer who can stand the temperature (ouch!), don’t be too
surprised - !”
However, Iceman did not get his own
book at that time and when the X-Men were relaunched as “the all-new,
all-different” X-Men by writer Len Wein in 1975, Iceman left the team and
Xavier’s school in X-Men #94. Instead, he joined The Champions in their first
issue written by Tony Isabella that same year. The series lasted for 17 issues
during which Iceman developed a crush on the Russian mutant Darkstar. When the
team fell apart in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man # 17 by writer Bill
Mantlo in 1978, Bobby declared his love to Darkstar, but she decided to return
to Russia, leaving him single once again.
It didn’t take Bobby Drake long to
pick up another girl, though. In the 1978 Incredible Hulk Annual #7 by writer
Roger Stern, he was dating a Teresa Sue Bottoms, but upon meeting his friend,
the angelic Warren Worthington, she seemed to forget all about Bobby while
drooling over the Angel. In 1981, Bobby was still dating Terri in Marvel
Two-In-One #76 plotted by Tom DeFalco, though.
Following his first solo feature as
the hero Iceman in Bizarre Adventures #27 in 1981, Bobby Drake had a reunion
with Lorna Dane – and her boyfriend Alex Summers – in Uncanny X-Men #146 by
writer Chris Claremont, only to conclude that while he would always have a weak
spot for her in his heart, he could finally accept that she loved someone else.
He had a similar meeting with Darkstar in Marvcl Super Hero Contest of
Champions #1 written by Bill Mantlo in 1982.
Falling for otherworldly girls
In 1983, Iceman joined the superhero-team
the Defenders in Defenders #122 written by J. M. DeMatteis who in 1984 also
wrote the very first four-issue limited series starring Iceman. In his own book
at last, Iceman literally fell head-over-heels for a girl named Marge Smith
during a visit with his parents in Long Island. Of course, she turned out to
not be a regular girl at all, but Mirage, daughter of the otherworldly
Oblivion, so of course that didn’t end well.
When Peter B. Gillis took over
writing the Defenders with New Defenders #132 that same year, Iceman didn’t
fare much better in love when another otherworldly being named Cloud flirted
with Bobby Drake, only to be revealed as a nebula who had taken the forms of a
dead straight human couple – changing between the sexes. This genderbending
seemed to turn Bobby Drake off and the amnesiac Cloud left the New Defenders in
#150 upon realizing what she really was. Then the book got cancelled with New
Defenders #152 so that Iceman and his Defenders teammates Beast and Angel could
rejoin the other original X-Men Cyclops and Marvel Girl in the new X-Factor
series in 1986.
Still dating anything but ordinary girls
In X-Factor #29 written by Louise
Simonson, the villainous Infectia set her sights on Iceman and practically
threw herself at him in the very next issue. Iceman ignored warnings from his
friend Beast that she was up to no good, but Iceman was too smitten with her to
listen. When Infectia sure enough turned out to be a villainess, Beast saved Iceman
from her dangerously infective kiss at great risk to himself in X-Factor #31.
In X-Factor #52 from 1990, Iceman
began dating the Japanese girl Opal Tanaka who worked at a record store in
Manhattan and was into Bobby Drake in his civilian identity. Like almost everyone
of Bobby Drake’s girls, Opal was no ordinary girl either. In X-Factor #63 and
64 it was revealed that she was the granddaughter of a Yakuza crime lord. Bobby
Drake continued to date her, though, and after having rejoined the X-Men, he introduced
her to his parents in Uncanny X-Men #289 written by Scott Lobdell. However, the
relationship ended in Uncanny X-Men #305 from 1993 when Bobby Drake and Opal
had an argument about Iceman using her as bait to trap some villains.
Missing out on Nortstar amidst drama with past girlfriends
While many of Bobby Drake’s crushes
and romantic relationships with girls, mutants and otherworldly beings seemed
to be mostly platonic and didn’t go anywhere, he might have had sex with Opal
Tanaka, though, because in the second four-issue Iceman limited series written
by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning in 2001, Bobby Drake suspected that he might be
the father of a child Opal had given birth to after leaving him. It turned out
that Bobby Drake wasn’t the father after all, but he had been prepared to start
a new life with Opal and the child anyway.
In 2002, Iceman joined a new team
of X-men in Uncanny X-Men #410 by writer Chuck Austen. When the gay superhero
Northstar also joined the team in Uncanny X-Men #414, Northstar suffered an
unrequited crush on Iceman because there were still no indications that Bobby
Drake was gay himself. In Uncanny X-Men #425, Lorna Dane told Northstar that
she had never slept with the “immature” Bobby Drake and the X-Men’s school
nurse Annie Ghazikhanian had to tell Bobby Drake that Northstar was gay because
Bobby hadn’t realized it on his own.
Annie Ghazikhanian was treating Bobby
Drake for a secondary mutation that would leave him a man of ice permanently
and the two shared a kiss in Uncanny X-Men #425. Still, Annie went for Alex
Summers which made this the second time Iceman lost a girl he was interested in,
to fellow X-Man Havok.
A straight love-triangle revisited
When Alex Summers broke off his
wedding to Lorna Dane to be with Annie Ghazikhanian, Bobby Drake confessed to
still loving Polaris in Uncanny X-Men #426 in 2003. She thought it was sweet
after all these years, but it wasn’t until X-Men vol.2 #165 by writer Chris
Claremont that she had recovered enough from her break-up with Havok to respond
to Bobby Drake which she did by giving him a kiss under the Mistletoe at
Christmas in 2004.
In 2005, Peter Milligan started his
run as X-Men writer with X-Men vol. 2 #166 and gradually rekindled the 1970
love triangle between Iceman, Lorna Dane & Alex Summers. Annie had quit her
job as the X-Men’s school nurse because the X-Men were too dangerous to be around,
and the now single Alex Summers was interested in Lorna Dane again. In X-Men
vol. 2 #173 Alex Summers confessed to Lorna Dane that he still loved her, but
she rejected him to keep from hurting Bobby Drake. However, Bobby Drake was now
unable to change back to his human form and was an iceman permanently, so his
relationship with Lorna Dane was most likely strictly platonic.
By X-Men vol. 2 #180, Iceman could
change back to Bobby Drake once more, but then Lorna Dane left the X-Men along
with Alex Summers and they rekindled their romance while Bobby Drake stayed
with the X-Men, single once again after having lost Lorna Dane to Alex Summers
for the second time. When Lorna and Alex returned to the X-Men, Bobby Drake
respected their relationship in X-Men vol. 2 #186.
Fatal attraction to a lethal MILF
In X-Men vol. 2 #188 from 2006, the
book got a new writer, Mike Carey, which meant a new team of X-Men and a new
love – or rather sex - interest for Iceman. It began in X-Men vol. 2 #190 when
the villainess Mystique gave Iceman mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Mystique was
the biological mother of X-Man Nightcrawler and the adoptive mother of X-Man
Rogue. In X-Men vol.2 #193 it was Iceman’s turn to help Mystique out and in
#197 and 198, they started flirting with each other and in #199 they kissed
even though Mystique was supposedly a lesbian, confessing her love for the now
dead Destiny to Iceman in #197.
The relationship between Iceman and
Mystique culminated in X-Men vol. 2 #200 where Mystique seduced Iceman. He
turned into Bobby Drake and the two of them had sex, only to have Mystique
betray him and the rest of the X-Men afterwards. In #201 she told Iceman she
slept with him to take him out in a strategic move as he was just too powerful
a mutant, but she couldn’t remember when she enjoyed an ambush more though.
This made it the second time Iceman had acted like a hormone-driven fool – the
first being with Infectia – and it still wasn’t even for a man.
In X-Men vol. 2 #203, Mystique
turned around and criticized Iceman’s sexual performance, though, but instead
of killing him she let him off with a warning that she would kill him the next
time she saw him and the two parted ways.
In the 2008 X-Men: Manifest Destiny mini-series, Iceman and the shape-changer Mystique squared off once again in a story by Mike Carey that had Mystique trying to lure Iceman to his doom by assuming the form of his former girlfriend Opal. He survived two murder attempts by her and stopped her from detonating a bomb on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. It turned out it was all her crazy way of showing she loved him. She escaped, swearing he would someday love her, but that day never came.
Iceman’s final straight romance
In 2011, writer Jason Aaron served
up a new direction and a new girlfriend for Bobby Drake beginning in Wolverine
and the X-Men #2 where Bobby Drake joined the senior faculty at the new Jean
Grey School for Higher Learning as an accountant. In that issue, Bobby Drake
followed an impulse to kiss his fellow X-Man Kitty Pryde who was a teacher at
the school. Like Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde had started out as the youngest
member on the X-Men team she had been recruited for and in Wolverine and the
X-Men #7, she kissed him back.
In Wolverine and the X-Men #24 from
2013, Bobby Drake went on a first date with Kitty Pryde and once they stopped
trying to act like they were normal people and accepted that their lives are
ridiculous, they had their greatest date ever and sealed it with a kiss. In
Wolverine and the X-Men #32 they seemed to be an item, working together at the
Jean Grey School and Iceman calling her “babe.”
In a storyline by writer Marjorie
Liu running from Astonishing X-Men #62 to 65 in 2013, Bobby had been infected
with an Apocalypse Seed that made him unleash his darker impulses, like calling
his old girlfriends Lorna Dane, Opal and Annie and having them show up at a
café where he was hanging out with Kitty Pryde and the recently married
Northstar. Then Kitty Pryde didn’t know if her relationship with Bobby Drake
was serious or not. She met with Opal to talk about Bobby Drake and how Opal
felt his racist father had come between them. Then Bobby Drake talked with Opal
himself about how she had lied to him about her son Robert being his just in
time for Mystique to show up and take the Apocalypse Seed from Iceman. But a
rift had now been formed between Kitty Pryde and Bobby Drake and in X-Men:
Battle of the Atom #2 written by Jason Aaron in 2013 she quit the Jean Grey
School and broke up with Iceman.
Coming out in his own series
In 2016, Bobby Drake had fallen for
so many women, readers might have trouble swallowing yet another one. Maybe
that’s why writer Brian Michael Bendis decided it was time for a new direction
for the character and had a time-travelling young Bobby Drake confront the
adult Bobby Drake in Uncanny X-Men #600 telling him he was gay? With a tear,
the adult Bobby Drake admitted to being gay too. He had just repressed those
feelings and done things to see if maybe he was straight. Now he admitted that
he thought his X-Men teammate Angel was so hot it was annoying.
In Extraordinary X-Men #6 written
by Jeff Lemire that same year, Bobby Drake came out to his openly gay student
Anole. It was the first time he came out to somebody of his own volition as
opposed to being confronted with it and admitting it.
In 2017, Iceman got his own ongoing
series written by Sina Grace who was not only gay himself but also had a firm
grasp for Iceman’s history and an uncanny ability to write engaging stories and
witty dialogue. In the very first issue, Bobby Drake signed up for a dating site
before confronting his ex-girlfriend Kitty Pryde in the next issue. She was
running the Xavier Institute where Bobby Drake was working now. She was miffed
she had to hear from another mutant that her ex was now gay, so Anole must have
gossiped, but now she was no longer an angry ex but a concerned friend.
In the third issue, Bobby Drake
came out in a text message for friends Northstar, the Human Torch and
Spider-Man who seemed okay with it, as well as for ex-girlfriends Opal and
Lorna Dane. Opal had no clue but thought it was cool and Lorna Dane figured she
picked Alex Summers because a part of her had always kind of thought Bobby
Drake was gay. Finally, after a failed attempt or two Bobby Drake came out to
his parents in the fourth issue with his mother asking in the fifth issue if her
son had been with a man. He replied: “No. Not yet.”
Iceman’s first boyfriend
At a party in Iceman vol. 3 #4, X-Man
Wolverine’s bisexual son, the morally depraved Daken, asked Bobby Drake for a
dance and thought Bobby Drake wanted him, but Bobby Drake really hated him
because of past misdeeds and soon they were at each other’s throats, slugging
it out and a feud ensued between them. So, Bobby Drake didn’t go for bad guys.
What kind of man did he like?
The answer came in Iceman vol. 3 #6
where a regular human guy named Judah Miller picked him up in line for a
shoe-sale while on a visit to Los Angeles. The two of them went with their
friends to a club in West Hollywood where Bobby Drake and Judah danced and
kissed and Judah invited Bobby Drake to come to his place so they could “talk,
and stuff.” He wasn’t turned off by Bobby Drake turning out to be Iceman at
all, so…
In Iceman vol. 3 #7, Bobby Drake
was kissing Judah on a couch at Judah’s place, and they may or may not have
gone all the way – Bobby Drake refused to tell his friends. But they probably
did, because back at the Xavier Institute in New York, Bobby Drake texted with
Judah who told him that he wasn’t proposing a long-distance relationship, but
he’d like to keep knowing him and at the very least he had an ally in L.A. And
then Bobby Drake decided to move to L.A. But the very next issue, Judah showed
up in New York instead.
Still, the plan was for Bobby Drake
to move to Los Angeles to be with Judah Miller and in Iceman vol. 3 #9, Bobby
Drake’s friends at the X-Mansion threw him a farewell party where another gay
mutant, Rictor, hit on him. However, Daken crashed the party and almost killed
Iceman’s boyfriend so by issue #10, Judah Miller told Bobby Drake that his life
was too insane for him, and Judah didn’t think Bobby should move to Los Angeles
after all.
Kitty Pryde consoled Bobby Drake by
telling him the X-Men needed him to stay with them in New York anyway and in
#11 Bobby Drake did go on a date with fellow mutant Rictor, but none of them
were over their exes so the date didn’t go anywhere. And then the series got
cancelled.
From a one-night stand and a bad date to a boyfriend remembered
Kitty Pryde wasn’t kidding when she
said the X-Men needed Iceman. In 2018, Bobby Drake had to put together an X-Men
team to pick up the slack while some of the members of the Gold team served
prison sentences. In X-Men Gold #23 by writer Marc Guggenheim, Iceman was
talked into letting the new Pyro, Simon Lasker onto his team – a decision he
certainly had no regrets about in X-Men Gold #32 where Bobby Drake and Simon
Lasker had slept together in a hotel room following Kitty Pryde’s aborted
wedding with X-Man Colossus. Bobby Drake reminded Simon Lasker that they had
agreed it was a onetime thing, but Simon pointed out that “last night was a THREE-time
thing.”
Then, later that same year, Sina
Grace got another shot at writing Iceman because the trade paperback editions
of his first 11 Iceman issues he wrote had sold well. In Iceman vol. 4 #1 there
was no mention of Simon Lasker, though. Instead in #3, Bobby Drake got a hit on
the dating site he had signed up for in vol. 3 #1 and went on a date with the
guy, Carlos. And just as they got around to kissing, Iceman had to go into
action against a Morlock along with his amazing friends Firestar and
Spider-Man. Carlos wasn’t scared though, so after the battle Iceman dumped him
for jumping into the fray for a selfie and wanting to tag him on social media.
Iceman got cancelled again after #5
in which there was a flashback to his relationship with Judah Miller. Sina
Grace’s storylines from the Iceman series were wrapped up in the 2019 Uncanny
X-Men: Winter’s End one-shot in which Bobby Drake got a present by mail from
Judah Miller in honor of Bobby Drake’s birthday. Then Bobby Drake got warned
off by his time-travelling future self against getting involved with Daken and Bobby
Drake told Jean Grey off for outing his time-travelling younger self whose
memories he now possessed. Those memories included a relationship with a guy
named Romeo from All-New X-Men vol. 2 # 13 to 19 that ended in X-Men Blue #1
and 2. Finally, Bobby Drake wrote Judah Miller back, leaving the possibility
open for them getting back together. But Bobby Drake is now single, happily gay
and anything goes…
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| Iceman trading card by Jim Lee |
