Iceman (Marvel)

Iceman in Marvel Voices: Pride v1 #1.

Iceman is a male comic superhero who features in Marvel Comics.

Biography

Origin

Bobby Drake in Iceman v1 #1.

Robert Drake was a male human Mutant born as the son of William Drake and Madeline Drake. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

When Bobby hit puberty, his mutant powers gradually began to manifest. He was constantly feeling cold and shivering, producing mild amounts of cold that he couldn’t fully control. (X-Men Forever v1 #3)

Later, Bobby's powers manifested themselves for the first time when he froze the water in the family swimming pool. His parents quickly realized that their son was a mutant, and warned him to be careful about his powers because others would grow to fear them. Bobby began secretly practicing the use of his powers and quickly learned how to coat his body in snow, he found the idea of being a mutant to be an amazing experience. In school, Drake began dating Judy Harmon earning the ire of local bully Rocky Beasely. In his free time, Bobby continued practicing how to use his mutant powers to freeze the moisture in the air. (X-Men Origins: Iceman v1 #1)

After manifesting his powers, his parents warned him not to use them in public as other people would not understand him with Bobby's mutation being kept a secret from the town. (X-Men v1 #44)

During school, a bully named Rocky Beasely had convinced his gang to attack Bobby during his date with his girlfriend Judy Harmon. Beasely was taking Judy away whilst his friends attacked Drake who in desperation used his powers thus freezing Rocky in place. This exposed his powers to everyone causing Judy to flee in terror as she wanted nothing to do with Bobby whilst the others told everyone else in the town. He then rushed to his parents place asking for their help and they told him that they had to leave town. However, a mob had organised outside the Drake house where they broke in with Bobby's father attempting to hold them off. Rather than leave his father, Bobby came to use his abilities to help them off but was overpowered by them. At the time, the local sheriff saw the matter was getting out of control and took Robert Drake into custody into protection. News of the event came to be reported in he news and attracting the attention of Professor Charles Xavier. (X-Men v1 #44)

Upon arriving at Xavier's school in Westchester County, the first thing Bobby did was ice up and use his powers, happy to finally be somewhere they he could be himself. (X-Men Origins: Iceman v1 #1)

Schism

After the Schism, Logan opened up the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning where he asked Bobby to serve as book keeper of the school’s finances. (Wolverine and the X-Men v1 #1)

House of X

After the establishment of Krakoa, the living island was declared a sovereign nation that was to be a homeland for Mutantkind. Iceman came to be among those that accepted the invitation to reside on it where he participated in the celebration over the creation of the new country. (House of X v1 #6)

He later came to be one of a number of Omega-level Mutants that participated in the large scale terraforming of Mars using his abilities. With his powers, he helped create large fields of ice that later came to melt into oceans of water. Once complete, the world was renamed planet Arakko with the entirety of the living island of Arakko being transported to its surface to populate it. (Planet-Size X-Men v1 #1)

Overview

Personality and attributes

As an infant, young Bobby looked up to his parents and thought very highly of them. He grew to love the beach. (Iceman v1 #2)

All his life, Bobby tried to accept everyone for who they were even before he got powers and was different. He had always been the one who made friends with the 'new kid' in class. During the third grade, he beat up the class bully for picking on smaller kids. All his life, he came to believe that he learnt these values from his parents. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

After Emma Frost took over his body, Drake came to be surprised at the sheer range of skill she managed with his abilities. This made him see that he had been a slacker over the years and had not been living to his full potential. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

His parents were aware of him being a Mutant and told him to hide his powers as they feared the response from ordinary humans that might target their son. (X-Men v1 #44)

Bobby Drake was born the son of William Drake and his wife Madeline Drake. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319) His father was noted for being Irish-American Catholic, whilst his mother was Jewish. (Iceman v1 #1) According to Iceman, his father had been an honest man, a hard worker, a veteran of war, a loving husband but was also bigoted against Mutants. It was said that his father was not a big fan of Bobby. He once told his son when he was a child that a man did not get anywhere in the world by dreaming and making castles in the sand. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

One of his cousins was Mary Drake who he had been close with and learnt Bobby was a Mutant when they were children. (Iceman v1 #1)

During high school, he was noted to had dated Judy Harmon with the two having gone on a number of dates together. When she saw his powers, she came to be terrified of him and never wanted to see him again. (X-Men v1 #44)

Powers and abilities

It was after Emma Frost once possessed his body that Bobby came to see that he had not been living to the full potential of his Mutant powers. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

Such was his power that he could make complicated structures going as far as creating a miniature city. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #319)

Iceman's power to generate cold was so great, he was able to stop a massive fusion device explosion. (X-Men v2 #199)

He had the ability to not only cover his body with ice, but to actually become organic ice. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #415)

He could also survive by transforming himself into other states such as liquid water and water vapor. Iceman was able to transform his body from a gaseous state back to a solid, although it was physically and mentally taxing. (X-Men v2 #190)

Bobby discovered that he was able to use his control over moisture to draw ambient moisture into himself and thus use that moisture to replace his bodies cells. He framed this ability as 'A body swap, done one piece- one cell- at a time', and by doing this was able to avoid receiving a fatal dose of neurotoxin, by letting the poisoned molecules of his body dissipate into vapor and be replaced by untainted water molecules from his surroundings. By using this ability he can heal/purge himself by remaking his own body. (X-Men: Manifest Destiny v1 #3)

His power later improved whereby he could produce multiple ice duplicates of various body configurations and manage controlling them. (Wolverine and the X-Men v1 #2) However, there was a danger that these free-roaming ice creations could become independent from him and develop a crude sentience with Iceman unable to reabsorb them. (Wolverine and the X-Men v1 #37)

Notes

• Iceman was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby where he made his first appearance in X-Men v1 #1 (September, 1963).
• In an interview, Mike Carey commented on the character during his Manifest Destiny story, "I feel of the original five X-Men, with the possible exception of Angel, Iceman is the one who's been most inconsistently developed. Every so often he'd just default back to being the joker, the wisecracker, and the rookie, which he empathically isn't. He's got as much combat experience as Cyclops and Beast. He deserves to have that reflected in the way he's portrayed. So in the adjectiveless 'X-Men' title and other places I've been playing with Bobby's character, developing his powers and personality, and trying to move him into the place where I think he ought to be...
• Carey later commented on the character being an Omega-level Mutant, "We've heard in the past that he's an Omega level mutant and at the height of his game he definitely is. He has powers that can influence the ecosystem of the entire world. We seldom see him operating on that level though. Things that he's been able to do in the past aren't always acknowledged as being part of his core power se. We've seen him get partially destroyed and recreate himself, which is something I had him do again in an adjectiveless 'X-Men' arc. He gets blown apart and than he just grows himself back again because he's made up of ice and ice is a crystal. With a crystal, every single part contains enough information to recreate the whole. I think the potential of his powers is almost limitless...
• In addition, he commented on Bobby Drake's personality, "He's devastatingly honest. He is very up-front with his emotions and his thoughts all the time. Also, he's obviously incredibly brave both in terms of facing external, physical danger as well as facing up to unpleasant situations and admitting his own mistakes."

Alternate Versions

The Sinister Iceman in Uncanny X-Force v1 #24.

• In X-Men: Alpha v1 #1 (1995), an alternate reality of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the Age of Apocalypse reality designated as Earth-295 in the Multiverse. Due to Magneto being harder on his students than Professor X, Bobby lacked his mainstream counterpart's sense of humor. Instead, Bobby became very cold and inhuman, making his teammates feel uncomfortable. In addition to his normal abilities, Bobby was capable of breaking down his body and merging it with another body of water to travel great distances in a matter of seconds. He could also bring others along through a process that he called 'moisture molecular inversion' though it was a painful process for the passengers. Bobby was also able to reconstitute his body from broken pieces.
• In Ultimate X-Men v1 #1 (2000), an alternate version of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the Ultimate Marvel reality designated as Earth-1610 in the Multiverse.
• In Secrets of the House of M v1 #1 (2005), an alternate reality of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the House of M reality designated as Earth-58163 in the Multiverse. When his mutant powers manifested, Bobby kept them a secret from everyone but his parents. His father turned him over to the authorities when the Human-Mutant War began because he thought he would be safer in custody than hunted as a renegade. Bitter over this perceived betrayal, Bobby jumped at the chance to join Apocalypse when that mutant freed him during a raid on the Alamo Mutant Camp. After the war ended and Magneto gave North Africa to Apocalypse, Iceman continued to serve loyally as one of the Horsemen. He participated in enslaving the human population of the area and forcing them to rebuild Egyptian monuments. Iceman was one of the mutants who volunteered to accompany Apocalypse when Magneto authorized the invasion of Wakanda. He distracted Storm, Sunfire and Namor long enough to allow Apocalypse to get past them.
• In X-Men: Legacy v1 #245 (2011), an alternate reality of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the Age of X reality designated as Earth-11326 in the Multiverse.
• In Wolverine and the X-Men v1 #29 (2013), an alternate possible future version of Bobby Drake was shown who had taken the name of Ice Master and resided on Earth-13729 in the Multiverse.
• In Age of X-Man Alpha #1 (2019), an alternate reality of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the Age of X-Man reality designated as Earth-TRN716 in the Multiverse. This version was part of a Mutant utopian society where all forms of emotional attachment were illegal with Iceman serving the elite Mutant enforcers of Department X.
• In Immortal X-Men v1 #10 (2023), an alternate version of Bobby Drake as Iceman appeared in the Sins of Sinister reality designated as Earth-TRN993 in the Multiverse.

In other media

Television

• In Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Iceman appeared in the setting of the animated television series where he was voiced by actor Frank Welker.

Films

• In X-Men, Iceman appeared in the setting of the live-action film where he was portrayed by actor Shawn Ashmore.

Video games

• In X-Men: Destiny, Iceman appeared in the setting of the video game where he was voiced by actor Jason Marsden.

Appearances

• X-Men v1: (1963)
• Uncanny X-Men v1:
• Iceman v1:
• X-Men v2:
• Wolverine and the X-Men v1:
• House of X v1:
• Marauders v1:
• Planet-Size X-Men v1: (2021)

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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