Issue(s): Iceman #1, Iceman #2, Iceman #3, Iceman #4
Published Date: Dec 84 - Jun 85
Title: "The fuse!" / "Instant karma!" / "Quicksand!" / "The price you pay!"
Credits:
J.M. DeMatteis - Writer
Alan Kupperberg - Penciler
Michael Gustovich - Inker
Bob Budiansky - Editor

Review/plot:
As one of Spider-Man's Amazing Friends, Iceman had a lot of visibility in the early 80s, so it made sense to give him a mini-series (The third Amazing Friend, Firestar, will be brought into continuity and given her own mini-series a little later). But while J.M. DeMatteis certainly had plenty of experience writing Iceman as a member of the Defenders, his penchant for weird cosmic metaphors didn't really make him the right pick for a book that Marvel at least hoped would be bringing in a lot of first time readers.

The cover of the first issue announces (embarrassingly) that "He's young.. he's on his own... he's out for a good time...". The series starts out with Iceman returning to his parents' home for his father's retirement party. He's concerned that his parents won't respect his decision to abandon accounting and return to super-heroing. This is potentially an interesting avenue to explore, but it's muddled with a newly introduced idea that Iceman has always had trouble making up his mind about what he wants to do with his life, and any sort of actual character development is abandoned in favor of Iceman getting attacked by a number of agents of a cosmic entity called Oblivion.

Iceman has fallen in love with the girl next door, Marge, but she turns out to actually be Mirage, the daughter of Oblivion.

Cosmic metaphors:

Oblivion, who by definition has nothing...

...has been lonely, and that's why he created his daughter.

In the end, Mirage is merged into her father, Oblivion is subdued by Bobby's love for his parents, and Bobby's parents reconcile with Iceman's decision to be a super-hero. The Beast and Angel show up to take Iceman back to the Defenders.

In issue #1, we learn Iceman's ethnicity, for what it's worth: half Irish-Catholic, half Jewish.

I'm sure this sold well enough, but i doubt it really satisfied kids looking to see that cool guy from the Spider-Man cartoon fight some super-villains. Or maybe i'm just projecting.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Oblivion, who will later appear in a number of issues of Quasar.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Defenders #131-132. But the Beast is on a leave of absence from the Defenders from issues #131-133 so it doesn't make sense for him to appear here with Angel at that time. Additionally, Iceman makes reference to the events of Dazzler: The Movie, so this series has to take place after that, and therefore probably also after the Beauty and the Beast mini-series, which happens during the Beast's LOA. So i've pushed this series in between Defenders #135-136 instead. I'll also point out that the end of issue #4 seems to indicate that the Defenders are ready to go off on a mission, but neither issue #132 nor #136 start with the team leaping into action, so we'll assume that the three ex X-Men either had an undocumented adventure or Iceman just asked his buddies to show up at his parents' house at a predetermined time to get him out of there in case his family reunion wasn't going so well.

References:

• Iceman has to contend with an anti-mutant police officer, which causes Iceman to think about the X-Men's encounter with Reverend Stryker from Marvel Graphic Novel #5 and the recent wave of anti-mutant publicity after the Dazzler movie incident in Marvel Graphic Novel #12.
  

• There's two footnote-less references to Iceman being part of the group that defeated Professor Power, which was in Defenders #128-130.

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: N/A

The title to #2 refers to the John Lennon song.