Jonathan Dobres

Season 3, Episode 11. Air date: February 4, 1995

“Cold Comfort” was meant to run before “The Dark Phoenix Saga” but instead aired as one of the last episodes of season 3. Since its only connection to the season is the Shi’ar tech that keeps Bobby trapped at the X-Mansion for a bit, this episode could have aired any time after “The Phoenix Saga”. I keep asking myself what “Longshot” and “Cold Comfort” have in common narratively that requires that they be placed here. The answer, I think, is Jubilee’s ongoing driving lessons.

Bobby “Iceman” Drake goes all the way back to X-Men #1 in 1963, so it’s a little conspicuous that The Animated Series made it well into season 3 before ever mentioning him. To the episode’s credit, there’s a reason: he was on the team originally, but quit after an early mission nearly got his girlfriend, Lorna Dane (aka Polaris¹), killed. Now he’s resurfaced to invade the Kirby Glen military depot in search of Polaris, who vanished mysteriously after a few years of playing normie with Iceman.²

The writing isn’t exactly subtle, but it manages to sketch out the kind of dynamics that make X-Men a great franchise. As the team learns that Iceman is infiltrating the depot, Xavier points out that they’re not “against” him (he’s an X-Man and former protégé), but they’re not exactly “with” him either (he’s committing a crime). Cyclops bristles—a lot—at the special understanding that Xavier and Beast extend to Iceman, while Wolverine has a very, “This workplace drama predates me,” attitude toward the whole thing.

Jubilee’s de facto status as the team’s little kid, and how the X-Men incorrectly still think of Iceman that way, forms a decent arc for the episode (which Xavier will spell out in the end), though it gets a little lost amid the very fun action here. Jubilee identifies with Iceman’s desire to rebel against the adults in the room, and she also has a crush on him, as she does with all new male characters (no matter how prominent the mullet). So when Xavier briefly imprisons Iceman in the mansion’s living room—much to Beast’s surprise, who thought he was working on a healing device³—it’s Jubilee who will break him out and return to the Kirby Glen depot.

Cyclops, Beast, Wolverine, and Xavier follow suit, and quickly encounter the ’90s-era incarnation of X-Factor: Forge, Polaris, Havok, Quicksilver, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, and of course, Strong Guy. It’s a lot of characters to introduce, but the episode does a good job of it. Each of these new characters is memorable, much more so than anyone from Alpha Flight or the Starjammers. It helps that Forge has purposefully engineered a melee that matches one member of X-Factor against one member of the X-Men. Ultimately it’s Jubilee who breaks the pairings, cluing Xavier in to what’s going on⁴ and turning the tide. On a series with many brawls, this is one of the better ones, juggling a dozen characters and their varied powers over just a few minutes.

The X-Men prevail, and Forge explains that he wanted to test his new, government-backed X-Factor team against Xavier’s best (so where are Rogue and Storm?). Polaris explains that she wasn’t abducted, but faked her disappearance because she knew Iceman wouldn’t understand her desire to do something with her life. Honestly, I get her. If I had superpowers, I’d want to use them. If this has you thinking that maybe Iceman isn’t the guy for her, well don’t worry, she also makes plain that she and Havok are an item now.

In this episode, Iceman has infiltrated a military base (twice), returned to, been imprisoned in, and escaped from his old workplace, tangled with a new mutant team, and learned that his girlfriend was so bored with him that she faked extraordinary rendition and found a new man. Busy day for the guy, you know? In the great tradition of all guest characters, he’s grateful for the X-Men’s help, but not interested in sticking around.

Before we wrap this one up, let’s talk about the series’s continued character assassination of Cyclops. As usual, he’s a stick in the mud, but his jealousy and outright anger here is really unconscionable, and frankly, not who Cyclops is supposed to be. “Jubilee, how could you help this misfit escape?” he says at one point. Cyclops, mutant, vanguard of the fight for mutant-human peace, a guy who went off on his own to help some misfits three episodes ago, should absolutely know better. Also in this episode, Cyclops fights against Havok, and finds that they’re immune to each others’ powers. Havok is, of course, Alex Summers, Scott’s secret brother (Norm Spencer voices both of them). For those of you keeping score, Cyclops the Sad Orphan has now unwittingly met three generations of his immediate family—his father (Corsair), his brother (Havok), and his future son (Cable)—but remains in the dark about all of them.

Stray observations:

• Wolverine hits the snooze button with his claws, destroying his alarm clock. “This better be good. If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, I’m cranky all day.”

• An extremely obvious animation error: Cyclops blasts Iceman through a leftover frame of Wolverine.

• On the toilet: Rogue (would’ve been a match for Strong Guy), Storm (would’ve absolutely ruined Iceman), and Gambit (would’ve crashed a supersonic jet into someone, I’m sure).