DC Comics fans...question re: Justice League circa 1990-1992

Cafe Society
1

I really enjoyed the Justice League books in that period - which was when I was 13 to 15 - my reading of it tapered off after that, as I briefly got more into Marvel than DC, until just before Zero Hour. Anyway, that’s tangential.

My favourite characters were Fire and Ice, who, I had always assumed, were lovers.

While looking for pics and information of them (particularly Ice) to show a friend (because of their appearance in the Amazo episode of JLU), I ran across references saying that, no, they’re not lovers, they’re just friends.

Now, since the pages felt the need to come right and say ‘no, they’re not lovers’, apparently it’s a fairly wide-spread belief.

I know I’m not thinking of the other Ice Maiden (I’m finding many references to her flirting with Fire) - the dates don’t match up, nor do any character details (aside from the flirting with Fire part, which I apparently made up in my own head).

So…that leaves a few options.

Possibility uno: I (and apparently many others) were reading something into it that wasn’t actually there. (Very possible. I was a) a hormonal teenaged boy and b) just beginning to admit my own bisexuality to myself at the time, so I admit to being fairly predisposed to seeing such things.)

Possibility two: The writers intended them to be lovers at the time, but that was later changed/ignored. (Not like it hasn’t happened before.)

Possibility trey: They didn’t intend to actually make them lovers, but were deliberately playing with the appearance of such. (Also not like it hasn’t happened before.)

Does anyone know what the writers actually intended?

2

Well, y’know, I wasn’t looking for it but my mind did not swing to the obvious lesbian possibilities the way yours did, Tengu.

Well, they did spend an awful lot of time around each other. They were roommates, partners, best friends. They had no romantic male interests outside of the comic foils of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Fire, in particular, frequently rebuffed advances from Booster and the only man in the League she seemed vaguely attracted to was Batman – on rare occassions. And I recall them parading around in skimpy negligees and other outfits that showed lots of skin – and Fire did put Ice in a skimpier outfit and encouraged her to be less inhibited. And Fire constantly ragged on her interest in Guy Gardner. Hmmmm.

Shit. Now you got me doing it…

3

I put Fire’s interest in encouraging Ice to be more openly sexual down to Fire’s belief in expressing sexuality rather than any lesbian interest from Fire to Ice.

But I would swear on a stack after Ice was killed someone’s mentioning her as having been a lesbian…

Ah. Bisexual apparently.

4

I never picked up on any sexual tension between Bea and Tora, but I was mighty sheltered. And, of course, distracted by Power Girl’s, uh, powers.

I will, however, mention that Bea has gone on to become an internet pr0n entrepreneur.

5

That’s Sigrid, the other Ice Maiden - the one who took over for Tora after she died.

That’s an interesting page, though some of the info’s out of date, and I’m not sure about their list of transsexual/transgendered characters (A number are characters who had their sexes switched by accidents of fate, which doesn’t really count, to my mind.). Still…pretty cool.

6

Ice and Icemaiden were separate characters. Bea was emotionally attached to Ice, who inexplicably loved Guy Gardner. When Ice died, Icemaiden (who was in the Global Guardians; Tora was a new character created specifically for JL) joined the team, picked up on Bea’s emotional state, and came on to her. When Bea balked, Icemaiden backed off and made like it was a joke or a plan to draw Bea out a little more. I don’t think Icemaiden has been seen since.

7

Oh.

Sorry.

I don’t think I was thinking about the Icemaiden character, though. I don’t think I ever saw her in a comic.

8

Slight hijack, but what a wonderful place to put my questions!

Long ago, I borrowed my brothers comics with Superman vs Doomsday. I liked Doomsday so much that I went ahead and bought a compilation issue. I knew who Superman was, but I admittedly don’t have much background on the JLA. Some questions, if I may:

Blue Beetle chases after Bloodwynd in the oil fire. He says something like “I understand, Bloodwynd must be a…” then Doomsday gets him. What did Blue Beetle discover?

When Doomsday punched Supergirl, she explodes, withers away and falls to the ground. She then looks like a skinny clay figure with her eyes falling out. What did Doomsday do to her?

Lex Luthor Jr. has a bunch of hair and seems to want to grudgingly help Superman. Has he turned away from the absolute bad guy ways of his dad? His dad would’ve loved Doomsday.

Whatever happened to this JLA after the fights with Doomsday? I don’t recall seeing those names like Guy Gardner and Booster Gold anywhere else.

How did “they” get Doomsday in that cell with those ropes around him? Oh yeah, who is “they”?

What was the “Cadman project”. There was some weird alien with horns and a blue guy with a motorcycle and shield. Were they a government agency? Did they create Doomsday?

9

That iteration of Supergirl (a.k.a. Matrix, a.k.a. “Mae”) was a construct of a Luthor offspring of an alternate universe. SHe had morphological powers. When she was severely stressed she would revert to the goopy state.

LL 2 was actually Luthor’s brain in a cloned body. Luthor’s disembodied brain was very insistent that the new body have lots and lots of hair.

The Cadmus Project. The horned fellow is called Dubbilex. He was a clone. The guy in the blue costume is called The Guardian. He originally appeared in DC comics in the 40s, along with his kid sidekicks, the Newsboy Legion. The adult NL work for Cadmus, which does quite a bit of cloning and genetic manipulation. They created clones of themselves, then later created a clone of the original Guardian in part to look after the NL clones. It’s been so long I don’t recall everything I knew about Cadmus, but they were IIRC generally considered Nefarious and Up To No Good. I believe they were involved in the creation of the new Superboy.

10

Bloodwynd–this version, anyway–was a Martian, specifically J’onn J’onzz in disguise. The real Bloodwynd turned up later.

At that point, Supergirl was a shape-shifer known as Matrix. Not sure what her story is now.

No, he was Luthor Sr. Luthor had himself cloned and his brain transplanted into the new, young body. The old one died from Kryptonite poisining.

Soon afterward, Gardner got his own series and Blue Beetle joined a JL spinoff called Extreme Justice.

11

Upon preview, I’ve been beaten to the punch on some of these; nonetheless…

I think he may have been on to the fact that Bloodwynd was really J’ohn J’onzz, The Matian Manhunter in disguise (at the time, JJMM had a a major weaness to fire)

This version of Supergirl was really a shapeshifting artificial lifeform (called Matrix) from another parallel Earth that had been destroyed in the CRISIS. Doomsy hit her hard enough to make her revert to her “true” appearance.

He’s just a cloned body into which Lex had his brain transplanted after he learned that he was dying of cancer brought on my long-term krytonite exposure. So it’s Lex, but he’s pretending to be his own son.

IIRC, it forced a major shift in roster for the League; Guy went off to become Warrior or whatever, and Booster left the league.

I dunno

That’s “Cadmus,” and the DNAlien you refer to is Dubbilx, the product of genetic experiments, who posesses psychic powers. Doomsday is the result of some very poorly explained natural selection experiments that took place on Prehistoric Krypton.

12

Not quite the case. Ice was created for JLI, but she was a Global Guardian, going by Ice Maiden (Tora replaced Sigrid on the Global Guardians, since she had, in Sigrid’s mind, more claim to the position) before joining the League.

They were. Originally, the human part of his DNA (as attempting to clone straight Kryptonian DNA gives you Bizarros) was originally believed to have come from the head of Cadmus. It’s since been revealed to be Luthor’s.

13

Isn’t that the same Ice Maiden who was on the JL Satellite when it was attacked by… whatever those white martians called themselves at the beginning of Morrison’s JLA along with Nuklon, Obsidian, and Metamorpho?

14

As far as I know, half of his DNA did come from the director of Cadmus - who was subsequently wiped from the timeline due to a little accident, leaving Superboy with uncertain parentage. Geoff Johns apparently decided to exploit that gap.

15

Fire did have a relationship with Oberon, Mister Miracle’s friend/manager who acted as Max Lord’s assistant and operations manager for the League. I don’t know what eventually happened between them though.

16

She was not from a pre-Crisis world. Her Earth was some sort of “pocket dimension” thing, possibly the one created by the Time Trapper but it’s been far too long for me to remember clearly.

17

It was the Time Trapper’s pocket, as I recall. You are correct, sir.