Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #3 // Review
Bea is in Tora’s body. Tora is in Bea’s body. So they’re wearing name tags for their consultation with a very special kind of doctor. He’s no mere specialist. How special is he? Ask the pillow on his couch. Seriously: there’s the soul of a man in thaat pillow and it will be only happy to tell you all about it. If anyone can help set things straight between Bea and Tora, it’s Jason Blood. Even with his help, setting things straight is going to be a bit of a challenge in Fire & Ice: When Hell Freezes Over #3. Writer Joanne Starer continues a supernatural body-swapping comedic drama with artist Stephen Byrne and colorist Tamra Bonvillain.
The whole problem started with a wish upon...a bracelet. Evidently the magic of that particular bracelet was powerful enough that ony some of the most powerful magic imaginable could de-spell it. Bea and Tora are going to have to go straight into hell to get an equally powerful artifact: the Ring of Nabu. Only that particular ring can get them to return to their bodies. The ring in question is in Hell. So they’re literally going to have to go to Hell in order to get it. Thankfully, Blood is there to guide him...and Blood’s got a rather interesting relationship of his own with a demon who might just be able to aid them.
The heart of Starer’s story is one that speaks to anyone who might feel as though they’re not exactly in the bodythat they’re supposed to be in. This sor tof story could easily have been some kind of silly, little comedy, but Starer does a brilliant job of expanding it to speak to a whole lot of people without being paifully obvious about it.It’s very sharp and clever writing with just a few shades of some particularly clever comedy as well.
Stephen Byrne has a very sharp eye for subtlety in emotion on the page. The impact of the action doesn’t quite hit the page the way that it would need to in order to really have the kind of impact it needs to have in order to deliver the intensity of a trip to hell to fight hordes of demons and such. This isn’t really a HUGE problem, though, as so much. of Starer’s script is focussed on interpersonal drama.
Previous issues in the series have played more like an indie sitcom this issue feels much more like a a indie drama that just happens to be partially set in Hell. There are some very compelling moments being rendered for the page that explore some very interesting cultural aspects of life n the modern world. A casual moment pointing out white privilege in a movie theatre slides. gracefully across the page without accumulating any of the forced preachiness that it might have been burdened by as written by some other author. It’s cool to see Starer writing to her strengths in another deeply enjoyable issue.
