Fire & Ice--When Hell Freezes Over #1 // Review
There’s a fire just inside The Mane Event. Tora sneezed and now flames are coming out of the windows at the front of the salon. Bea can do something about it, but she’s not exactly springing to action. That’s because she’s not accustoemd to having the kind of power to put out fire. She’s still learning how to deal with her current situation in Fire & Ice--When Hell Freezes Over #1. Writer Joanne Starer opens up a whole new series for the duo with artist Stephen Byrne. It’s a fun mix-up that is once again set in a small town in Kansas.
Fire has Ice’s powers. Ice has Fire’s powers. Neither of them know quite exactly how to control themselves under the circumstances, but they’re both learning. And so long as they’re learning, they might as well lay low in a small town until they can get themselves together. And it’s a small town that they had been familiar with from the last time they had a mini-series, so it’s a cozy, little space and an opportunity to catch-up on life with some of the people that they had met there including the mother of Clark Kent, an exile from Gorilla City and more.
It’s always nice to get a chance to hang out in some end of the DC universe without some kind of crisis going on. For the most part, Starer is really just allowing the reader to engage in a little interpersonal drama in and around people with fantastic powers. And that’s a good portion of what makes superhero comics so much fun in the first place. All too often there isn’t that much of a chance to simply hang out with the characters in question. Starer does an excellent job of this in the first issue.
Byrne keeps the visuals very sharp and striking throughout the issue. There’s a strong sense of depth to everything in a Kansas the comes complete with clean lines and long stretches of relaxing color. Byrne’s master of simple emotion is crisp and vivid, which serves the overall mood of the issue quite well. The powers of Fire and Ice have a radiance that feels fairly well-executed as well. It might all seem a bit TOO clean without a whole lot of texture or detail, but that makes it all the more pleasant a place to hang out for twenty pages or so.
Starer knows where and when to place the stresses of conflict to keep it all from seeming totally nebulous without totally overwhelming the relaxed mood of the milieu. It’s a pleasantly social trip to a more relaxed corner of the DC Universe that feels quite pleasantly earthbound on a variety of different levels. Once again it’s nice to have an opportunity to hang out with a couple of characters who have known each other for a while who are good friends in a largely social setting complete with its own sense of drama.
