Astonishing Iceman #4 Review

Written by: Steve Orlando
Art by: Vincenzo Carratù
Colors by: Java Tartaglia, Chris Sotomayor
Letters by: VC’s Travis Lanham
Cover art by: Jesus Saiz
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: November 15, 2023

Astonishing Iceman #4 finds Bobby Drake out and about to help a former mutate under attack by Hounds. When Spider-Man swings in for a team-up, the two save the day and reminisce about being othered.

Is Astonishing Iceman #4 Good?

Well, you have to give Steve Orlando a smidge of credit. Astonishing Iceman #4 is about 10% different in plot structure compared to issues one through three. The general gist is the same – Iceman leaves his Ice Fortress to deal with a threat, he deals with the threat handily, and then he returns home to the loving arms of Romeo. However, all is not well in the homecoming.

When last we left the ice construct formerly known as Bobby Drake, aka Real Doll Iceman, he stopped an attack by Orchis’s top hitman, Mr. Clean, against the Y-Men. Mr. Clean got away with enough intel to zero in on the Ice Fortress’s location, and Bobby concluded he was able to hold his from longer with each excursion away from Romeo. Now the ice construct formerly known as Iceman answers a call to help with a battle between Spider-Man and the Hounds, who appear to be after a former mutate named Chantal (the Hound appearance is a carryover from the currently-running Uncanny Spider-Man series, but there’s shockingly little setup to clue readers into that fact). Bobby and Spidey beat the Hounds handily after they figured out Chantal was just the bait and Iceman was the real target. After a lengthy chat with Spider-Man about being othered, and an interlude where Bobby writes a love letter to Romeo, Bobby returns to the Ice Fortress to find Romeo dead or unconscious, with Mr. Clean waiting.

Yes, yes. If you’ve been following this series, you’ll immediately get the massive plot hole in this whole scenario. We’ll get to it.

What’s great about Astonishing Iceman #4? If all you want to see is Iceman showing off his ice powers, that’s about all you’ll get out of this issue.

What’s not so great about Astonishing Iceman #4? Except for the twist ending, the basic plot is identical to issues one through three. It’s unclear why Orlando could only come up with a copy/paste concept for this mini-series.

And then there’s the glaring plot hole. Up to this point, Bobby can only become corporeal through Romeo’s empathy power. How can Bobby hold his shape past his limit if Romeo is knocked out or dead? The whole idea of using empathy to resurrect the dead was always a weird (gross?) one, but now that implausible idea is stretched past the breaking point. Orlando’s script and concepts may be unclear, but what is crystal clear is that Orlando never had six issues worth of story developed, and readers are getting low-effort, half-baked throwaway work.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces

Astonishing Iceman #4 nearly repeats the same plot from the first three issues but throws in a final twist to give the illusion that Steve Orlando had more story than a one-shot in mind. The action is fun, and the last-page twist at least moves the story in a new direction, but the issue is largely a waste of time and money.