Iceman #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeIceman #1 marks the first time Bobby Drake — a founding X-Man who had spent over two decades sharing the spotlight in team books — stepped out as the solo headliner of his own series, finally giving Marvel's youngest original mutant a story built entirely around his identity and inner life. The issue introduces the cosmic entity Oblivion and his daughter Mirage (in her civilian guise as Marge Smith), characters who would go on to play meaningful roles in Marvel's cosmic mythology through titles like Quasar. Beyond its plot, the issue deepens Bobby's characterization by making his fraught relationship with his parents — and his mixed Irish-Catholic and Jewish heritage — central dramatic material, a layer of specificity that the X-Men ensemble format had never had room to fully explore. Retrospectively, the series sits at an interesting biographical crossroads: it presents a Bobby Drake wrestling earnestly with what kind of person he wants to be, decades before later writers would revisit those same questions through the lens of his coming out as a gay man.
In "The Fuse!", Iceman returns home for his father's retirement party only to face a storm of family tension—his parents aren’t thrilled about his life as a superhero. When a mysterious attack by the alien duo White Light and the Idiot leaves his neighbor Marge Smith and her family vanished, Iceman must confront the villains, but the aftermath leaves his family furious over the exposure of his powers. Written by J. M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Alan Kupperberg, with inks by Mike Gustovich, colors by Bob Sharen, and letters by Janice Chiang, this 1984 issue features a cover by Mike Zeck and John Beatty.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Writer J.M. DeMatteis conceived the four-issue limited series himself and steered it through Marvel's Copper Age editorial apparatus under editor Bob Budiansky, who DeMatteis later credited as indispensable to whatever coherence the story achieved — the writer candidly called the project a creative 'mistake' of his own making while acknowledging Budiansky's steadying hand. Penciller Alan Kupperberg and inker Mike Gustovich handled interior art throughout all four issues, while Mike Zeck and John Beatty supplied the covers, lending the series a polished visual identity consistent with Marvel's mid-1980s house style. The series ran from December 1984 through June 1985, a period when Marvel was actively experimenting with limited-series formats to give secondary characters spotlights they could never hold in ongoing team books.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First issue of Iceman's debut solo title — a four-issue limited series published December 1984 through June 1985 — over twenty years after Bobby Drake's first appearance in X-Men #1 (September 1963).
- Written by J.M. DeMatteis, penciled by Alan Kupperberg, inked by Mike Gustovich, with cover art by Mike Zeck and John Beatty; edited by Bob Budiansky.
- First appearance (shadowed) of Oblivion, the abstract cosmic entity embodying non-existence, created by DeMatteis and Kupperberg; Oblivion subsequently became a recurring figure in Marvel's cosmic mythology, notably in the Quasar series.
- First appearances of Idiot and White Light, Oblivion's servant-minions dispatched to retrieve his wayward 'daughter' Mirage.
- First appearance of Marge Smith, the civilian identity of Mirage — a fragment of Oblivion himself given form as a daughter — who serves as Bobby's love interest throughout the limited series.
- Introduces William Drake and Madeline Bass-Drake in their contemporary roles as Bobby's parents, whose discomfort with their son's superhero life and mutant identity drives the emotional core of the story; the issue also establishes Bobby's interfaith background (Irish-Catholic father, Jewish mother).
- The story's title is 'The Fuse!' and opens with Bobby returning to his hometown of Port Jefferson for his father's retirement party, a deliberately domestic setup that pivots into cosmic conflict when Idiot and White Light attack.
- The complete four-issue series, along with material from Bizarre Adventures #27, was collected and recolored in the hardcover X-Men: Iceman (Marvel, 2012) and is also available digitally through Marvel Unlimited.
Cast · 7 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Secret Wars #11 (1985), Secret Wars #12 (1985), Secret Wars #13 (1985), Spidey Comic #664 (1985), Un Récit Complet Marvel #13 (1987), X-Men: Iceman #[nn] (2012), Essential Defenders #7 (2013), Marvel Firsts: The 1980s #2 (2014), Defenders Epic Collection #8 (2018)
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