Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 262. Who is Iceman in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 262. Who is Iceman in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks and non nerds in between.
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  My name is Megan and I am here today with another character
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  breakdown. And of course it's another
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  mutant because I love mutants. And I have to say this episode
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  took forever to do, forever to write, so I really hope you
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  enjoy it. Today we're going to be talking
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  about Iceman. So Bobby Drake first appeared in
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  X-Men number One in July of 1963 and he was created by Stan Lee
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  and Jack Kirby. Bobby Drake's life basically
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  started with two things, being cold and having absolutely no
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  idea how weird his life was about to get.
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  Bobby Drake was born in Floral park, NY to William Drake and
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  Madeline Bass Drake. Bobby grew up with a Jewish mom
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  and an Irish Catholic dad and a mutant gene that made itself
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  known when he realized he could not stop shivering no matter
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  what. Most kids get a growth spurt.
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  Bobby got permanent air conditioning.
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  Things escalated very quickly when a school bully, Rocky,
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  decided it would be fun to attack Bobby and his girlfriend
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  Judy. In a panic, Bobby froze Rocky
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  solid. Judy was safe, but Bobby's
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  secret was officially out. The townspeople responded in the
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  most calm and rational way possible that people always do
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  in comic books. They formed an angry mob.
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  The mob stormed the Drake house, overwhelmed Bobby's family, and
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  things got ugly fast. Fortunately, the sheriff
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  realized the town was 1 bad decision away from becoming a
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  history lesson and took Bobby into custody for protection.
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  News of the incident eventually reached Professor Charles
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  Xavier. Professor X sent Scott Summers,
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  Cyclops, that is Cyclops, to recruit Bobby.
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  Bobby's first response was basically no thank you.
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  This naturally led to a brief super powered fight before the
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  same angry mob caught up with them and nearly hanged them
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  both. Professor X stepped in, wiped
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  the mob's memories and saved the day.
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  Bobby, impressed by Scott and very interested in not getting
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  lynched, enrolled in Xavier's School for the Gifted Youngsters
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  and became the official second X-Men at Xavier's.
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  Bobby trained alongside the OG X-Men, Cyclops, Angel, Beast,
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  and Marvel Girl. As Iceman, he learned to use his
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  powers to protect the world that mostly seemed interested in
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  fearing and hating him. He quickly became best friends
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  with Beast, though he was always a little insecure about being
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  the team's youngest member. His solution was humor.
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  If everyone else was panicking, Bobby was making jokes.
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  Early on, his powers were pretty rough around the edges.
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  Instead of becoming a sleek ice sculpture we constantly see when
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  he's being used in a comic book, he looked more like a walking
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  snowman. Overtime though, he upgraded
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  from festive lawn decoration to Omega level force of nature.
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  The original X-Men fought villains like Magneto in the
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  Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and Bobby even teamed up with the
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  Human Torch to fight a pirate named Captain Barracuda.
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  Because comic books refused to be normal and we appreciate them
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  for that. Years later, everything got
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  weirder when Beast traveled back in time and brought the teenage
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  original X-Men to the future. There, Bobby discovered several
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  upsetting facts. Professor X was dead, Jean Grey
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  had died again, Cyclops had killed Xavier, and the future
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  Bobby was, in his own words, kind of lame.
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  The younger X-Men decided to stay in the future and help fix
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  things. During this time, young Jean
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  Grey, now free of Xavier's psychic blocks and was able to
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  read minds, learned that Bobby was gay.
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  She informed him of this fact in probably the least subtle way
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  imaginable, by straight up telling him.
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  After reading his thoughts, Bobby was understandably furious
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  about the invasion of privacy, but after a lot of awkward
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  conversations and soul searching, he accepted it.
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  Then came the really awkward part, telling his older self.
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  Adult Bobby was initially annoyed that Jean had
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  essentially spoiled a deeply personal realization, but after
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  thinking it through, he admitted she was right.
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  He'd spent years burying that part of himself because he
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  believed coming out would make his already complicated life
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  even harder. As anti mutant tensions rose and
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  the impacts crisis spread, the time displace X-Men split up.
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  Bobby moved to Austin, TX where he somehow became a local
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  attraction by casually building giant ice sculptures in public.
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  Eventually, he rejoined his friends on a mutant road trip
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  across America, helping people wherever they could.
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  Not long after, Bobby's friends Genesis and Oya, decided his
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  love life needed emergency intervention and tried setting
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  him up at a nightclub in Miami. Their efforts went predictably
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  badly. Fortunately, Bobby met Romeo, a
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  young Inhuman who had no trouble flirting with him whatsoever.
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  The two started dating and eventually shared their first
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  kiss during the middle of a mutant Inhuman war, because
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  apparently Bobby only does romance during major
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  International Crisis time travel, then returned to ruin
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  everyone's day. The young X-Men learned that
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  they simply could not go back home, got tangled up in
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  alternate timelines, evil future Brotherhood schemes, collapsing
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  time streams, and attacks by the mutant hunter Ahab.
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  Eventually they returned to their original era.
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  Before leaving, Jean Grey sealed away everyone's memories of the
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  experience so history would not implode.
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  Those memories would only return to their adult selves much
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  later. Meanwhile, adult Bobby's life
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  continued to be 1 long sequence of super villains, failed
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  relationships, identity crises, and discovering that his powers
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  were absurdly stronger than he realized.
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  He dated Zelda, Terry Sue Bottoms, Opal Tanaka and had
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  complicated feelings for Polaris.
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  Very complicated feelings for Polaris.
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  A lot of you know, Polaris is my girl and Bobby was just
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  relentless about how he felt about her, causing fights with
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  havoc whenever he could, just being a whole problem.
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  So he was pretty annoying and hey, basically if you've been
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  online, he is the equivalent of the guy who says everyday, hey,
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  hey, hey, hey, F you, hey, he's that guy.
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  Most of these relationships ended pretty badly, often
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  because being involved with Bobby usually meant getting
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  attacked by robots, gods, monsters, mutants, or all for
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  before dessert. He attended UCLA, earned his CPA
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  accreditation, and somehow became both an accountant and a
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  superhero. For a while, he joined Angel,
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  Black Widow, Ghost Rider, Hercules, and others and a team
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  called the Champions of Los Angeles.
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  They fought giant threats, weird villains, and occasionally each
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  other. As years passed, Bobby kept
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  discovering new layers to his powers.
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  What started as making snow and ice slides eventually evolved
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  into complete control over water molecules, rebuilding his body
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  from vapor, surviving being shattered into pieces, creating
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  armies of ice clones, and casually doing things that would
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  terrify most reality based life forms.
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  A major turning point came when Emma Frost temporarily possessed
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  his body and used his powers far more effectively than he ever
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  had. Her feedback was less
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  constructive criticism and more You've been holding yourself
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  back for years, you absolute walnut.
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  Annoyingly, she was right. Bobby gradually learned that he
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  wasn't just a guy who covered himself nice.
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  He was ice. He could regenerate from steam,
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  survive complete destruction, and manipulate water on a
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  massive scale. Every few years, somebody would
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  discover a new terrifying thing he could do, and Bobby would
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  react with wait, I can do that. His personal life remained
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  complicated. He struggled with coming out to
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  his family and his friends, particularly his parents.
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  Some teammates felt hurt when they found out indirectly.
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  Others were immediately supportive.
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  Bobby eventually came out publicly and became one of
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  Marvel's most prominent LGBTQ plus heroes.
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  Through all of this, he remained Bobby, funny, self deprecating,
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  occasionally immature, and far more powerful than he'd like to
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  admit. During the Cracoon era, he
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  helped establish mutant nationhood, transform Mars into
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  a mutant world of Morocco alongside other mega level
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  mutants, worked with the Marauders, rekindled
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  relationships with both Christian Frost, who is the
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  brother of Emma Frost and Romeo, and tried to figure out what a
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  normal life even looked like. Then came the third Hellfire
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  Gala. Anti mutant extremists attacked
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  Karkowa and Nimrod seemingly killed Bobby by melting him.
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  Unfortunately for Nimrod, killing Iceman is less of a
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  solution and more of a suggestion.
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  Bobby survived, though maintaining a physical form
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  became much harder. Operating from an ice fortress
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  in the Arctic like the world's most emotionally exhausted snow
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  wizard, he continued fighting Orcas and protected Mutant Kind.
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  Eventually, after Mutant Kind's return from exile in the White
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  Hot room, Bobby joined the assault against Orcas alongside
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  the rest of the X-Men. After everything ended with
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  Krakoa, all the chaos, and the mutant nation was a goner, Bobby
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  ended up helping Kitty, Pride and Emma mentor some young
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  mutants who are facing the fact that no matter what they do, the
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  world will not accept them for who they are.
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  Mutants and Bobby can attest to that.
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  After decades of adventures, heartbreak, apocalypses, time
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  travel, disasters, identity struggles and about 1,000,000
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  opportunities to retire somewhere warm, Bobby Drake
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  remained what he had always been, the X Men's resident class
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  clown and OG X-Men, one of the most powerful mutants on earth
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  and living proof that the guy making ice slides and bad jokes
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  might secretly be an Omega level force of nature.
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  So that is Bobby Drake AKA Iceman.
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  I I love his character. I love his powers.
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  I think he's fantastic and I think he is so ridiculously
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  underrated because even now in the comics he is at Grey Malkin
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  Lane, which is like a it's a place that Emma Frost came up
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  with that she made. It's like a psychic world for
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  all the mutants to reside in safely.
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  Even then, he's a side character.
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  When he was helping Kitty and Emma Frost, he was a side
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  character. He's never, he's never really
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  gotten the attention he deserves, unless you want to
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  count Luciano Vecchio's one shot of him that came out a couple
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  months ago month, last month, I think it was called Iceman
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  Omega. And if you are an Iceman fan, I
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  highly suggest checking it out. It is fantastic all the way
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  through. So yeah, that's all I have to
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  say about Bobby Drake today. I hope you enjoyed it.
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  I hope you will like and subscribe.
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  And I hope you have a marvelous day.