X-Factor #55 pg 6 (Shoemaker art, Milgrom inks and David story) - Iceman on date with Opal and sees Batman

From the DESPERATELY SEEKING VERA storyline, comes a fun page featuring the Bobby Drake (aka Iceman) on a date with Opal Tanaka (who first appeared only a few issues, earlier X-Factor #51), his girlfriend at the time.

This page has a lot of fun playful interactions and hits some checklist points for me. First off, it’s an early X-Factor history page (1990) from the original run (1986) and features one of the founding members (1 of the 5 original X-Men that founded this new group). It also is a unique time on Bobby’s history since he is in this era very much a womanizer (like Warren and sometimes Hank). This new relationship with Opal is fresh and definitely becomes an on again and off again kind of history. I recall years down the line when Bobby is talking with Kitty years later about these relationships (when he starts to come out) and it’s fun to have a page from it.

Another fun selling point (besides all the fun banter from the very flirtatious Opal to the “closeted” Iceman, trying to get him to go upstairs with her, but he finds an “excuse” not to) is to have another big comic character from another franchise be referenced. In this 616 universe they make BATMAN movies, even though in the not so far future they will have some interaction with DC characters in the 1996 DC VERSUS MARVEL series (but that is likely a different universe). It’s a fun reality twist to have another franchise comic character movies referenced in actual comics, and for it to be phrased that “they’re filming Batman II in the neighborhood”. The first BATMAN movie came out just a year earlier in 1989 and BATMAN RETURNS wouldn’t be out til 1992, so it’s a very specific era of time to have been recognized and pretty cool that the first movie did well enough to get a call out to from a competitive comic franchise. I’ve been luck enough to have worked on a few movies with BATMAN and I know very personally how it is to work on those kinds of movies (I very much enjoyed my time in Detroit/Gotham), so another really fun piece to this page (even though in this story it isn’t Batman or Archangel, which is why Iceman ice-slides and rushes off to try and find his old teammate, but a kite flying in the night sky).