Justice League International stars and DC fan-favorites Fire and Ice are back for another duo-titled run in the hands of Joanne Starer, following the conclusion of Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville (2023). In the wake of Absolute Power, where hundreds of superheroes had their powers switched by Amanda Waller, Fire and Ice are dealing with having their titular polar opposite powersets swapped around. Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 picks up back in Smallville with the same familiar cast of characters, but with recent developments, Fire and Ice’s fresh start might end up being more complicated than they had realized.
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is written by Joanne Starer, illustrated and colored by Stephen Byrne with letters from Ariana Maher. With their powers reversed, Fire and Ice are having some trouble settling back into life in Smallville. Luckily, their friends Honey, Tamarind and everyone’s favorite robot butler L-Ron are around to help pick up the pieces. Martha Kent heads up the New Kooey development committee with some support from Tora, who admits she is afraid of accidentally hurting someone with Fire’s powers. Mo Mozek, the younger brother of villain Smartypants, arrives in town, and despite being a weird performative buzzkill with racist undertones, he has yet to commit any actual crimes. Bea puts together a karaoke night with friends to cheer up Tora, but ends up using a monkey’s paw from Zatanna to wish for their powers to be re-aligned correctly. The next morning, she wakes up still with the wrong powers, but this time in Ice’s body!
Bea and Tora’s Relationship Is Put to the Test Like Never Before in When Hell Freezes Over
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over Is a Character-Driven Drama With a Freaky Friday Twist
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is a fun read that capitalizes on the small-town feel of Smallville to create a character-driven comic that puts a real emphasis on its broad ensemble cast and their interactions. The core of the comic is, of course, the dynamic between Bea and Tora, diametric opposites both in personality and powerset, and best friends. Starer is experienced when it comes to drawing the most out of their relationship, insightfully characterizing their protective and caring partnership and bringing it to life as the centerpiece of the story.
This is entirely achieved through Starer’s dialogue, which is strong throughout Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1.
There is a strong sense of wit and comedy at work, which makes the entire comic feel more like a sitcom than a superhero drama. The effect is overall very refreshing, allowing Starer to explore the characters in a more relaxed and low-stakes context. The humor largely lands, leaning more towards Two Broke Girls than SNL, favoring a conversational, sarcastic style that is low on set-up and punchlines but feels more naturalistic as a result. Maher’s letters do a great deal to help Starer’s writing flow, using emboldening and italics to carve out rhythms in the speech that give the voices a sense of cadence and identity.
Although the writing is expressive, sometimes the illustration of Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 can feel quite stilted. Byrne has created a vibrant and readable comic that occasionally struggles under its own artistic aspirations. The coloring sometimes feels quite flat, giving an airbrushed feel that is reminiscent of techniques used in the 90s that haven’t aged very well. This is almost invariably in relation to Byrne’s figures, the coloring making them feel blocky and uncanny. Byrne draws a very compelling Bea, apparently finding her larger and more bombastic expressiveness easier to channel, whereas Tora occasionally feels a little more impenetrable in her more subtle personality.
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is also blessed with a strong supporting cast, all established from Welcome To Smallville. Starer builds some useful exposition into the plot and character interactions, so reading the previous miniseries is helpful but not strictly necessary to understanding the present run. Within the ensemble are the original characters Honey and Tamarind, who are a compelling couple with some funny one-liners. There are also some well-chosen familiar faces, like Martha Kent and L-Ron, who was once Maxwell Lord’s robot butler and appeared in the JLI and Formerly Known As The Justice League comics.
Is Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 a Slice-of-Life Superhero Comic?
Favoring Dialogue Over Action and Small-Town Antics Over World-Ending Drama, Fire and Ice Are at the Center of Their Own Slice-of-Life Comic.
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is an unusual superhero comic angling to tell its own kind of story, from a much more low-key perspective. This is emphasized by the lack of action in the story, usually the cornerstone of any superhero comic.
Fighting and conflict are often treated as the core of superhero stories, with the dialogue merely framing and adding context to whatever feats or battles take place. Starer and Byrne steer markedly away from this convention, making their comic feel unique in a really novel and interesting way. Although there is conflict in the story, it focuses around interpersonal and internal conflict that is far more relatable than Superman clashing with Lobo.
Despite being spatially remote from the main action of the Justice League out in Midwest America, Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 feels profoundly linked to the wider DC Universe.
The importing of characters from other titles (like Martha Kent and L-Ron) helps to preserve a feeling of continuity with other comics, which in turn creates a feeling of connection. The smattering of JLI references, like the inclusion of Kooey Kooey Kooey, once the site of a Blue Beetle/Booster Gold get-rich-quick-scheme, are really charming and act as a great link to the series that popularized these characters. Blue Beetle gets a small nod as Martha Kent’s benefactor, and the JLI (Just Luck Inside) Casino is a lovely little wink to long-time fans.
Starer uses Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 as a vehicle to write thoughtfully about the importance of superpowers, and how they can define the identity of the person who uses them. Tora’s meditation on the centrality of her ice powers to being Ice is well-considered and thought-provoking, offering an insightful angle into Tora’s character that readers might have never considered before. The Freaky Friday twist at the end of the comic opens up another avenue to think about identity and meaning, as well as plenty of comedy and drama.
The inclusion of Mo Mozek as the series’ first primary villain is also an interesting choice, which complements the lack of violence in Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1. Mozek is pompous and condescending, using politically correct buzzwords as a cudgel to perform the motions of progressive speech and opinions. Within these acts, he is invariably minimizing, belittling, or outrightly speaking over one of the minorities he is claiming to be in support of.
Mozek acts not only as a site of humor, but also feels like a deliberate attempt to levy criticism with some level of self-awareness. Before the comic can be smeared as “performative woke virtue-signaling”, Starer gives the reader a character who is actually doing that, and demonstrates what that kind of morally bankrupt pseudo-progressivism actually looks like. (Hint: it isn’t two WOC lesbians owning a hairdressing salon together.)
Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is a fun and original comic that takes a very different tack to most superhero stories, and comes out all the better for it. For every person who is frustrated by the unconventional approach and its lack of superhero hallmarks (secret identities, punch-ups, Big Bads, etc.), there is hopefully another who finds the Slice-Of-Life approach refreshing and experimental. Although overall not the most visually inspiring, a more robust sense of artistic stylization could have really elevated and complemented such a unique story. Nevertheless, as a first outing Fire and Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #1 is fun and fabulous, and tees up a series to come that promises more of the same.
DC Comics
Expand Collapse
