I had mentioned a couple of days ago that complex topics such as women's equality made it harder for me to enjoy Firestorm when I was a little kid. Well, issue #3 is a prime example of the divide between the sexes being a major problem for the Nuclear Man. Here, Dr. Stein is called to a top secret research station in the Antarctic. There the physicist is reunited with a former student of his who had a major crush on him in college.
When her advances are rebuffed, mostly because she confused his kindness for a love interest, she gets angry, stalks off, and finds herself trapped inside a giant cooling tank. This facility causes her to turn into a literal ice princess. Now the aptly named Killer Frost goes on a rampage throughout the base seeking revenge on the male population of the facility, giving them all lethal smooches that turn the men into popsicles. With Dr. Stein's life on the line, Ronnie Raymond must drop everything he is doing- which at this moment is scoring on the basketball court and rush to fuse with the good doctor before it's too late.
This issue is typical of 1970s comic books. If a woman is a bad guy during this time period she was either a cat burglar, a militant feminist, or horny. She could also be any combination of the three.
A prime example of this archetype was Alicia Hardy AKA Black Cat from the Spider-Man comics. She was a cat burglar with the hots for Spidey, but she demanded to be considered his equal in every way. In this book, Killer Frost is first seen as a bookish old maid who can't seem to find a man that either values her as a person and not a sex object nor can she discover a man who matches her superior intellect. Darwin would say that she's trying to find a suitor with superior genetic material for her to mate with and produce even smarter progeny. Or something to that effect...
It's never quite explained why getting stuck in a giant freezer turns her into a 70s version of Elsa from Frozen instead of a dormant version of Olaf. But her reasons for turning bad against all men is blamed on past psychosis from being unloved in college. I'm usually not one to say this but the reasoning behind her villainy is a little chauvinistic.
This outdated way of thinking along with the method of having a woman made of ice love heat instead of being melted by it makes this my least favorite issue in the series thus far. The action of a game of hide-and-seek to the death between Firestorm and Frost was visually appealing but any momentum gained is lost by an ending to seems to have Stein grieving more for his failures as a virile male instead of the fact that every other guy at the research station is now a frozen stiff, uh well- stiff.
If you are more of a modern reader of comics, the sexism of both parties is a little hard to swallow. But remember, this was made in the late 70s during a time when progress was being made in comics to be more culturally sensitive. It's just that not every attempt hit the mark. Firestorm was great in presenting the angst of being a teenager in high school quite well but seems a lacking in the middle-aged love department.
Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.
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