Steve Orlando's Iceman Is The Class Clown Who Uplifts Others

How has Iceman's recent time on the X-Men influenced the hero as he goes solo here? How does this build on his most recent stories?

The throughline between the "Infinity" comic and his current run in "X-Men," and even "Marauders" before, is there's a time when Bobby was not unsure about, but reticent and anxious about, his powers. Back in the '90s, it took Emma Frost taking over his body to show him how powerful he could be. The part that's fun about the current era is that he's ... Do I want to connect this to him in canon being closeted then, and now he's out? He's found a confidence and the ability to celebrate himself. That goes in "Marauders," it goes in Luciano [Vecchio]'s "Infinity" run, and it goes in the current "X-Men" run.

Iceman, in this book, when we say that he's going to be pushing bigger, bolder, and more provocative with his abilities — I'd love to take credit for that. I can in this book, but I'm not the one that started it. Gerry [Duggan] started that; Luciano started that when they decided that he was going to be going bigger, bolder, and more confident. You see him f***ing off to Jotunheim to fight frost giants for fun in "Marauders."

This is an Iceman that is at peace with himself, and I can't say that I don't think that isn't connected to his ability to finally live authentically and center his own internal being. Now that everybody knows who Iceman is for real, he is more comfortable being Iceman, being more bold, being more showy with his abilities. We're picking up on what started in those books, and we're going further and we're challenging it, but these are the seeds that started with Luciano, that started with Gerry and Mateo, and it's all about him rather than ...

I said "celebrating himself" earlier, and that's what it is. Whether you're a mutant, which is a fictional thing, or whether you're a queer person, which is a real thing, there's a lot of internalized shame and fear of yourself. For the moment, he has done away with that. This period of confidence, of provocative joy, and, yes, aggression toward people who are threatening mutant-kind — that's part and parcel for him, and that's definitely where the book's going to be picking up.