Review – ‘Tis the Season to Be Freezin’ #1: Holiday Madness

‘Tis the Season to Be Freezin’ #1 – Alan Burnett/Paul Dini, Tee Franklin, Amedeo Turturro, Jeff Trammell, Rich Bernatovech, Tara Roberts, Bobby Moynihan, Andrew Wheeler, Writers; Jordan Gibson, Yancy Labat, Jason Howard, Justin Mason, Travis Mercer/Norm Rapmund, Eric Battle, Pop Mhan, Meghan Hetrick, Artists; Monica Kubina, Tony Avina, Allen Passalaqua, Andrew Dalhouse, Eva de la Cruz, Ivan Plascencia, Marissa Louise

Ray – 8/10

Ray: It’s time for DC’s latest holiday anthology, this one an offbeat winter edition, and the creative team page certainly looks different this time. Amid a few known comic creators, we’ve got animation and Hollywood veterans plus a few names I’m not familiar with yet. So how does this eclectic team of talent do?

We start with the Batman: The Adventures Continue writing team and Jordan Gibson on “One Snowy Night,” as Robin and Mr. Freeze clash amid a blizzard. Tim is seeking the perfect gift for Bruce, while Victor Fries is invading Old Gotham Square and bringing rough winter weather with him. It’s easy to forget given how ruthless the character is in most comics, but the animated series treated Freeze with a lot of compassion, and that continues here. It’s an excellent complete story in only ten pages, not a surprise given the talent involved.

Tee Franklin and Yancy Labat take on “The Syphoning,” a Vixen and the Super-Pets story. And with those characters, you know it’s going to be interesting. And this doesn’t disappoint—a thoroughly bizarre tale involving Penguin kidnapping the super-pets and turning Waddles the penguin into a psychic menace who summons neon-green animal specters to fight Vixen and Ace (the powerless super-pet who wasn’t captured). Does this fit into anything? Nope! (Where the heck did Beppo come from?) Is it strangely hilarious? Absolutely.

Amedeo Turturro and Jason Howard are up next with “Bizarro v. Seasonal Depression: Dawn of Climate Change,” which pits a depressed Bizarro against a collection of theme-swapped villains, one of whom has a motivation tied to global warming. The problem is… this entire story is written in Bizarro-speak. Constantly. That makes it a challenge to parse every sentence into what it actually means, and makes the experience of reading it frustrating at times. Kudos to the creative team for writing all of this—it must have taken a lot of work to get everything right (wrong?) but it didn’t quite work for me.

Animation veteran Jeff Trammell makes his DC debut with Justin Mason on art in the Firestorm story “Stay Frosty.” Ronnie Raymond has arranged monitor duty on Christmas for Firestorm so he can hang out with Wonder Woman—but his old villain Killer Frost is filling in for her instead, leading to some awkwardness as Jason Rusch watches and makes sarcastic comments. This is a very low-stakes story as Ronnie tries to catch Frost in the middle of a secret betrayal plot and embarrasses himself, but it’s a lot of fun. You can tell Trammell is a veteran of slice-of-life stories on Craig of the Creek, because this story is really charming.

For the next story, we head to the future—namely the 30th century—as Rich Bernatovech and Travis Mercer give us “Snow Date.” Focusing on Polar Boy and Comet Queen, the Legionnaire tries to impress his new girlfriend by creating ice sculptures for her. Then they start coming to life, which definitely wasn’t part of the plan. It’s a crazy madcap adventure with a villain who has an amusing power set and motivation. Overall, I don’t think many people will be familiar with these characters, but the story is amusing and the leads easy to like.

Tara Roberts and Eric Battle take on Harley Quinn and Blue Snowman in “Change of Heart,” a madcap tale involving a mystery virus striking down Poison Ivy and a magical staff that may cure her. Blue Snowman, a Harley superfan, insists on helping out in a heist that pulls Hawkman in and reveals a surprising villain. This is definitely a full-issue story stuffed into ten pages with a good amount of context missing, but the frantic tone sort of works. And it’s good to see Blue Snowman, one of DC’s few non-binary characters, joining the wild Harlivy family.

Comedian and sitcom star Bobby Moynihan has done a few DC stories lately, with his latest being “Christmas: Cold and Fast,” a Flash/Captain Cold story with Pop Mhan on art. With Central City in the middle of a December heat wave, Flash and Cold agree to put their differences aside for one night and team up to deliver some Christmas surprises to the city. It has some cute, funny moments, but the dialogue here is very on-the-nose and overly jokey at times given the two characters’ history. How many times can Captain Cold call Flash “Karen” in one story? I think that meme is dead.

Finally, we’ve got “Break the Ice,” a new JLQ story by Andrew Wheeler and Meghan Hetrick. The greatest team that never was reunites for a new story as original hero Sylvan Ortega feels a disturbance in his nature-based powers. The winter party organized by OG gay hero Extrano falls apart when invaded by Minister Blizzard and his powerful “Goddess” of ice—a character who will be familiar to old-school JL fans. This story means well and it’s great to see such a diverse cast together, but like the first story featuring the JLQ it’s incredibly packed and feels a bit rushed at points.

Overall, this anthology didn’t really live up to the quality level of past ones, but had some real high points that make it worth a recommendation.

To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.

GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.