Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #2 – Joanne Starer, Writer; Natacha Bustos, Artist; Tamra Bonvillain, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: The first issue of this comic took on a distinctly sitcom-like vibe, with Fire and Ice being banished to Smallville and trying to adjust to small-town life. If that sounds like the plot to popular reality shows… it is. And naturally, the two of them didn’t exactly sync up. Ice, just out of a bad relationship, embraced the fresh start and threw herself into getting to know the locals and buying a local salon. Fire, meanwhile, chafed under the town’s culture and was desperate to get her fame back—leading her to essentially lure a supervillain to town so she could stop him. That put the two heroines on the outs with each other, and that’s not changing any time soon. The salon quickly becomes a point of contention between them, with more and more of the work falling on their new assistant’s shoulders. And as Ice starts making more friends in Smallville, Fire’s desperation to get back to her old life increases.
Some new supporting characters are introduced this issue, including a sarcastic wheelchair-using bartender who Fire forms a connection with, and an overly energetic local who becomes Ice’s guide around town. But they play second fiddle to the odd collection of C, D, and Z-list supervillains who Fire winds up inviting into town—not to fight her, like she did before, but to take part in a new reality project where they get reformation arcs and makeovers. If this sounds like it’ll end badly, Ice agrees—and the fact that a homicidal gorilla related to Grodd is one of the recruits probably only increases those odds. But overall, this comic is fun but just feels so offbeat and sitcom-like that it’s hard to even connect it to the characters at times. The JLI always played more broadly than most superheroes, but I have a hard time even recognizing this version of Fire. The quality is good, but I’m not sure it works as a continuation for the characters.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
