Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 – Joanne Starer, Writer; Stephen Byrne, Artist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: Joanne Starer has made a name for herself as a comedy writer at DC in recent years, telling more absurd stories featuring some of DC’s underdog heroes – including Fire and Ice, the former JLI-ers who were exiled to Smallville after screwing up a critical mission due to their personal issues. This led to a whole lot of new conflict, personal relationship twists, and a new understanding between the close friends – that has now been upended once again. After Absolute Power, the two have swapped powers and both are finding it challenging to navigate their new power sets. Bea doesn’t know how to control Tora’s more control-based powers, while Tora is terrified to hurt someone with the power of flame. Both have retreated to the small-town that became a second home for them, and their friends are trying to get them to take a break and think about something besides their powers.
This title has always been a bit of an acquired taste, leaning into absurdity – similar to Starer’s recent Harley Quinn, um, special, but with a sweet twist that makes you really pull for these two screwed up heroines. As they meet up with Martha Kent and some of the new characters they were introduced to in the last mini, and they explore the “New Kooey” development in the area, some new faces show up – including a villain who’s the equally gross younger brother of one of the rogues from last time. New artist Stephen Byrne is perfect for this story, giving the events a gorgeous art style that really makes the character designs shine, and it was great to see Zatara again – the former Teen Titan hasn’t been used well in a while. But the ending, which was spoiled in solicits, promises to set up a lot more antics going forward as Bea’s desperate attempt to fix things lead to things getting, um, freaky. A fun start.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
