The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 4: The Smark Avengers Talk About Iceman

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Don't call it a come back! The Smark Avengers are back to continue their series of videos breaking down the original five X-Men with the "coolest" member to... no. No. I can't. I can't do this. Bobby "Iceman" Drake may be the youngest of the original five mutants but he's also one of the most powerful as an Omega Level... and yet also the most boring. Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they discuss Iceman and how despite always being used in series they never seem to do anything interesting with him!

I'm sure we'll just end up talking about this shit anyway, you know? Yeah. So to keep up with tradition, hey, you guys are being recorded. Sweet. We should have been technically, I feel like we should have been recording like 10 minutes ago. Yeah. So hi, everyone. It's been a very kind of productive 24 hours for the Smart Avengers.

Mainly, I logged into our YouTube account and found two whole episodes that I thought were lost that are now posted on the YouTube page. So the first one in chronological order is the episode where we kill Aquaman. So all of those references to Magic Waterhand that we've been making, it will now make sense if you've watched that first. Is it too late to change the name of the podcast to Magic Waterhand? No, I mean, we can rebrand, you know. The other episode was a watchalong that we did. where we watched the first two episodes of Japanese Spider-Man,

which, you know, not to toot my own horn or anything, but beat-beep. Because I did watch it without watching Japanese Spider-Man along with it, and I think we were pretty fucking funny. That's good to know. Yeah. It's so funny. Yeah. So we've got a couple episodes that are finished now.

The next episode is scheduled already in YouTube. So if you go to our YouTube page, you'll see that there's a thumbnail that says premiere. So that's going to come out on March 1st. And we're going to start having some episodes on YouTube come out automatically. So that'll keep me from forgetting to publish them. So we don't run into that problem again where I just think the episodes are gone forever. In reality, they've just been sitting out there. When you say go to our YouTube and click on the thing and it says March 1st for premiere,

By the time this episode goes out, that will already be over. Yeah. It's already passed. Just go to our YouTube page anyway. It's really fun. Yeah, go to our YouTube page and watch the other videos. Leave a comment. Talk about how great we are.

Yeah. Interact. Now, are we bad at promoting ourselves? Absolutely. I would just stop that are we bad? Yeah, we don't have like a Twitter account or an Instagram or I don't have a Twitter account and my Instagram's private. So if I were to promote it, it wouldn't fucking go anywhere. If you see a Twitter page that is the Smart Avengers that that's just somebody pretending to be us and trying to steal our client, you know, our good name.

Unless they're being nice about us in which case continue. Yeah, please do. Do the hard work for us. The networking. Because we're not going to do it. We're not great at it. I might end up having to do it, but that would mean getting back on Twitter. And I've not been on Twitter in like three-ish years now.

Yeah, I don't miss it, man. No. I don't miss it. But the engagement, we might need if we want more people to listen to this. Well, we can do an experiment where we go on Twitter and see if it makes a difference because I don't think it will. I think on Twitter, they have other shit to yelliboy.

Yeah. They're busy. I don't know. We could start making hot takes. That's what people do on YouTube when they want people to interact with them. Yeah, but you would have to do a hot take about something like political, right?

I feel like our hot takes aren't very hot. I feel like our hot takes are actually quiet, kind of like room temperature. Right. You couldn't be like hot take. You could kill Acoman if you just burn them cement, people were like, all right. Your method was pour cement down

his lungs. Right? Okay, I forgot but I'm glad that I'm still on the right track. It was cement based. You are. Submit was involved. And John's was to pull a Bugs Bunny and seduce Mary Lex Luthor. Oh, yeah.

John forgot about his husband already. If you're on our YouTube page, vote for which one you think is the most effective way of killing Ackleman. It's very important. Just go to one of our pages or one of our videos and just say, Samantha or Marge and we'll understand with them. Yeah, we make it one word.

It'll be the easiest way for you interact. You know what? Go to somebody else's YouTube page. Yeah. That's just right. Either Samantha or Marge. Yeah, go to Mr. Beasts YouTube page. I don't know who he is or what he does.

videos, yeah. Yeah, go to Markiplier. He has a lot of people who watch this. Just write cement. Yeah. Go to all of Markiplier's videos and put cement or marriage. Yeah. Okay.

Anyway. So that's the promotion. That might be the best start we've had yet, I think. So anyway, we're going to be kind of, we're going to be continuing on a tradition that we started about a year ago where we began. Actually, I do think it's been. officially a year, maybe a little over, where our very first episode, we decided that we were going to focus on one of the original 5 X-Men and then kind of branch out and do the rest.

So the very first one we did was Beast, which we might end up doing a follow-up on in about a month or so, depending on a storyline that's currently in progress for X-Force. Then we followed up and did Angel. And so we have three original X-Men left. and I think we have picked the most boring one to talk about because we're going to talk about Iceman Bobby Drake I mean we have to talk one at some point yeah

I'm hoping for Iceman Val Kilmer oh shit yeah we'll talk about Top Gun instead what that volleyball scene guys I haven't seen top gun you're not to say Top Gun yeah Nope. Highway to the danger zone.

But I don't have to. I get all the bits. I know all the references. I haven't even seen it. I don't have to see it now. You know? Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

Good for you. See? Yeah. Anyway. So, like you said, we were going to start going through the original X-Men. We kind of had,

to, I feel like we did an okay job kind of sandwiching him. Because I feel like Beast, there's a lot to talk about because of the very morally gray, slowly leaning towards the black until he's completely black at this point. Yeah. Then we went with Angel where we kind of talked about how he's only got really one major storyline and they keep going back to it. But don't you think it's funny real quick. Don't you think it's funny that in the angel storylines, the whole storyline was him,

morally going towards the black and then they just fuck that story line up so much and then with Beast they did it in one felt sweep like here it is you know what you mean like why couldn't they have done that with Angel surely that's what they were going for with Angel

with the whole Archangel thing him turning to the dark side and then they just I didn't know whether like it's not going to work with Angel fuck it let's do a beast they don't know without it right kind of so I mean they were like

beast they kind of left his morally gray for a while until they've just gone outright villain with him. They did that with archangel too because that's where we were talking about like the what was it the some sort of seed that gave him even more powers because that was another thing we talked about was how it seemed that what can we do with angel we'll just give him more powers. So like he had like a halo at some point and his blood could heal people and all sorts of weird shit. But we're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Robert Lewis Drake, who was one of the original Five X-Men debuted in the X-Men issue number one in September of 1963, created by the great Stanley and Jack Kirby. Yes, Iceman, I think, technically, is the second ever X-Men.

His backstory is he was on a date with a girl. and a guy tried to hit on the girl and Iceman and him got into a scuffle and he ended up freezing him in a block of ice. That's not fair. No, no, frozen in a block of ice. And that's how his power is manifested for the first time. And so the local police put him in a prison cell for his own protection. And then Cyclops basically knocked the wall down. with his optic blast.

And they got into a fight. And Xavier talked to him and said, you should come to my special school. I'll talk to your parents. I know that I sent my only other student to abduct you from prison. But you should come to my school. Yeah, he's like, boy, you guys got a lot of trouble.

When are you coming to my school? It's just you guys and me all alone in the big school, you know, you big rough boys. come back to my place, you know. It's a real, real shitty business. But you look back at it now, with hindsight. Yeah. Real problems.

Back in the 60s, I suppose as well as that's what everybody did. And to be fair, you kind of wonder with Xavier's powers, is he like mind controlling the parents to be okay with this as well? Like, he's basically kidnapping the kids. Didn't they do that with Gene Gray? Wasn't that like a thing they did with Gene Gray? Or it was implied that Xavier, like, manipulated her or her parents? into coming to the school?

I mean, let's face it. It's the kind of thing Charles Xavier would do. Yeah. He's a real suspicious character. He's dubious. He is dubious, yeah. Yeah.

If we're doing an episode about all of the X-Men, we're going to have to do one about Charles Xavier at some point. Yeah. I mean, he's not one of the original five, but he is their leader. Exactly, but he's part of the X-Men

from the get-go. You know, we're going to end up talking this is to me a testament to how interesting Iceman is a character. We talked more about Beast Angel and Xavier than we are doing ice. We are doing our best to not talk about Iceman.

Yeah, no. And I will read through a list of accolades Iceman has, and it will just further confuse and irritate me. So are you familiar with the Doom Patrol? With the What patrol? The Doom Patrol. Oh, yes.

I watched the, um, the TV show from a couple years ago. So it's like, kind of implied that Dr. Niles Calder is the Xavier of the Doom Patrol and not just because he's in a wheelchair. But like he was he was portrayed, especially in Grant Morrison's run as incredibly manipulative. And he kind of was in that beast area of like, I think it's implied that he. was kind of the cause of a lot of the freak accidents that made the Doom Patrol the Doom Patrol. Like, I guess that's why. So the Doom Patrol has like always been equivalent to the X-Men.

They never, ever had anywhere near the same level popularity. But like, the Doom Patrol were a team of freaks. Like they were all of these characters that were in these freak accidents that left them with powers that were kind of as debilitating as they were helpful. And they fought like the weirdest fucking. villains. So it does feel like they were the equivalent of the X-Men mutants characters. But like the real difference is like, and we'll talk about, I'm sure this came up in another episode, something that we've done in the past because it feels like it's way too common of a criticism. The X-Men have always confused me in the sense of like hated and

feared in a world that doesn't understand them. But like people are fucking cool with Spider-Man and they're cool with like other superheroes. where it's like what makes them any different like oh these people are just born with their powers they weren't bitten by radioactive whatever they gave them their abilities so like it just feels weird that like people are cool with the Avengers

but you know the X-Men fuck them I think that's they have touched upon that in Spider-Man we're like you know not everybody like Spider-Man and there was a long period of time and not everybody liked Spider-Man

and part of that was like the propaganda thing with the J. Jonah Jamesonel. Yeah, exactly. And so that also played into the X-Men as well. Like it was like the reason that everybody didn't like them wasn't just because they were freaks. Although that was part of it. Like there was also like a government thing and a media thing about around that whole thing that kept the fear of the people up against the meetings. Like that that that was part of it. we saw it. You know what you mean? Yeah. Like the introduction of the sentinels and stuff like that and mutant registration and that kind of thing. Yeah. Like, although I do agree that like you see like the fucking Hulk or whatever. But they, but even then people were afraid of the Hulk. Like,

because that was part of him as well. Like people like, this guy's fucking indestructible and unbeatable. Like what do we stay away from him? Like we're fucked to become start talking, you know? And then Captain Merger is just some fucking guy. Iron Man's just some fucking guy, you know? So like it's, it's, it's tricky. But I think there's definitely differences between the public reception to Tony Stark and the public reception to Spider-Man, you know. Sure. I just like I said, it just was always kind of confusing me.

There's like nothing really, for the most part. And this is kind of why I liked the Grant Morrison run with X-Men is that Grant actually. would make mutants who had weird powers or things that would make them unpleasant to look at like beak who just like he he's got like he's basically like a bird

but he can't fly so he just looks like a weird freaky feathered beaked dude or like no girl who's just a sentient brain you know yeah he had he had a lot of like very charg just like that which I fucking love

because like you know because that's it. Like it shows the whole spectrum of being a mutant. Isn't it a coincidence that all the mutants that were born before that had like powers you could use in a fight? They were, you know, like, you know, like, where are the freaks, right? Where are the weird mutants? Wouldn't there be some, you know? Yeah.

Glob Herman. Yeah, like a fucking guy made me out of gas and they just put him in a containment suit. Like, what does that even mean? That doesn't make any sense. But there is. So that actually does come of, I can make that come back to Iceman, oddly enough. So Iceman's abilities is that he can control ice,

as the name would suggest, like cold and manipulating water into freezing and whatnot. His very first appearance, his ice form looked more like snow. So he was just this like snow-covered silhouette wearing boots. That look did not stay. He did take on like the, more armored ice kind of crystal looking form.

And a recurring thing for the character seems to be his identity crisis with like his powers. And another fun thing they decided to do with his parents is they made his parents bigots. So like Iceman's mom and dad kind of hated him for being a mutant. So that's fun. But yeah, like, it's, Ice Man just never really got too many major storylines, and a lot of the storylines revolved around his love life, which like they first mentioned like Lorna Dane, who was Polaris. And he had a thing with Polaris and that didn't work. And he quit being in the X-Men after the stuff that happened in Krokoa, they gave us the all-new, all different X-Men of like, you know, Wolverine Colossus and stuff. and then he became an accountant.

That's exciting. What? Yeah, yeah, Iceman became an accountant. He had to go to school. He didn't have to. Yeah, he became a, Drake retires from life as a superhero to earn a college degree in accounting.

That's a line from his Wikipedia page. This is during the time that he was a member of the champions and the defenders. So he leaves the X-Men and they put, him on the champions, which I think he was on with Angel, and they put him on the defenders where he was on with Beast. So like, so much going on with both teams that he had time to go back to college, college, I'm becoming an accountant.

Yep. Well, I don't think it was at the same time. I think the champions was first, and then that didn't really last very long. And then, then, then champions is a weird fucking team. Yeah. Wasn't that, that's that. Now, that was the team that it was like Black Widow, Hercules, Ghost Rider, Angel and Iceman, right? Mm-hmm.

That's a lineup right there. It's a perfect team. Right? And then there was- We would have all picked that team if we were like, pick, make your best superhero team. Like, it's definitely this one. You know, I was always surprised they brought back the champion's name. And they gave it to like a bunch of like the younger characters in Marvel.

like Miss Marvel and like Slough in Cyclops like the Cyclops from the past it got brought into the president. He was a member of that group. Yeah, yeah. Nova. I think Miles Morales was a member. Yep.

So like vision as well. Yeah. Yeah. And again, we're finding ourselves talk about more interesting characters than ice man. It's going to happen a lot. It's been it's a very negative thing. But again,

it's going to be me. negative because I read through his Wikipedia article and a lot of his storylines do revolve around like the same couple of plot points. He is more powerful than he knows, but he is insecure or afraid to experiment with his powers. So he gradually gets stronger and more powerful due to circumstances beyond his control. Like Emma Frost takes over his mind for a period of time to do some stuff. she like in control of his body makes him do bigger stuff than he's ever done so that's how he finds out like oh i can do more

then there's a time where i think he gets like blown into pieces for the first time and he's able to like reconstruct himself for the first time yeah he that it happens a lot to him he gets blown up a good bit once they figured out that's a thing he can do and survive what a coincidence uh i think There's a point where he's like romantically involved with mystique and mystique like. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you didn't know that? What? What?

Why? Who would have done that? In the 90s, and there was an X factor run. It was after like the Peter David run with like havoc and stuff where this was like an X factor team that was led by forge. And like some of the characters on the team were like villains that were, it was basically like a suicide squad situation where they were like rigged with like an explosive or something that made them compliant to the United States government.

I remember this. So like, Mystique and Sabretooth were on that. Exactly. Mystique and Sabretooth. So it was at that time that he got he got romantically linked with Mystique and like she did something to his brain and he was able to touch even more powers. What? So like it's like a reoccurring thing with him where he like learns he has more.

more and more powers. So that's one plot point. And then the other plot point is that his parents are bigots. So it's like, oh, you know, I'm reconciling with my parents, but then Sentinel's attack and like blow up the house. And now my mom and dad are mad at me because if it wasn't for me being a gosh darn mutant, their house wouldn't have been exploded by a Sentinel, you know? They're not wrong. Technically. Can you imagine coming home and your whole house has been blown up and you're like, I bet that's our fucking mutant kid again, isn't it? God damn it, Bobby. Damn it, Bobby.

That's where they got it from. That's where they got it from. That's where King of the Hill got it from. Damn, Bobby. So, so yeah, those are like the two big plot points that people do with them. And then there's, you know, up until the last few years, they would throw in a girlfriend character where it was like people would try to attack him through her and he'd save the day, but then she'd break up with him because like, hey,

I'm not cool with like getting attacked because you're a mutant. So this isn't going to work. And that's kind of been it. But the character always gets put on these like X-Men teams all the time. So like case in point, he was one of the original X-Men and then he was in the champions. And then he was in the defenders. And then he was in, um, X-Factor. X factor.

The very first X factor, which was the original X-Men. And then he got put in X-Men again, X-Men Gold under Storm. And then he was in X-Factor. And like they just keep, he just keeps filling out the ranks. And I just, to me, and we talked about this before we started recording, to me, he's, it's a boring power set. And his like reputation of like, oh, he's like the comic relief. like he's not that fucking funny either like I don't know what

what is he bringing you know like and that's the thing when you have a character whose main power is there an elemental I feel like you have to give them a strong personality and I think like the the key point that you should point out is the human torch and the fantastic four

like there's more to Johnny Storm than just like you know being a hot head and like fucking around with the thing like he does have some depth to him. But I think that's the difference between the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Where in the Fantastic Four, he's one of like four characters. And in the X-Men, he's on a team with like 12 people. It's the Eternal's problem again, you know, like we have way too many characters. We can't develop anyone at, we can't develop everyone at the same time. Right. I think that's

a really good point that I kind of want to expand on a little bit. Where you say that Johnny Storm is he's one character in a group full of very distinct characters. the four of them are very distinct people in the fantastic four. And then even if you look at the original 5X men, they're all pretty distinct except for Iceman. And personalities aside, right, let's even leave the personalities aside to go back to what you were talking about with the storylines and things like that.

All of us right now with no prior research just off the cuff could pretty easily come up with at least, one major storyline for four out of five of the original X-Men, right? Immediately, we can go, well, they did this and this is really important, this, this, and this, this, and this. But for Iceman, there's never been a big, like, he turns into Archangel, or he turns into Phoenix, or, you know what he mean? There kind of is, because we, we, we're, you know, I feel like we've tiptoed around it

long enough. the biggest thing that's happened to Ice Man in the last like ever was when Brian Michael Bendis wrote the original 5X men coming to the present day one of the things that he did was teenage Gene Gray probed into teenage Bobby Drake's brain

and outed him as being a homosexual and is wrong on like a lot of levels yeah yeah it was a weird choice It was a weird choice. And they have addressed it. I think it's in one of the, they did address it with like, I think like adult ice man confronting Gene Gray about it and going,

hey, that was fucked up. But like, sometimes in comics, I feel like some writers want to make their mark. And they go about the weirdest way trying to make their mark. or it comes from a place of like good intentions of like hey i want to make sure this group this uh marginalized group has some representation but like it was a really weird way ago to go about

outing ice man as homosexual to have like a psychic just flat out out him like that is fucked up well that's fucked up but then also it's kind of like out of nowhere like there's been no prior like well but then also by that point he wouldn't have been the only

gay X man there already was representation already with Mystique and with North Star yeah yeah mystique very very major so they recently in uncanny X-Men

I think it was revealed that she's actually Nightcrawler's father Yes, I love that they finally like confirm that. So his mother is destiny and his father is mystique. Yeah. That's just the fun of being the shape shifter. That's what Chris Clermott wanted to do and he wasn't allowed to. And so like they actually like confirmed it now.

I'm like, that's fucking awesome. Yeah. That's that's really. That was handled really well. Yes. So here's the thing. A lot of Ice Man's story. in the past have centered around insecurity with himself, whether it was insecurity about using his

powers, like that where we talked about where he kind of discovered that he was a lot more powerful than he thought and he just wasn't pushing himself. Or it was his kind of, um, at times self-loathing of being a mutant. If you were to look at the subtext of that, as a modern day writer, I think you can make the argument of, all right, well, maybe Bobby Drake's been a closeted gay man his whole life. You can make that argument. And I feel like you're not going to be wrong for making that argument. Because at the end of the day,

it's subtext and it can be, it's kind of open for interpretation in that sense. So I don't fault Brian Michael Bendis for going that route. But here's the thing. I also don't trust Brian Michael Bendis to have done that level of research. Considering the man has had history of not. caring about continuity before he started writing a character. Right.

So I will say is if anything, maybe it was just a happy accident. I like I like your use of the word maybe whenever you've already established that. Yeah. The word maybe is not necessary. Maybe it was a disingenuous, maybe. So, so anyway, Iceman is now an out gay character. He's been given a couple of solo series. to explore being an openly gay mutant.

There was a, the adult Iceman came out because his younger version, like approached him and was like, hey, you're the older version of me. Like, why have you never come out? And I think like,

I think Iceman actually replied with like, he was afraid of being both a mutant and a gay man. Like, that's double hate. against him in the world, which I feel like is a that's a solid argument one can make. I don't think so.

I think that surely it cancels, right? Like, if you're already hated for being a mutant, fucking who cares? They already hate you. Right? Just do whatever you want. I can see any way you're coming from.

Yeah. People already hate you. What are you going to do? Well, but that's the thing is the character is established of having a lot of insecurity. And like he's finally been able to come to terms with the fact that he is a very powerful mutant. And now it's like, oh, I need to come to terms with something else again.

I could, I can maybe see that. The thing about, um, about that though is one of the storylines they did, um, they did establish in this new, in the new series was like, he came out to his parents and his parents who I, that's one of my. things of like I there is a major kind of push for characters that are you know, queer or of a different sexuality or gender to like come out to their parents. And I think that comes from a very good place of like making people aware like, hey, this is a very difficult thing to do, but you can still do it if you want to. But like it makes very little sense in my opinion for ice. man to want to do that because historically his parents were not cool with him being a fucking

mutant and guess what they also weren't cool with him being gay uh considering like it's established that his he comes from a very Roman Catholic family on top of like everything going on. I think currently in the comics he's dating Emma Frost's little brother which if you didn't know Emma Frost had a little brother than you know i think you're one of the other 99% of comic readers out there is it just is it just you and me did you know i think john d'i did you were you aware of it was named christian frost yeah yeah is that because we talked of this before i feel like we don't think so i don't think we have i think we have he i only know because he was in some of the Marauders. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah, he was in the Marauder series. Yeah. Because they also established that. Yeah. He was just there. He was pretty much. He's just baking muffins for Iceman. So, so yeah, like he was, um, that was another kind of thing is they established Kitty Pride being like, well, first, he was Jason Aaron and Wolverine and the X-Men pairing Iceman with Kitty Pride. And then, um, was it Jerry Duggan?

writing Marauders? I think so, yeah. Yeah, that seems right. That feels right. Is there just establishing that they're, you know, they're still really good friends. And I think in the Ice Man comics,

Kitty is the one who's like kind of pushing him to come out to his parents. But like, the Ice Man comic series, I don't think lasted very long. Because at the end of the day, it can be for any group, any marginalized group. If the main character is fucking Iceman,

I don't know who's reading that. I'm not going to blame that book on low sales because it's a gay male character. I'm blaming it because the character is fucking ice man. Right. That's the problem. The problem isn't that people aren't buying it because the character is gay. The problem is people aren't buying it because they don't care about Ice Man. And then if you look historically as to why they should care about Ice Man, there's no, there's nothing.

There's no reason for people to care about Ice Man. which is bizarre. Like we said, like all the other five X-Men, the other four have got like a lot of like good, solid concrete storylines

that make them into like legit contenders, like big deals in the comics world. Iceman never did. You know what you mean? If Iceman's only big story then is, by I guess he's gay, like as a kind of off-handed fucking thing,

like that's not a personality trait. that's not a big storyline that's not a comic book thing that's just something that happened that doesn't really affect him as a as a superhero do you what you mean yeah like it has consequences obviously in the story lines but like if you're if you're reading a superhero story you want to see them fucking be cool and fight stuff like we were talking about how ice man is like uh conflicted about his his crazy amazing powers but he doesn't do anything with him so it doesn't matter if he has

a mega level mutant powers or not because he doesn't do anything with them and there's no consequence of him having them you know what I mean? Nobody ever like uses Ice Man's powers against him or uses Ice Man's powers for their own benefit or Iceman doesn't like

do something like Beast would do where like he uses his own powers to try and benefit himself. None of that shit happens. He just exists. He just exists and then also he happens to be gay do you what you mean like to me I always thought it was one of those things were like is this really like

a really good thing for like the gay community or did they just randomly say this guy's gay and then move on with it right surely like we were talking about with Mystique and with North Star those are characters that kind of use their um

sexuality as not not okay it's It's like a whole thing. Like, like, mistake being gay is, is a big part of it. But she has other traits to her as well. She's an interesting character.

Do you mean? Iceman doesn't have that. If you just look at him and go, oh, he's gay. Like, that's it. That's all it is. Do you what you mean? Well, so there's a couple more things to Iceman. Well, first off, let's go ahead and get this out of the way.

Iceman does show up outside of the comic books. He's played by Sean Ashmore in the X-Men movies that Fox put out. He was in like, what, three or four of those movies. And he also showed up in the kids show, the Marvel Superhero Squad. And I think he's a playable character in like Marvel versus Capcom and some other like video game stuff. He does show up outside of the comic books. So that's that's kind of important to point out. The other thing that we can also talk about is Iceman is considered an Omega Level Mutant. So Omega Level Mutants are basically for those who are uninitiated. These are like the

most powerful mutant characters in the comic book continuity. So these are people whose very power can fuck shit up basically So here's like what there's the list that I'm looking at comes from Comic Book Resources there are 21 Omega Level mutants and Iceman

comes in at number 17 of that However for clarity we should say that John also has a list from Wikipedia Yeah and mine was only 13 characters long I'm kind of intrigued like what other

mega level mutants are being counted by the CBR one. But also, if Iceman was number 17 on Corey's list, what number... Yeah, we're going to years. What number is Iceman on a John's list? There's no real numbers. This is just

random list. I think there's just alphabetical order. They put it in. So, yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to it other than that. Okay. So like just to let people know like other names on this that are omega little mutants,

you have Magneto, you have Storm, you have Gene Gray, you know, Quentin Choir, Legion, the number one ranked mutant, like Omega Level Mutant is Franklin Richards, Reed Richards kid, who is a mutant or was a mutant. I'm not sure if he's still considered one or not. No, apparently he, uh, like used his powers to like change his DNAs so it made it look like he was he did it unconsciously because he was such a big fan of mutants but uh no he isn't actually a mutant well that would make what what does that mean he is then

it's the matter yeah what what he what does that mean so he's oh boy well okay let's get in a Let's get into weird science. So he's the son of Reed Richards and Susan Storm. And they got their powers from cosmic radiation in space. So is he the product of cosmically radiated semen and egg? I mean, I guess so. That's the only way. That's the only way, right?

Yeah. So you're saying that the cosmic rays may have. like mutated the semen and egg somehow. Yeah. And then the result might have been mutated somehow. A kid who can alter reality. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what else could it be?

I don't. This is the next episode of the podcast where we talk about Franklin Richards. So going back to Iceman, yes. He is considered an mega-level mutant because of the fact he can manipulate air molecules and make himself big, and he can control, apparently, water molecules, and he can create clones of himself that he can put consciousness into, and he can rebuild himself if he gets blown up or melted. I don't understand how the clones work, because if they're made of ice, ice doesn't move. So how did these clones move about and do stuff? Yeah, yeah. How does he put his consciousness into ice?

You know, when we were talking about Angel, and we kept saying, like, what can they do to Angel to make them more interesting? I know, just give them a bunch more powers that may not make sense. I feel like there's a little of play here. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, and we talked about this with Angel, when the original X-Men were created, it was a guy who could shoot lasers out of his eyes, a girl who can stuff with her mind,

a guy with wings, a guy with big hands and feet, and another guy who could freeze stuff. They didn't really... The guy with the big hands and feet got the wrong end of the deal there, but apparently not. No, they fixed that by making them blue and furry.

So over the years after that, and you got some different writers and artists who were bringing their own interpretation to things and their own creativity, You started to get some mutants that could do a lot of like different and weird stuff. And all of a sudden those original five mutants are nowhere near as interesting. Like Gene Gray, like she, they give her telepathic powers and then they also make her a host of the Phoenix. And angel, they turn into archangel and beast they gave him blue fur.

And Iceman, they're just like, oh, we'll just make him even better at making ice. More better ice is what we got. Again, we're kind of the raw deal there, you know? Yeah. You know, I think we also neglected to mention that he was in Spider-Man and his amazing friends. He was one of the amazing friends. It was Spider-Man, Ice Man, and Firestar. So he's amazing.

Apparently. We're sitting here laughing about this guy, but he's an amazing character. So, so amazing, in fact, I pulled up from the Wikipedia page on Iceman. These are his accolades. I'm going to read these. out because they are insane and they irritate me. In 2014, Entertainment Weekly ranked Iceman 27th in their let's rank every X-Man member list.

So there are 27th? 27 out of the hundreds and hundreds of X-Men characters. He's the 27th best one. That's like being the 27th best NWO member. You're like, what? A horse Hogan. 27. In 2014, BuzzFeed ranked Iceman 17th in their 95 X-Men members ranked from worst to best.

In 2016, SBS, whatever that is, included Iceman in their 10 queer superheroes who changed the face of comics list. Could, could, could change the face of comics? I don't think I can't. No, no, who changed. Not who could. Who changed? Oh, but what? I guarantee you.

Yeah. Well, I guarantee you it's just because of the fact that he is one of the. the original five. But he hasn't done anything to change anything, right? That's what we've been talking about this whole episode. He's just done nothing. In 2018, CBR.com ranked Iceman 25th in their X-Men's greatest leaders list. Leaders.

When is he that a team? What? I'm sure there have been some small teams that he's been a part of. Are people just making shit up? I told you this list was, this list irritated me. In 2018, do you ever think that like,

if we ever made it, this is what we should do, right? We should make our own website, comic book website, right? And write articles because you have to write an article every day, right? So we can just make shit up and nobody's going to fucking sad on the butt.

Right. Of course Iceman was the leader of the X-Man. Fucking why not, right? In 2018, the Daily Dot ranked Iceman seventh in their top 12, LGBTQ superheroes and DC and Marvel Comics list.

Okay, that one's fine. I got no issues with that. Yeah, I can't really pick a hole with that one. In 2018, cbri.com ranked Iceman 11th in their age of apocalypse, the 30 strongest characters

in Marvel's coolest alternate world list. Did he have a character in age of apocalypse? I don't remember him really spiky. Yeah, that's all I remember. Wait, so none of us can really

remember him in age of apocalypse and he's fucking 11? Yeah, out of 30. What? In 2019, in 2019, CBR.com ranked Iceman third in their 10 most powerful LGBT characters and comics list. Again, that's probably accurate. And ninth in their X-Men, all of Marvel's Omega-Level Mutants ranked by Power List.

So in one CBR list of Omega-Level Mutants, he came at 17, and this one, he's ninth. What the fuck happened there? I bet it was a fucking guy too, right? Jesus. In 2019. Oh, sorry, you keep going. Keep going on with your list. But let's circle back to that,

that omega list, okay? Okay. In 2019, the BBC included Iceman and their five LGBTQ plus superheroes you need to know about. Okay. They only do five? Yeah, well, it's, I don't know.

It's your, like, broadcast channel. You tell me. Is the BBC, like, do they normally do more than five? They don't know dick about comics. In 2019, screen rant ranked Iceman first in their 10 LGBTQA characters who should be introduced to the MCU list. I don't think that's correct. Yeah. Right?

We've already established that Iceman is bland as shit. In 2020, gay times included Iceman in their 13 queerer. superheroes we need to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe list. All right. Included but not ranked. Yeah, they didn't rank. They did not rank. In 2020,

yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, we could go in there. Yeah, we're good. In 2021, on BuzzFeed ranked Iceman third in their 11 of the most important Marvel and DC LGBTQ plus superheroes list. So he came in third in two different lists. That's the consistency I'm looking for. Let's not pay attention to what BuzzFeed.

to say. In 2021, CBR.com ranked Iceman in there. Marvel, the 10 strongest male X-Men list. Wait, what number? He's just in the top 10.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are we talking like all X-Men? Yes, all-male X-Men. All-male X-Men. Does that include like villains? I don't know. Because like, dude, even if it didn't include just the villains,

the top 10? Yeah. Whoa. I told you this list will make you. It irritated the shit out of me reading this. At first, I didn't believe you. And now I'm like,

no, I'm irritated. What the fuck? Who wrote that? What the boy? Could we? What? What? What?

In 2022, the Mary Sue ranked Iceman 9th in their 10 most powerful X-Men of all-time list. What? In 2022, movie web ranked Iceman fourth in their eight LGBTQ plus Marvel Comics characters that need to be in the MCU list. I'm fine with that. If that's going to be how they want to categorize it, cool. Yeah. Do you need to see him in there? he came in fourth

which means there are three other characters ahead of him well yeah I'd probably rather see those three right yeah right I don't even know who they are but that means there were four other people that were like ah we don't give a shit about them as much as ice man no in 2020

in 2022 digital trends ranked ice man 10th in their Marvel's most powerful mutants list 10th in 2022 CBR.com ranked ice man seventh in their 10 most terrifying X-Men list. Eighth in their 10 X-Men characters fans want in the MCU list.

Was there a poll? Yeah. Did we miss out on this poll? 10 X-Men characters fans want in the MCU list, and he came in eighth. You guys did a poll and you didn't invite the Smark Avengers to vote? Seriously. That's bullshit. So go to CBR.com and write some men.

in all their comments. Ninth in their 15th strongest omega level X-Men list. So he's coming in at 17, 9 and like, what, six or whatever? Yeah,

just a lot of like fudging the rules here, isn't there? Yeah, they're not consistent. No, something's not enough. Here's another one,

Dylan. 10th in their 10 greatest X-Men list. Of all the X-Men. What the fuck? 10th greatest X-Men ever. Without even thinking about it, you could think of 10 greater X-Men and Ice Man. Yes.

Apparently, this list was ranked by experience. Whatever that means. Well, then, that means the first five X-Men are automatically on the list, right? Yeah. What the fuck? I also, at Charles Xavier, so that's the first six. On what number did we see? What number were we seeing on the list?

Number 10. He didn't even make the top six of the first six X-Men? What the fuck I'm talking about? And 10th in their X-Men 10 queer and awesome mutants list. So he keeps turning up in like really high numbers and the like greatest like LGBTQ characters that need to be in the MCU. But 10th in the top 10 queer mutant characters list. It's the it's the weird lack of consistency that really bothers me about CBR. Right.

And in 2020. screen rant included Iceman in their 10 most powerful X-Men list. That's the list. Well, see, that's why I wanted to circle back to CBR, because there was a lot of, like, omega-level meeting talk right there. Yeah. And I'm very intrigued with that,

because he was, like, 17th one time, and then he was, like, 10th or something, wasn't he? Yeah, so let me do you need quick. Yeah, so he went 10th, 9th, What was the other one? Because there was another list of a mega level characters. Yeah, 9th twice. He was 17 on the first list that I saw.

And then he was 9 on two lists. But yeah. That means there's a lot of people that CBR have ranked like worse than Iceman a bunch of times. Like has somebody got up and down on that list? You know what I mean? Iceman like like the. and this is another thing we've covered. They did a lot of theorizing

about how Ice Man is an omega-level mutant, but they've never ever shown that properly in the comics. You can see, like, easily how Magneto or Storm or Gene Gray could be considered an omega-level mutant because of how they're portrayed in the comics. They have the ability to do that stuff, and sometimes they fucking do it.

You know? Exavier. all those people, there are opportunities for them to do it and capitalize on that. And so you can say that Iceman has insecurities or whatever, blah, blah, blah. But at some point, he has to show off these omega-level mutant powers that he has to capitalize on those insecurities and also prove that he is an omega-level mutant. Otherwise, he isn't, right? To be fair, I think didn't he help out when the,

X-Men basically terraformed Mars during the first hellfire. Yeah, yeah. You basically added all the water. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's a display of his power. It's

not like, you know, something he busts out all the time, I guess. But it's boring. When that happened, when that happened, was that, was he considered an mega level mutant then? Yes. Yeah, he's been in a mega level Muton for a long time. And then what's he done?

I mean, he helped terraform Mars and make it livable. We've all been there. We've all done that. But no, I agree. That's what I'm saying, Dylan. That's why I said to John just a second ago. Like, it's, it's boring and it's not like he's not the main character in that. So that happened in what, X-Men read? Was that the book that happened in John? Or was that in another book?

I can't remember. standard X-Men. Might have been the standard X-Men book. But he wasn't like the main force behind it. He was just there. He's like, if you ever watched the opening credits of Gilligan's Island, they introduce some of the characters and then they go,

and the rest. So like that's what Iceman is to be. He's like, Ice Man, Cyclubs. Yeah, exactly. Cyclops, Gene Gray, Beast, Angel,

and the rest. Yes. That's what he feels like to me. Like, that's like a huge character moment. And he was at the main. character in it. He got like what a couple of pages?

I thought Storm and Magneto played a bigger part in that. Oh yeah. And they're like two higher ranked Omega Level Mutants, you know? But that was what I was going to ask about that other list. Like who was ranked less than Iceman? Which list are you talking about?

The Omega levels are the 10th most greatest, strongest X-Men? Well, Omega levels at first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's like worse than Iceman? mega level wise 10th most powerful x-men 10 most powerful x-men of all time or actually do you want the the one list where he came in at 17 or do you want one that's other one of the higher ones yeah let's do the 17 one all right so iceman came at number 17 on most powerful omega-level mutants and these are the characters that came in after him there's some real fucking winners ahead of him too i'll tell you 18 uh rachel Summers slash Asconi slash Phoenix

slash whatever Whoa Just again Like straight off the bat Like wouldn't all of us say that Mitchell Summers is like way more powerful than ice man

I'm not sure I would She's basically a You know Poor man's Gene Gray Which is still more powerful than ice man It's a different kind of power So here's one to get

It's me. Josh Foley slash elixir at 19. He can heal any issue, regenerate his own body, and he can also infect people with incurable diseases and such. He can heal you and he can kill you with a touch. And that's less powerful than just being able to make Rian or ice. Number 20, Brian Morrison, who is a character from Grant Morrison's, uh, I think he was a Grant Morrison character.

No, no, he's Mark Guggenheim from the X-Men Gold series. He woke up with incredible mega-mutant-level powers when we're in congenerate and manipulate cosmic energy on a powerful scale. And number 21, I have no idea. Is that the one they wrote out of existence? Kitty pride was able to calm Brian Morrison down so he could return to his human form, though he was shot in the head by a bystander. So that's why he's number 20. Pride was able to get a medical attention

and all you had to kill him and shoot him in the head. Yeah. Pride was able to get him medical attention and he left with a full invite to join the X-Men after he fully recovered. I don't know if he ever did. He fully recovered. Get shot in the head.

Have to be shot in the head? I guess it's a mega-level beating, so that's fair enough. And the last one who came after him was number 20 was a character named Maddie who showed up yeah Maddie who showed up in Deadpool versus Old Man Logan number one by Declan Shalvey

powerful teleportation abilities while she had incredible range anyone who teleported with her was almost killed instantly so yeah she could just teleport and just fuck shit up whenever she lands so basically the people that were below ice man weren't really that good either yeah so the character

It's above Iceman, and I won't go into full detail on them unless you need me to. 16. Kevin McTaggart slash Proteus. Proteus. 15. Your boy. Gabriel Summers slash Vulcan. I didn't. No, no, no, no. That's not established this as him being my boy. I don't want that. I don't want that on public record. Strike that. Cut that out of the podcast, okay?

Just accept it, David. He's your boy now. No. No. It'll never happen. Number 14. Listen, don't start putting comments on other people's videos to say that I like Vulcan, all right? Number 14, Benet-Dupéry slash Exodus. That's my boy. That's great. Volcan's your boy.

No. Oh, why did this happen? Number 13, strife. Yeah, fair enough. Number 12, Matthew Malloy. Is that the guy they were at Condi? I remember reading one of these lists. There was some guy that they invented for one story and then just erased him from history.

Ryan Michael Bendez. Okay. This guy again? Yes. Xavier when he first used his mutant powers and he accidentally killed his parents. Xavier erased his memories and installed psychic blocks. He killed most of them in a violent outburst of his powers when the X-Men made contact. Tempest went back in time with a past version of Xavier to keep his parents

from meeting, thus erasing him from history. Oh my God. Yeah. I knew I read that somewhere. Number 11. William Jamie Braddock slash monarch. Okay. 10. Absalon Mercator. Mr. M. Mr. M. He was in District X. Yeah. He was really good. No. Number nine, Hope Summers. Okay. What exactly is Hope Summer's powers right now?

I think basically that she... Oh, go ahead. Yeah. John. Yeah. Well, exactly what you're saying. She can basically copy and augment the people's powers. Okay. Cool. Fair enough. Number eight, Nate Gray's slash X-Man. I mean, also fair enough, right?

Mm-hmm. Wait, Nick Gray is behind cable? Cable's not on this list, dog Yeah, yeah How can Strife and Nick Gray be on this list And cable isn't on this list Because cable has the techno-organic virus Yeah, the techno-organic virus

He can't access his full powers Yeah But it means that technically he is In a mega-level meeting though, right? He could be Well, not really because he can't use it But tech Well, if Iceman doesn't use his powers

But he still is, right? I could be a world champion boxer, Dylan if I hadn't got my arms amputated. Is that the world champion boxer? Okay. Flipside. The guy that got a reaist from existence is okay, but cable who has proven time and time again to be more powerful than that guy is not in a list?

I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Number seven, I don't quite understand this one. Great Ring of O'Rocco. Who? What? Yeah. Okay.

The other ones you didn't need to explain, I might need a little bit of explanation for this one. I will read the excerpt from this list because I read, well, so here's the thing. It's Hickman created this one. So we all know Jonathan Hickman. Yep. Yep. So I'm going to read this and it didn't make any sense to me after I finished reading it. After the X-Men formed their new mutant society on Krakawa, they discovered

the ancient history of their new home. It was originally known as Akara before separating into two separate islands, Krakawa and Arako. A powerful group of Omega-level mutants ruled as the Great Ring of Araucco, which mirrored the X-Men's Quiet Council on Krakawa. The Great Ring of

Arako featured different sections that ruled at different times, with the exception of the night seats, all of the members of the Great Ring were Omega Mutants. After the X-of-Swords tournament, Storm led led a new Great Ring of Araco on Mars. Omega-level mutants from Morocco, like Lactuca, Zylo, and Sabunar also joined Storm and Magneto on the Great Ring.

So you're saying that number, whatever, what number is that? Five? No, seven. The number seventh ranked omega-level mutant is a group of mutants. Yes. I'm, excuse me, I don't want to be Mr. Dantic here, but I don't believe that that counts. Well, to make it worse, number six. Can you say number five of most omega-level mutants?

The original X-Men. No, that's fucking bullshit. Dylan. Dylan and John. Number six, a member of the Great Ring of O'Rocco, Magneto. I mean, fair enough, right? Yeah. Well, here's the thing.

The way I look at it is this. I don't agree with it. But is it really any different from like Rick Flair getting inducted in the Navy Hall of Fame? and then getting inducted a second time as a member of the four horsemen. Was Magneto in this twice? Yeah, because he's part of the Great Ring of O'Raco. But we've already established that that's bullshit.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It makes no sense. That doesn't quite. Because that doesn't make any sense. Number five, another member of the Great Ring of Araco, Storm. Stop with the Ring of Morocco, though. I refuse to believe this is legitimate anything. Number four, Gene Gray.

Fair enough. Number three, Quentin Choir. I don't think Quint Choir is more powerful than Gene Gray. Yeah, apparently Quint Choir is more intelligent and more psychically gifted than Gene Gray. I think that's... Because apparently he can absorb information and he has a super genius mind on top of being a telepath.

I don't agree. He has a green lantern kind of power. We can make constructs out of psychic energy. Okay. Well, I respectfully disagree. Number two, David Holler slash Legion. I mean, I can see it, I guess, right? Would he be more powerful in Jean Grey?

Yeah, man, he can alter reality. He can alter reality. He broke reality and created the age of apocalypse, for God's sake. He did do that. Yeah, you know what? Fair enough. but then Jamie Braddock breaks reality, right?

Yeah, and so just Protes is too insane. Proteus did a lot of weird shit and he was way on the list. Well, number one. Number one, we already talked to him about a little bit, which I guess we now have to revoke his status because

they didn't want to put him on Krakawa. Franklin Richards slash powerhouse. So Franklin Richard has the same problem. Yeah, that's apparently his code name is powerhouse. Whoa. Powerhouse. Why did that not come up at some point?

I don't know. That must be his code name in the future when he's an adult. Oh, maybe that is. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense, man. Franklin Richards been number one I get because, you know, whatever I grew up, I grew up reading the onslaught storyline,

and Franklin Richards created his own, like, pocket universe where he sent all of the superheroes to. Like, that's pretty big. did, if Iceman could do that, I'd be like, fair enough, right? Pretty big. So I'm like, that's fair. But then like, wait, did Xavier not make this this at all? No.

No. Is that not weird to you guys? Xavier's not considered a mega-level mutant. But he is, though, right? I don't think he is. I don't know, because I guess he uses Cerebro to, like, boost his mutant power. But do you guys, do you guys really not? think that Professor X is more of an

mega mutant than, oh, I don't know. Just picking a name out of the air randomly. Iceman? No. Really? So I tried to go to the link for the 10 most powerful X-Men of all time, where he came at number 10 just to see who the fuck came ahead of him. And the link is broken on the Mary Sue.

Because they know, they know they fucked up. I'll be honest with you I think if you separated this episode into like sections there's the section where we talk about other people that aren't Iceman and then the section where we talk about how he's so fucking boring can I just say something real quick right first of all I don't really like have a problem with Iceman at all but the second of all I had way more fun not

talking about Iceman, than I did talking about Iceman. See, I had a feeling that would happen. What does that tell you, people? It means that we finally got the Ice Man episode out of the way, and when we go into our next X-Men character, it'll be someone a little more interesting.

I think the real crux of it is that I think we should really focus on is that like, the problem with Iceman is that just like every step of the way from the beginning to right now, the way he's been written is as a very non-consequential character.

Yes. Like, gay or not, it doesn't matter. The fact is, he's just not an interesting X-Men character. There are so many other really interesting, important X-Men characters that you would put ahead of him that you would want to read solo books about. Yeah. You wouldn't really want to read a solo Iceman book because what is the story? Oh, they tried twice.

They tried twice. But what's it about? What's the point? Yeah. Yeah. I think we can both. I think we can all agree on that, right? Mm-hmm.

You know? Like, there's just nothing to him. There's no, like, reason to pay attention to Iceman. It's fun that he's, like, like, we said before, he's a fun, jokey character. But, like, also, what else, you know, what's the deal with Iceman? You know? That's what if we all want to know, what's the deal with Iceman? And the fact that he's so well, like, rated and all those polls, I'm just so fucking befuddled by.

It is weird. Yeah. It's very strange. Well, I think that'll do us for now. As a reminder, we're going to be putting out more content on the YouTube channel. If you've not already checked that out now. We've got a nice little rhythm going so far. And, you know, check us out.

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Go to the, you know, go to the trailer for Craven the Hunter and just say that you're really like Tom Knuck in this one. No, go to Morbius. Yeah, go to one of those brilliant think pieces on Morbius. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, go to one of those YouTubersers that's like really deep dive into Sacted in Morbius.

This is why Morbius is a really underrated classic. And this is right, cement. You'll know that you're on the right one when there's a, the thumbnail features a PNG cut out of them in front of like the Morbius poster making an absurd face. They're doing a shocked face, like, oh, and then it's like, is Morbius as bad as people say? Morbi is underrated classic. Better than Madam Webb. All right, folks, we're getting out of here. See you later.

Goodbye. Bye-bye.